Transcript
Speaker: Hey friends, welcome back to Artists of the Way.
Speaker: I'm John.
Speaker: And I'm Nate.
Speaker: And we are the hosts of this podcast.
Speaker: Today, our guest is Josh Reisner, Josh Adam Reisner.
Speaker: Josh is the artist in residence at the Michigan State Capitol.
Speaker: Whoa, that's our state.
Speaker: That is our state.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So his work is in the state capitol, which is pretty cool.
Speaker: But he does a lot of work with oils.
Speaker: He has a degree in art history.
Speaker: So olive oil, coconut oil.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He mixes colors out of them.
Speaker: It's amazing.
Speaker: But it's very good though.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Very good.
Speaker: His art is beautiful.
Speaker: We'll have a link down below.
Speaker: You should definitely check it out.
Speaker: But this was just a really wonderful conversation.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we just talk a lot about sort of the raw realities of what does it look like to be an artist and pursue beauty and pursue something of excellence.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Struggling with like letting that consume you and just the pride that comes with that.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's a hard thing to figure out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So how do you navigate that?
Speaker: How do you stay rooted in God?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I said to Nate after the conversation finished, this is almost like a quintessential episode getting down to the themes of artists.
Speaker: Artists.
Speaker: Of the way.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So this is a really, really great conversation.
Speaker: Check out Josh and his art.
Speaker: Also check out below.
Speaker: We'll talk a little bit about this at the end, but our audio does swap.
Speaker: because of a glitch.
Speaker: So it gets a little tinny at the end.
Speaker: So just in case you miss any of it, check out his studio.
Speaker: I believe it's Rabbit Hill Studio.
Speaker: We'll have a link in the description.
Speaker: It's in Cannonsburg, so about a half an hour north of Grand Rapids.
Speaker: And he wants you to visit.
Speaker: He does.
Speaker: hosts spiritual retreats there.
Speaker: It's available for people to come by, learn about art, or just create their own art.
Speaker: He was like, I want musicians to come compose.
Speaker: I want you to come write.
Speaker: I know, me too.
Speaker: I'm like, I'm going to check this out.
Speaker: Are you going to come with us?
Speaker: You could.
Speaker: Or you could go by yourself, because scheduling is difficult.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Anyways, without further ado, here is Josh Adam-Reiser.
Speaker: Thank you for coming on.
Speaker: We've been talking about this for many, many months, and then I had my child.
Speaker: It got delayed.
Speaker: So I'm glad that we finally made it happen here.
Speaker: First, can you just share for the audience a little bit about yourself or anybody who does not know you?
Speaker: Just a little bit about who you are, how you got into arts, and maybe a little bit of sort of your life and Christian life alongside that.
Speaker: That's a lot.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: I want you guys to be able to talk too.
Speaker: Interject me.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Comments.
Speaker: Well, I'm married.
Speaker: My wife's name's Jill.
Speaker: I have one son, Linus.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Linus is on my wife's list of names, possibilities.
Speaker: Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker: Well, there had a lot of, as an artist, I felt like there was a lot of choices.
Speaker: And I had full naming rights, which is a really interesting thing.
Speaker: It's like a story.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: My wife and I made a deal where I got
Speaker: be in complete charge of the name.
Speaker: She got to carry the baby, you got to name it.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Even Steven.
Speaker: Right, it was great, yeah.
Speaker: But his full name is Linus Cerulean Gray.
Speaker: I want to know about all those.
Speaker: I kind of feel bad about this now but Cerulean is a color, it's a pigment and then gray is another color.
Speaker: I sort of imagined that Cerulean gray was like a hopeful melancholy which is what I identified with a lot for most of my life as
Speaker: I wasn't in despair, but I had some hope, but I was mostly melancholic.
Speaker: And for some reason I had the bright idea that I should name my kid that.
Speaker: Which now I look back and I'm like,
Speaker: I don't know if that was, you know, at the time before I had a kid, I guess I thought the best way to see the world was hopeful melancholy.
Speaker: Like it seemed like I was always in a position of like, how do I hold the tension between idealism and skepticism as an artist specifically?
Speaker: Like I didn't want to go into nostalgia.
Speaker: I didn't want to go into like depravity, you know, sort of trying to recognize both as like existing.
Speaker: So I saw that as like,
Speaker: the best way to see the world.
Speaker: And like, honestly, when I named Linus, I felt like I thought that would be the best way for him to interact with the world, you know?
Speaker: But, you know, as you know, once you have a kid, they get to decide what's the best way to interact with the world.
Speaker: Does he align with his name prophetically or not?
Speaker: I don't think he does, actually.
Speaker: I mean, I think Linus fits him really well.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: But he doesn't really identify, I don't think too much with his middle name, which is interesting.
Speaker: But he might.
Speaker: I don't with mine either.
Speaker: Earl.
Speaker: Earl?
Speaker: Yeah, who names their kid Earl?
Speaker: That's a pretty cool name.
Speaker: I think it's distinguished.
Speaker: I think of like an old...
Speaker: farmer, girl.
Speaker: But I like the distinguished.
Speaker: Girl of something or other.
Speaker: That is good.
Speaker: It does have like a flow to it.
Speaker: In names, I'm always like just trying to make sure there's like a flow.
Speaker: Yes, I think that's important.
Speaker: I couldn't say my R's as a kid, so it was a curse.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What does that sound like?
Speaker: I'm going to have a hard time too.
Speaker: I just like my last name, Reisner, because it's kind of nasally.
Speaker: And I already kind of speak nasally, which people in the podcast may realize that.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: But yeah, Reisner always sounds like it has a little bit of a nasal.
Speaker: it's not like beautiful.
Speaker: Like there's like a short.
Speaker: But things that like elevated like rise.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I only read your name before.
Speaker: I didn't know how it was pronounced.
Speaker: So I thought it was Rizner.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I was going to ask you if I could call you the Riz.
Speaker: The Riz.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I've heard that before.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I thought you probably had.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I don't, I don't care what you call me.
Speaker: My wife is, Jill's the only one that cares like what, how people pronounce my last name or what.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I don't care.
Speaker: I do go by, I always say like,
Speaker: I'm normally just Josh, but when I'm fancy, it's Joshua Adam.
Speaker: But that's been a way to distinguish myself as my name.
Speaker: So everything I do as an artist, I kind of try to go by Joshua Adam.
Speaker: And my web presence and everything is related to that.
Speaker: It sets me apart from the other Joshes out there in certain,
Speaker: Especially there's other Josh Reisner's.
Speaker: Oh, is there?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, nobody that's getting in the way too much.
Speaker: Most of the times we're doing bad things.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Most of the Josh is out there doing bad things.
Speaker: And I just try to disassociate.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So what was it that first got you into art?
Speaker: Has that just always been a thing or is there a moment you can point to where you were like, that was where I got pulled in?
Speaker: I don't think there was a moment.
Speaker: I think I was thinking about this on the way over here.
Speaker: So most people don't realize this or would ever imagine this, but I was actually an athlete throughout high school.
Speaker: I think some artists once were really good athletes, really good.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: It also was that way.
Speaker: Yeah, like I think I was hyper competitive.
Speaker: It's like I love the practice.
Speaker: I love the, like I played basketball.
Speaker: I love basketball.
Speaker: I should scooch over here.
Speaker: It was a beautiful sport.
Speaker: It's a beautiful sport.
Speaker: It's a beautiful sport.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So I love that.
Speaker: But I did always associate, I don't know if you're joking or not.
Speaker: No, he's not.
Speaker: Nate plays basketball and loves it.
Speaker: And he got to talk about basketball once on the podcast and was like, my gosh, I just got to talk about basketball on the podcast.
Speaker: This will never happen again.
Speaker: What do you like about it?
Speaker: Oh, well, I feel like it has all the best parts of sport.
Speaker: You have the discipline to it, but then there's also the artistry, which you can tell by watching
Speaker: players who just like bulldoze their way through or who have more elegance to them.
Speaker: You can play it by yourself or you can play it with a team and it just really meshes those things really well.
Speaker: It's physical but also really mental too.
Speaker: Like I played last night and I wasn't in my best mental space and it just made me feel awful.
Speaker: But it's like it's good to be in that conflict though.
Speaker: And so it pushes you and yeah, it's thrilling.
Speaker: I think it, you know, I was just thinking like there's part of me that feels like a sport like that can be spiritual.
Speaker: Like, I don't know if this is the great
Speaker: I don't know how clear this is all gonna be, but I do feel like when you step on a court, oftentimes you kind of know who the best player is.
Speaker: You know, if you are the best player, it's like everybody falls into a particular role and it's like a beautiful thing.
Speaker: It's like you can see into the souls of people and like there's an honesty about where everybody's at.
Speaker: And there's sometimes this conflict, oftentimes when the flow is broken down,
Speaker: it's because people aren't identifying that they're not listening to like their role yeah where they belong yeah yeah it's it's a really and i i love that i love that clarity um that can work either way i feel like you can think you're better than you are and be doing too much hot shot stuff and missing so much but then i think you can also like i sometimes get in like a
Speaker: unconfident space where I know I can do better, but I kind of put myself lower than maybe I should be doing more kind of thing.
Speaker: And sometimes that's other people.
Speaker: Like sometimes you need somebody like to see somebody like, like in my, if when I was playing, I would have loved to have
Speaker: like played with you and and and seen that lack of security yeah and try to like bring that out like you know like yes that would be part of that like sort of like experience but like hey you're struggling you you can do this like yes and then feed you a certain way or you know all yeah i just love the purity of that yeah it does really feel like a microcosm of life and like spiritual life specifically yeah yeah like like you're all a part
Speaker: of the body and as long as everybody kind of recognizes what their roles are, you know, we all get along and there's like a flow.
Speaker: But as soon as an arm wants to be, you know, a foot wants to be an arm or an arm wants to be a foot or whatever, things kind of get off, you know, like so.
Speaker: But I think in regular life is a lot more
Speaker: confusing than like stepping onto the court, you know, so I think that's beautiful.
Speaker: But back to like the art part, I always identified as somebody who could make anything, like at a very young age.
Speaker: Yeah, I just never had any insecurity at all when it came to like, can you make this?
Speaker: Can you draw this?
Speaker: Can you?
Speaker: I just didn't have that, you know, and I see that.
Speaker: I've taught
Speaker: people, um, you know, I've been in a setting where I teach and I see a lot of people who the one thing that sets them back is that they don't have that sense of confidence, you know, and I often think like, it doesn't feel like a talent to me.
Speaker: It doesn't feel like, I mean, the talent is probably whether you're secure or confident enough to do something.
Speaker: It's not like the talent is in your hand, you know,
Speaker: I mean, I don't know how true that is.
Speaker: I just feel like a lot of it is in the way you perceive who you are, what role you think you're playing, you know?
Speaker: And in my mind, I just always identified as somebody who was like different and made things and could make anything.
Speaker: I've built houses and buildings.
Speaker: I build frames now.
Speaker: I make things.
Speaker: I do plumbing, electrical work.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: you know, conserved, you know, 200 year old paintings.
Speaker: I make paintings, you know, like anything that I can make with my hands.
Speaker: I've always probably done that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I don't know if there was a clear moment.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just who you are.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I didn't like, I was not a kid who like sat around and sketched.
Speaker: I wish I love those type of kids.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I would have loved to have been that guy that had like a journal and just doodled and sketched.
Speaker: I just was like a very active person.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like I just didn't,
Speaker: I would have never been able to just sit and like doodle.
Speaker: Do you feel at all that you need like a purpose to create?
Speaker: Like I'm not just going to sit here and do it for myself.
Speaker: Somebody needs something and so I'm going to do it.
Speaker: Well, I think I've always – I do make best when I'm making it for myself.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: But it brings up a –
Speaker: an area of tension in my life as an artist which is like I'm always trying to enjoy the process and the product but the product is ultimately what I enjoy the most yeah so I love I've always well once I discovered painting in the world of painting which wasn't until I was 30 is that right yeah it was much later in my life I mean I had done a little bit but not
Speaker: Hardly any painting.
Speaker: I know art history background.
Speaker: I had no idea what.
Speaker: My idea of art growing up was Walt Disney.
Speaker: So I can't remember what I was saying.
Speaker: I got distracted there.
Speaker: About the process of enjoying the process with end product.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So like I do love the idea of making a product that is like a treasure.
Speaker: Because like when you make something that is like
Speaker: And I don't know how true this is anymore, but some of my paintings are like of a level that are like kind of hard.
Speaker: It's hard for me to even, this sounds weird saying in person, but often there are some of my paintings that I'm like, I don't know how I did that.
Speaker: Like they're good enough that other, you know, that they would stand on their own two feet in any setting.
Speaker: Like maybe not.
Speaker: But close, you know, I saw some of your work.
Speaker: It's beautiful.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Well, I love I think that's what I pursue.
Speaker: And I've always kind of wondered if, you know, do I even love doing this or do I just.
Speaker: like treasure you know like and those are two different things you know yeah and I don't even know that the pursuit of the treasure or like yeah the treasure yeah I don't the hunt for the treasure that sounds better I don't know if that's bad but but I do think it sort of breeds discontent yeah
Speaker: Well, I definitely feel that way.
Speaker: I do some writing as well, and I feel that way about writing in particular.
Speaker: Theater and acting, I love the process of that.
Speaker: Like, I can be in a rehearsal room all day, and I don't think I would get tired.
Speaker: But if I sat at a computer and wrote all day, I do think I would just kind of, I don't know that I would wilt away.
Speaker: But that idea of, like, there is something out there, though, that I think is...
Speaker: It's like I think of like carving, like Michelangelo carving David out of that block of marble.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Where it's like I can see that and I'm not necessarily, I'm maybe not enjoying just carving these chunks of marble away.
Speaker: But I feel like I've got to get at that really special thing that's in there.
Speaker: You have your eyes set on a goal.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you're hopeful that, you know, that the Pieta is what's going to come up.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, so I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know if that's bad, but I'm constantly, like I'm currently in a place where I'm trying to figure out what is the healthiest way to live.
Speaker: And I don't know if I have an answer.
Speaker: But I think it's both probably, you know, I think it's good to enjoy the process.
Speaker: And if you go too far, you can get out of balance.
Speaker: And it probably is a mix.
Speaker: I know it sounds clear.
Speaker: It's a cliche, but it's probably went into all this.
Speaker: I just feel like past couple years, that's just what I've been learning that everything is just like, it's neither over here, over here.
Speaker: It's the difficult in the middle thing is probably true there as well.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm probably gonna mess this up, but his name is Roger Scruton.
Speaker: And he said, I think I can bring this around and make sense of this, but he basically was saying why philosophers destroy themselves.
Speaker: and the people around them which I saw myself as an artist as basically a philosopher like an active philosophy yeah this is how I saw myself but the reason he said is because of that tension that a real philosopher will hold that tension that I talked about which I had said was hopeful melancholy and keeping the tension between idealism and skepticism yeah but what I always thought the
Speaker: best visual of that is like if you actually are keeping the tension that's a tough place to stay in because you're in a constant struggle right where like people that go into like idealism yeah or into like fully product you know just product oriented or fully processed you've kind of let go of the road yeah because you want to rest right it's tiring it's tiring to try to constantly like find that
Speaker: Is that too far that way?
Speaker: Or is it too far that way?
Speaker: Or like you're constantly where like if you end up over here in this realm, you're just like hanging out.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And that's why you're like a little bit more of a piece.
Speaker: That's how I see it.
Speaker: So I think it is hard to have balance because it really requires, I think, a mental like, like what is it like a consistent.
Speaker: constantly having to be aware.
Speaker: Yeah, like you're on all the time.
Speaker: Yeah, you're on all the time because like it's so easy to just slide off to one side of the hill or the other, right?
Speaker: Like you're constantly measuring where am I at?
Speaker: Am I in the middle?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: What's been helpful for you either as a person or as an artist then in finding or trying to stay in that balancing point?
Speaker: Well, I think I was really bad at it.
Speaker: I think I heard, I, you know, I don't know how much to get into this, but like, you know, I, I had like a bit of a breakdown a couple of years ago and it was primarily because like I had no balance.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like I had no balance at all.
Speaker: Like I was just constantly in pursuit of, I would say at the time it was legacy.
Speaker: So I wanted to like make a great painting and I thought, but
Speaker: greater than I could make it and the more higher profile of commission I could get, the better chance I was going to be able to leave a legacy.
Speaker: I feel like that's removed from me now.
Speaker: I don't know what the new thing is.
Speaker: I feel like I'm currently in, I do kind of know, but I think I'm
Speaker: you know, I was just so clearly defined by like legacy chasing.
Speaker: And then I feel like God just shut that door, which I had mentioned, uh, balance donkey, the story of, yes.
Speaker: And I feel like
Speaker: that story jake partridge mentioned that to me he stayed at my studio and he mentioned this story and man since he told me the story about this donkey that was actually getting beat but was trying to help you know the prophet you know trying to like stop him from getting killed um man i feel like i was beating donkeys for like most of
Speaker: beating donkeys and beating donkeys.
Speaker: And you know, like I never, I wish that, and the donkey finally like got up and like kicked me in my back.
Speaker: And then I couldn't sleep or do what I couldn't paint.
Speaker: I still struggle to like stand and paint for long periods of time.
Speaker: Like because of like,
Speaker: I don't know what it is.
Speaker: It's either, you know, I think some of it's mental, just from like years of putting tons of stress on myself, trying to accomplish whatever it is.
Speaker: I think in the art world, this is a bit off topic, I guess, a little bit like,
Speaker: I think I pursued painting because the goal was never ending.
Speaker: I was doing graphic design and coding and Flash and stuff.
Speaker: In my 20s, I was really into writing code, ActionScript was big, Flash, all this stuff.
Speaker: I was really interested in that.
Speaker: I transitioned away from that because I thought I can never keep up with
Speaker: never goes, it never ends.
Speaker: Like every week I was having to learn something new or whatever because it was like at the cutting edge.
Speaker: And I remember thinking that painting has been around for a long time.
Speaker: And that this was something I can like learn and never ending.
Speaker: Like what, I mean, it'd be the same path.
Speaker: It's not like I'm gonna have to jump to a different code or whatever.
Speaker: Right, you're doing oils, which has been,
Speaker: People have done oils for thousands of years.
Speaker: Yes, I'm trying to make a masterpiece.
Speaker: It's something lots of artists have been doing.
Speaker: It's something that seemed universal.
Speaker: It seemed like beyond technology, beyond our time.
Speaker: But in the end, I'm wondering about how much that ambiguous goal of making a masterpiece, making something beautiful.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: when do you ever get the stamp of approval with that?
Speaker: You know, like you don't.
Speaker: I mean, that's a very stressful place to be because like... It's fleeting too.
Speaker: Yeah, like every moment I would make a painting and most people, so many ideas here.
Speaker: Most people would be pretty happy with whatever I, you know, the people, my friends or family would see it and be like, ah.
Speaker: pretty awesome you know and I would yeah yeah I mean I would love it that day and I know you sure are artists and then wake up the next morning yeah right did I do that right horrible yeah
Speaker: But yeah, I feel like that, I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I sometimes wonder if maybe that's what makes a great artist is the tolerance of that misery.
Speaker: Like how tolerant can you be?
Speaker: How long can you tolerate the misery of never being satisfied?
Speaker: You know, like, because I think at some point I sort of wore out a little bit.
Speaker: I don't...
Speaker: i think that's part of what happened it's like i'm just so intolerant i was so no i was tolerant i had high pain tolerance for a while of like just being inadequate in my own head you know like like i was never going to be good enough for what i wanted to be it didn't matter how many like it didn't matter how many like
Speaker: accomplishments you know like even my wife's always joking like i have a giant monumental portrait of the governor in the state capitol which is a pretty cool pretty cool but to me it was like yeah like i could do way better like i want to be like in the mat or you know like i want to be something else and if i was to get in the bed i think i would have been like
Speaker: well, I want to be like, I want to move.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, like whatever.
Speaker: Or I would, I would like, you know, every time I made a larger amount of money with a commission, like I would, I'd be, well, let's see if I can get a hundred, whatever I get, like, yeah, more of this, more of that.
Speaker: It just never ends.
Speaker: So I don't know.
Speaker: I think, I don't know how artists deal with that.
Speaker: I don't know that every artist does that either.
Speaker: This Giving Tuesday, we're giving you a break from all the craziness of the last couple months of the year.
Speaker: Join us on December 2nd from 6.30 to 8.30 for a cozy Christmas kickoff with Artists of the Way.
Speaker: We're doing this at One Church in Caledonia, and it's going to be a wonderful event.
Speaker: It's going to be some delicious hot drinks.
Speaker: We're going to have some live jazz.
Speaker: We're going to have a bunch of resources for you to be able to enter into Advent with...
Speaker: a spirit rooted in Christ and in the reason for the season.
Speaker: Some great meditative prayers that you'll be able to take home and integrate into your own preparation for the season.
Speaker: And what I'm most excited about, just providing space for fellowship with each other as we enter into the celebration of the arrival of our Lord and Savior.
Speaker: It's going to be a beautiful night.
Speaker: It's going to be very homey, very cozy.
Speaker: Again,
Speaker: some wonderful music.
Speaker: I am just so excited and I want to see all of you there.
Speaker: So don't miss it.
Speaker: Go to our website or to our social media to find out more information and we will see you there.
Speaker: I think there's something, I mean, I resonate with it to a degree, I think, because every artist, it's a, you know, it's project based and there's always further you can get with another project, right?
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: You know, there's always a role as an actor where I'm like, there's always a role that could be better than the last one that I played.
Speaker: Or if I've played, I played Hamlet.
Speaker: That's pretty darn cool.
Speaker: But I probably could do better at playing Hamlet.
Speaker: Like I'm like, I could get even more truthful or I could actually cry, which I didn't when I did it.
Speaker: You know, like, I feel like as an artist, there's always one step better that you can get.
Speaker: I think that's an interesting tension then as an artist and as a Christian, because of course,
Speaker: If you're if you know, if you're raised in the church and you know, like Sunday school answers, you know, well, I know that the next art piece is not going to fulfill me like intellectually.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know that the next project is not going to fulfill you.
Speaker: But I think it's just really easy for artists to slip into into that and into being focused on what's that, which maybe it's just easy for people to get, you know, sucked into what's the next goal.
Speaker: Yeah, because I feel like that just sneaks up on me for sure, where it's like, yeah, I'm doing, I'm just sort of living life and trying to honor God.
Speaker: And then all of a sudden I'm like, oh, wait, no, I'm actually trying to do this thing because I want to be here for myself and my ego or my goals or desires or something.
Speaker: And I think that that's an easy pitfall for artists because we want to keep growing in our craft and we want to keep
Speaker: you know, making more new things.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't, yeah, I don't think I've figured it out.
Speaker: Like, I don't think it's, I would imagine that, I don't know.
Speaker: I mean, I think the pursuit of knowledge and the pursuit of beauty and trying to master something
Speaker: It seems admirable.
Speaker: I mean, it's not lazy.
Speaker: I was never lazy.
Speaker: And I wasn't, and I was self-aware to some degree.
Speaker: Like, I mean, you have to be in order to improve, right?
Speaker: You have to be like, oh, I sucked at that in order to be better at it the next time.
Speaker: So there were like good qualities about it.
Speaker: But I also don't, you know, but it also seems very pride oriented, you know, like, like there's a lot of ego involved.
Speaker: So I don't know what the balance is there, you know, like lately I've just been feeling like, well, just play the fool, you know, like just be the, be the fool, be a fool, you know, try to just do whatever you want to do.
Speaker: You know, I think that's the, you know, being at the Anglican church, um,
Speaker: kind of fits me and the way I'm at with like even my art because like you know with my education and just my general personality I'm always trying to solve things I'm always trying to figure things out trying to like know things trying to be the best like back to the basketball thing trying to you know be the you know everything was kind of competitive driven yeah
Speaker: But in my current state, you know, at 49 years old, like, I don't think that served me very well.
Speaker: And I never really, never really learned enough to make me happy.
Speaker: And I think being an Anglican now, like I said, I feel like the liturgy just washes over me a little.
Speaker: And I just play dumb.
Speaker: And I love it.
Speaker: I just play dumb.
Speaker: And I just like...
Speaker: let the experience like do what it's going to do to me.
Speaker: And I feel like there's an analogy there with what I should be doing with art a little bit, but I haven't quite
Speaker: figured that out because I also have old habits.
Speaker: Like I have these habits that have gotten me to where I am, you know, like they've been somewhat successful in terms of getting me what I thought I wanted or whatever.
Speaker: It's funny how I feel like a little bit of my life is in like two different areas, you know, or like my faith
Speaker: is stronger and i feel like um i feel like living my life outside of being an artist is fairly healthy and balanced but every time i try to play artist i feel like that kind of pulls me into a realm like i have to fight not to be like
Speaker: what I was, you know, prior to the time that I got hurt or whatever.
Speaker: So at that time too, like, I don't want me to make this podcast about that.
Speaker: I was at the kind of the peak of my career.
Speaker: I also had my son and stuff and then I got, and I got, I was hurt, not sure how, but I couldn't sleep and I couldn't make work.
Speaker: I couldn't stand and stuff, but I had a bit of, I had a con,
Speaker: So this is feeding into all of what I was talking about where like I had I just had this epiphany that like I had been pursuing like goodness, truth and beauty, but I had none of the fruits of the spirit.
Speaker: And it sort of hit me like overwhelm me with like, oh, I was like, I sort of realized that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know how that's possible.
Speaker: I honestly feel like I was pursuing good things.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't think I was like,
Speaker: out there, you know, just trying to promote depravity and like, you know, like, but, but yeah, but I also was not relational at all.
Speaker: Like I didn't care about people.
Speaker: Like they were just kind of things that we get in the way of my
Speaker: career.
Speaker: So that immediately shifted.
Speaker: That's kind of, I feel like that's when I became like a Jesus Christian.
Speaker: The best kind.
Speaker: Yeah, no, I was like the Christian, I was like an esoteric Christian before.
Speaker: I don't know what that means.
Speaker: Although I grew up a Christian, I feel like I was a fairly willed, strong-willed
Speaker: myself but in as i became was i got older and things happened i feel like i became i used to label myself as a mystic which i believed in god i wasn't so sure about jesus yeah like i wasn't so sure but i wouldn't have been blasphemous but i was willing to like say anything because i felt like god and i were good like i felt like well
Speaker: But anyway, after I got hurt, I experienced like suffering for an extended period of time.
Speaker: I became a Jesus Christian pretty quickly.
Speaker: It is so strange how easy it is to forget that Christianity is really about Jesus.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it is.
Speaker: But I also think like how it's weird because I used to think I was so intelligent and so self-aware and so, you know, philosophical.
Speaker: But like I didn't know the simplest thing, which was like suffering.
Speaker: Like I remember thinking like after I was hurt for a period of time and just felt completely broken, I remember looking at people and being like,
Speaker: That's suffering, I get it.
Speaker: If it was like I had, in order to be relational, in order to understand Jesus and like loving others and loving God, you know, like I had to experience suffering and I was like a suffering moron.
Speaker: I was like, I had no experience of suffering.
Speaker: Like, to be honest, I just had been this guy who had been like, suck it up.
Speaker: I mean, I was the guy on the basketball team that was gonna like,
Speaker: get all the rebounds and just like muscle it, you know, I muscle my way through, run harder, push harder, climb the hill.
Speaker: Like I just felt like I didn't understand that human life is not all just like winning.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, like, uh, although I had had some experiences of suffering, but none just like I felt it at the core of the spirit, you know?
Speaker: And like, that's when I, uh,
Speaker: I felt like Jesus became very clear to me at that point, you know, and it changed.
Speaker: It changed everything.
Speaker: It changed my art.
Speaker: Well, it changed.
Speaker: It hasn't completely changed everything.
Speaker: It changed me.
Speaker: And, you know, I don't, I still don't, it's fairly new.
Speaker: Like, it was like two years ago.
Speaker: And I don't really know exactly what it's going to do.
Speaker: like, like we had talked before, or like, I, you know, I spent like the last, Oh, maybe like the last, not, not, not in the last year, but maybe the previous six years, you know, I was busy with like pretty high profile commissions, like constantly and like had several and all, like I was occupying me all the time and I still had like the contract with the state.
Speaker: So, which I do consulting with them on all kinds of different things.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But all of that has shifted a little bit because I know the commissions aren't as coming in quite the same.
Speaker: It doesn't seem like I'm not entirely sure what the reason is for that.
Speaker: But like I tend to think that might be a donkey, like a donkey that I'm like, I'm trying not to beat.
Speaker: I'm trying to like, yeah, OK, what am I hearing here?
Speaker: I kind of feel like it could be that.
Speaker: I've had these ideas for many, for probably like five years.
Speaker: I started painting because, or I used icons to justify painting in the first place.
Speaker: That was like 20 years ago when I started painting.
Speaker: found my way immediately to icons.
Speaker: I've always felt like kind of drawn to that.
Speaker: I want to do like sacred art that benefits people in some way, you know, but, but I'm, but I'm also a coward in some sense.
Speaker: I think, you know, like I, I, I don't want to be a destitute artist.
Speaker: I think, you know, I've never, I've never been that artist.
Speaker: I've never been that artist who's like,
Speaker: can't you know that has to buy like the cheapest paint and like right i just always had enough success i guess or whatever was blessed enough that i just could do what i wanted to do and yeah so i i am a little bit weak i don't know what it's going to look like you know but i but i definitely feel like i want it to be something that's beneficial to people yeah you know like i don't want it to be about me although probably most of the people people that know me
Speaker: Because I tend to have a bigger, like, I don't know, I can't get rid of the ego.
Speaker: It's part of being an artist, I think.
Speaker: I think so.
Speaker: There's something, what is it, or it's attributed to Lewis, the classic humility is not thinking less of yourself, but just thinking of yourself less.
Speaker: Thinking about yourself less.
Speaker: And so, like, that idea of that ego can be
Speaker: anything that's just involving like putting us in the center of the thing and thinking about it and i just think especially in our modern uh landscape of art it is very self expressionistic like we're mining our own experiences we are mining other people's experiences as well but i think like the core is often our own experience um
Speaker: Not all the time.
Speaker: I think that there's times where, you know, God and his grace can work in us and really be the core of that.
Speaker: Or, you know, there can be times where it's like, oh, I really want to honor this person in this experience.
Speaker: But you're still coming at it from your lens and your perspective, and it's still your sensibilities.
Speaker: So there is something.
Speaker: just a little egocentric about art.
Speaker: I know, I get what you're saying, but I feel like, I feel like there's definitely a version, a pure version.
Speaker: Yes, there is.
Speaker: And that like, cause God created art and artists.
Speaker: And I feel like just like with people in general, like the more we surrender ourself to Christ and, um,
Speaker: maybe stop thinking too much like in our heads about how we're doing.
Speaker: I think of Chesterton's line that you said that angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
Speaker: And, but how it seems how God works is that when we give ourself to him, he gives us back our true selves then and we can really be the person that he made us to be, which is a unique us person.
Speaker: But then hopefully we're at a place where we're not doing it out of ego and not scared of being ourselves too, because, oh, I don't want to be egocentric.
Speaker: No, just don't worry about it.
Speaker: Just be you.
Speaker: And I think even in art, there can be the draw towards like, well, I want need to make this meaningful.
Speaker: And sometimes that is important.
Speaker: But I think like God made you in a unique person that he didn't make anybody else like and
Speaker: He's going to have his messages that can only come out of you in your unique way.
Speaker: It may or may not always seem sacred or meaningful, but that it will be because he's speaking through you in a way that can only come out of you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I was just thinking, have you guys had like an experience where like,
Speaker: like an audience or even like, you know, graphic design, let's say somebody likes something that you did that you know is bad.
Speaker: But so like they have joy.
Speaker: your pretension, like makes you think that they're obviously not endowed with enough ability to judge this in order to see.
Speaker: Which I think, like, I don't know what to do with that a little bit because I feel like that is a sure sign that you're, right?
Speaker: It's, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker: I was just thinking like that's hard.
Speaker: And I do feel like our current situation kind of trains us to be pretentious too.
Speaker: Like for me, with an MFA, not, you know, whatever that means.
Speaker: Master of Fine Arts.
Speaker: I've been thinking a lot lately like how that trains, it really trains you to alienate yourself.
Speaker: It trains you to like,
Speaker: treat, it's like I keep thinking of the emperor's clothes, it's the same thing.
Speaker: It's like treating, it's teaching you how to try to convince people that if you want to be on my team, you got to agree with these terms, which is like, you can't find joy in Thomas Kinkade, or whatever, like you can't find joy in a,
Speaker: in a in a waterfall yeah like because if you do you're on the other side and like you obviously aren't intelligent enough to know what real beauty is right so like but i do feel like that is what and i never saw that being that way for me like i never thought because i was actually a traditional artist right in a post-modern academic setting which i felt like i was constantly fighting for whatever was i thought was
Speaker: But in the end, the thing that I shared with them is like pretension and like arrogance and elitism, you know?
Speaker: It's kind of an interesting thing how like that is a part of our training now or something, you know?
Speaker: It seems like, or maybe what I thought of an artist too, you know?
Speaker: Like what I think of like a musician or an artist or like a writer is like, maybe I elevate them so much that I kind of like the pretenses and like, yeah, these are more special people.
Speaker: Because I do kind of see it that way, you know, like a philosopher or like a great artist, a great writer, a great actor, you know, like something God-like in it, you know, that it's like just like, ah.
Speaker: It is annoying because we believe as artists that there is beauty out there and that there's some that's better than others and stuff.
Speaker: And we see that we feel like we get that from God.
Speaker: But then God is also not above using anything pretty much to bless people.
Speaker: Like the crappy art that we make or that other people's make.
Speaker: No, I'm going to bless people through that.
Speaker: But God, you know that this isn't the great thing here.
Speaker: It's like, I don't care.
Speaker: But I still want you to do your best, even though I'm choosing to bless people through this lesser art.
Speaker: And it's probably, again, that surrender thing.
Speaker: Like...
Speaker: Okay, guys, you do what you will with what I make, what other people make, and they can react how they want.
Speaker: May you bless them and help me to do my best for you.
Speaker: I've been thinking as long as you're looking out, if you're actually...
Speaker: if you're most concerned with the audience, then you'll probably recognize the joy that's given them apart from however good you are.
Speaker: It doesn't mean you don't try to achieve something great, I guess, but as soon as you start focusing specifically on what you think is great as opposed to the joy that you're giving somebody, then maybe that's where it goes wrong.
Speaker: I've been thinking about that
Speaker: I lately, like with every experience, like what happens in a marriage if you just like are not primarily concerned with your spouse?
Speaker: What happens in your friendships if you make yourself first?
Speaker: What happens in like church even?
Speaker: You know, I keep thinking about like what happens in any situation when like you're not actually focusing on the other person more than yourself.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: But art, it's like one of those realms where it really is like, I keep saying it's like an alcoholic going into a bar.
Speaker: Art is like you're trying to be selfless, but you're really a selfish jerk who's going into a bar and hoping to not, you're not gonna go make a painting and put the spotlight on yourself and try not to be selfish.
Speaker: Or try to not be self-centered.
Speaker: Did you know that Artists of the Way is more than just a podcast?
Speaker: What?
Speaker: I know, crazy.
Speaker: We do live theater.
Speaker: We have a conference, a Cultivate conference.
Speaker: Just happened and it was really great.
Speaker: It's a growing organization.
Speaker: We're so excited about what is happening for Artists of the Way.
Speaker: And we need your support to be able to do it.
Speaker: We want to cultivate great, challenging, joyful, redemptive art.
Speaker: And we want to equip...
Speaker: the artists here in Michigan who are doing those things and all of you listening to the podcast.
Speaker: All of that takes money, unfortunately.
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Speaker: But if you earned, Earth was like, you got to have some money.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But if you want to support Artists of the Way in everything that we do, go to our website and donate.
Speaker: www.artistoftheway.com slash support us.
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Speaker: Just go to the homepage.
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Speaker: Be a normal person.
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Speaker: And click on the support us button.
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Speaker: Yes, buy a third mic for when we have a guest.
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Speaker: And we hope you guys enjoy the rest of the episode.
Speaker: I think that's one of the interesting, I love seeing all the ways the different artistic disciplines bring little pieces to this conversation.
Speaker: So on theater, I think that's an interesting sort of virtue in how you're trained in theater, if you're trained well.
Speaker: you have to be aware of the audience, at least to the point of you shouldn't talk when they laugh because an audience will laugh and they will laugh probably when you don't expect it.
Speaker: And you've got to wait for them to be done before you say the next line or they're going to stop laughing because they can't hear what you're saying.
Speaker: That's interesting.
Speaker: You interrupted their joy.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it's weird because sometimes they laugh and you're like, what the actual laugh?
Speaker: Like, I played Hamlet, and every night when I killed Polonius, the audience laughed.
Speaker: The weirdest thing.
Speaker: They laughed every night.
Speaker: I don't know if it was shocking and sudden, or if something about how we did it was comical, I don't know, but they laughed every night.
Speaker: Did it make you angry?
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: Which is the...
Speaker: talking about like the balance thing, right?
Speaker: There's the pitfall on one end is just judging the audience.
Speaker: There was one night where me and the lady playing the queen, who was the other, you know, the other person in that scene, they laughed for so long that her and I just locked eyes and we were just subconsciously could tell we're so angry and we're about to just be like so much angrier in this scene than we've ever been before.
Speaker: And it's already a pretty rough scene.
Speaker: That's why.
Speaker: And we did see each other.
Speaker: But,
Speaker: You have to, there's this theater, artists and audience have a symbiotic relationship anyways, but theater puts you in a room together where you have to figure out how do I play off of that.
Speaker: Every audience receives a show differently and has a different experience.
Speaker: And it's just, it's such a bizarre thing.
Speaker: One of, oh gosh, who's the actor?
Speaker: I think it's Christoph Waltz.
Speaker: There's an interview with Christoph Waltz, German actor.
Speaker: Done a lot of movies that people don't know.
Speaker: He's great.
Speaker: He's talking about as an actor, inevitably what will happen is
Speaker: The night that you feel like you were the most in character and you did the best and just all the emotions of the character were spot on and you achieved everything that you wanted to.
Speaker: You'll go out to, you know, you'll leave, you'll see the audience and you'll think, oh, tonight is going to be like, we're just lavished with praise and nobody will say anything.
Speaker: We'll just shake your hand and say good job and nobody will say anything.
Speaker: And then the performance where you just feel like you mucked everything up and somehow you didn't hit the emotions or the arc of the character, right?
Speaker: Inevitably, somebody is going to come up to you and that's going to be the show where they've been the most moved and the most impacted by your performance.
Speaker: How dare you?
Speaker: I have had that.
Speaker: When I played, when I was in Hunchback, there was a show where I was like, man, I really screwed up this character arc this time.
Speaker: It was not soft or loving enough.
Speaker: It was just,
Speaker: It was just awful.
Speaker: And one of my friends came up and was just like, that was just amazing and so moving.
Speaker: And I was like, this one, really?
Speaker: It was so cool.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: You should have seen me in the other side.
Speaker: You would have been really impacted.
Speaker: Yeah, there's something, I don't know, humbling about that as a theater artist that I think you can go a route of being really judgy towards the audience and, well, why are they reacting that way?
Speaker: And they just don't have taste.
Speaker: But I think if you...
Speaker: there's a certain grace that I think has to be learned, especially as an actor, because you are, you're giving this to the audience.
Speaker: You have to learn to treat their, what's the word, preferences, I guess, or tastes and what they find joy in almost as more important than your own.
Speaker: And that's another interesting thing with theater is so much can be subtextual in a story.
Speaker: Like with Hamlet, I have a whole arc that I have in my brain that I think is like for like nine tenths of it pretty accurate, I think, system things that Shakespeare was doing.
Speaker: And I'm like, I think this is what I want to draw out.
Speaker: And maybe a quarter of the audience probably really understood that.
Speaker: Probably less than a quarter really understood what that arc was that was in my brain that I was trying to play.
Speaker: But hopefully God did something else through that.
Speaker: But it is very humbling to be like, I just, I can't get these ideas across to you that I want to.
Speaker: because I have a script and you're going to interpret that script in your own way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I kind of remember there being a moment.
Speaker: So I think it's interesting in painting, like I don't have that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Audience experience.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And oftentimes, like, I feel like I never even needed an audience.
Speaker: I never was looking for an audience.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: It was like I was the only audience.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sorry, I was just thinking, I just lost my train of thought.
Speaker: You're good?
Speaker: I just go off of these.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't remember what it was.
Speaker: No, you're good.
Speaker: You're most concerned about, is this fulfilling what I want it to make here as I'm painting it?
Speaker: Yeah, I guess I was just saying that like, like I feel like we're kind of, like I said before with like a painter, I was never really concerned with like what the audience was thinking.
Speaker: I'm not even sure that I ever thought there was going to be an audience.
Speaker: Oh, I was going to say that like, I remember there being a specific moment in my life where like, I like to put random numbers on things, but I feel like when I got into like the, like 10%,
Speaker: of quality, like where like I was up in the higher ends of things.
Speaker: I felt like I realized that like there was nobody around me that was willing to criticize me.
Speaker: I don't know if that, so I didn't have an audience for one, because I was kind of taught in this pretentious, I don't know if taught, I think I actually shouldn't say taught, I shouldn't give anybody else credit.
Speaker: I was pretentious myself.
Speaker: And I didn't really care what the audience thought.
Speaker: But I do remember thinking like there was a moment where like even the people that I would have been maybe concerned with, like the people that were other artists or like a lot of them that were around me, like they didn't like they weren't at the same level in terms of technique or like skill level in certain things, you know, or or maybe even at least at the time, maybe in like
Speaker: the way I thought as an artist was maybe like too much, but I remember feeling like that's probably when things started going downhill for me a little bit.
Speaker: I keep wondering about how like pursuing something like knowledge, like anything, mastering anything is an alienating experience.
Speaker: It's like you were saying, like, you know, I wouldn't understand, I wouldn't be able to read Hamlet and be like,
Speaker: oh yeah, I'm gonna do this, pick this stuff out.
Speaker: I wouldn't have any idea.
Speaker: But it's interesting that you can, and that does not allow you to connect to as many people as if you just played Mickey Mouse.
Speaker: Mickey Mouse is gonna let you connect to kids and adults and way, way more people.
Speaker: So I don't know, I think it's interesting that pursuit of
Speaker: beauty or like greatness or like all of these arts often are alienating, especially the further up you get.
Speaker: Like, I think you just, and I can, you know, it makes more sense and I'm not even close to these people.
Speaker: I'm just saying like, you can see like how,
Speaker: you know musicians great actors musicians i mean they ruin their lives like yeah but it's a lot of it is just because like i'm sure they just feel alone like you get to be like really good at something and then nobody else has anything to say because they don't even really understand it they only needed like 10 of what you're doing you know like they were happy i remember right
Speaker: Yeah, most people were, most of my friends and family, which really the only ones that probably care anyway, were happy with me at like 30% of the skill I was trying to pursue, you know, like, I still don't know what to do with that, you know, maybe God's going to redeem all of that, but it, but, uh.
Speaker: I do think sometimes that opens doors now, like if I'm not near as egotistical as I was, you know, like, but I know what it's like to pursue something at a high level.
Speaker: I've had people say that to me actually, like I had a friend say like, he actually trusted me because
Speaker: because he had seen that I was willing to go as far as anybody he had ever met in terms of pushing themselves to try to be good at something.
Speaker: And he admired that and he sort of trusted me in other areas
Speaker: maybe that's a benefit, you know, like, you know, I've been the war like with yourself and maybe that can help in the end, you know, but I don't know.
Speaker: I really do not want to alienate myself anymore.
Speaker: I think that's what's really interesting as an artist.
Speaker: Like I don't, I want to just, but I want to make beautiful things.
Speaker: I want to make things that are like meaningful and lasting, you know, but I also don't, like I said, I don't, I wondered like with the thing I gave you them when your son got baptized, um,
Speaker: I was looking at those, I've done that for a few months, or you know, like for about six months, you know, the different people have gotten baptized.
Speaker: But it's kind of, it comes from a very pure place.
Speaker: And I realized that they're kind of weird.
Speaker: So, I mean, in some sense, there's still something interesting there.
Speaker: And I wasn't trying at all to be interesting, you know, but like as an artist, sometimes you do try to be like, you want to be like unique because you're competing.
Speaker: or whatever, but I was thinking about like, there was complete purity in those, but yet they still are a little weird and I'm not sure people know what they're, I'm not sure there's like any connection, you know, like.
Speaker: Right, but that shows it had like uniqueness personality without you even having to try.
Speaker: So yeah, I'm not sure.
Speaker: Like, that's something that's kind of new to me.
Speaker: Because like those, I started doing those.
Speaker: I did one for myself a year.
Speaker: I think I might have mentioned I had one on my easel.
Speaker: And I saw these things as like kind of like crafts.
Speaker: I mean, it's not like painting a portrait.
Speaker: Like it's not the same thing for me.
Speaker: Like I could make things like this like...
Speaker: you know, it takes effort, but I like I can make several of them and I just kind of creatively come up with shapes and stuff, you know.
Speaker: But I think years ago I would have just dismissed that.
Speaker: Like I would have had to be more tortured or more like in an existential moment, you know, for it to be unique and stuff.
Speaker: But, you know, I'm just like happy to be a part of your son's baptism, you know, like I can't wait to like be able to give this and be a part of this.
Speaker: And then in the end,
Speaker: I look back at it and I'm like, well, it's still pretty weird and cool for me.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: No, my brain is splitting off like three different directions.
Speaker: There's so much great stuff there.
Speaker: I'm going to rally my thoughts and try and say them concisely.
Speaker: No, I really, one of, Hamlet is not what I think people most remember me for who've seen me in shows.
Speaker: That is, that's,
Speaker: I'm probably the one who remembers Hamlet the most, I think.
Speaker: And if anybody remembers Hamlet, it's probably because of how frequently I've mentioned it on the podcast.
Speaker: But like the audience at Master Arts, which is where I've done the most shows as an actor, they mostly probably just recognize me as like, oh, I've seen you in some things.
Speaker: That's probably the most common thing that I get.
Speaker: And then the one that I've been the most recognized for is the last one I did that was a Christmas musical that was about a fourth magi that doesn't find Jesus.
Speaker: And the script is just kind of a little thin and it's not as deep as Hamlet.
Speaker: The music's nice, but it was just, it was kind of like, it felt to me like one of those like Advent storybooks that you would find just kind of on stage.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So not my most challenging work.
Speaker: Felt very much just like, oh, I'm just kind of doing this to do a show because I want to do another show and it'd be nice to sing.
Speaker: And at this point, and maybe it's because it's the most recent one, but that seems to be
Speaker: be what people are like, oh yeah, I remember you had a beard and you were the Magi guy.
Speaker: I was like, oh yeah, yeah, I was in that one too.
Speaker: But I remember, I have not forgot you reading scripture at Advent.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: I don't know, it was like maybe two years ago or maybe not even that long ago, but like, yeah, like, so it's like, you probably were just like, I'm just reading, but it was like significantly different than anything I had experienced like that.
Speaker: So it was amazing.
Speaker: I still don't forget it.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: But it wasn't Hamlet.
Speaker: It's the Bible though.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But what I think is beautiful about that, about the icon that you made and our unique,
Speaker: parts of ourselves still being able to come out is
Speaker: that's just kind of play like like we're just kind of playing around and that makes me think of what you're talking about with the liturgy too of like i just kind of receive it and let it just wash over me and have some effect and just see what it's going to do i think that is and that's something i'm i've been in kind of an artistic lull and looking at trying to get back into things and and what do i what do i need is on my artistic side or something and i think just i think
Speaker: one of those most important things to sort of anchor us is just that idea of coming to God as a child, like with our picture that we drew to put up on the fridge.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker: But that still can be so great and so beautiful.
Speaker: And I think that you probably can play and be just as childlike, you know, doing a portrait that could go in the Met
Speaker: and doing the icon and playing Hamlet and playing fan fiction magi from the Bible, I think it's harder because when you get to a certain level, you're like, okay, now it's time to really bear down and make this happen.
Speaker: But I think if we can find that seed, which I'm not good at finding, I'm very self-serious, but if we can find that seed of...
Speaker: of just childlike joy and play.
Speaker: There's a short story that Tolkien wrote that I talked about on the podcast a little bit that I shared with Nate called Leaf by Nagle.
Speaker: And there's like this pivotal moment where this artist has gotten to heaven and sees a work he was never able to complete on earth and it's complete.
Speaker: and like alive and he's just like oh it's a gift that's his response and i just love that the idea of that posture for us as artists to just be like oh it's a gift and i just get to enjoy that gift and it's really hard to stay in that pocket to stay in that balance point i was uh maybe go back but i do have something
Speaker: Remind me, like I used to have this thought that like I needed to become less aware and I didn't know if like once you become aware that you could become unaware.
Speaker: Like so the idea of play, like, which I think I'm experiencing a little bit like becoming
Speaker: but um today and again i don't mean to be too personal in this but like i was in the studio and i have a big beautiful studio it's an amazing setting i don't get to paint that much i do you know i've been like kind of piddling on things and today i started a painting that i i've been having some ideas and i finally started painting and uh
Speaker: i was fine but i was in the flow i was dancing and like you know i got this jazz i'm really in the jazz right now the jazz is in the background yeah i'm just like loving it and it just overwhelmed me i just started weeping like which i was not in an emotional state yeah but i think there was part of me that just had recognized like the child that's what you're making me think of like i i just felt that moment of like oh
Speaker: And I had this thought, like, I guess this is enough too.
Speaker: Like, if this is the last time I get this, like it's enough.
Speaker: And I think that's probably a good place to be.
Speaker: I hope I can hold onto that.
Speaker: But you know, for years, for now, like going on like two years, I haven't been able to be as productive as I used to be.
Speaker: Not, you know, what my identity, I'm not sure like who I am now, if I'm not making a painting every week or if I'm not like getting,
Speaker: big commissions or whatever.
Speaker: And so I think I really wrestled with like the loss of that.
Speaker: But then, yeah, it was interesting today to like sort of have this moment of play and then also be like, well,
Speaker: I'll take it and like, and I don't have to do it again, which seems like a healthy place to be.
Speaker: But like I said, I also know that if I get into making a bunch of paintings, I'm probably going to get right back in and like, gotta make more.
Speaker: This is so awesome, you know, you know, but I don't know.
Speaker: I hope I can stay.
Speaker: And that, I hope I can be aware of like that play and not be so in that weird meta position where you're like watching yourself all the time and judging yourself and like just like, and just enjoying whatever.
Speaker: And if it sucks, it sucks, you know?
Speaker: And if nobody else, who cares?
Speaker: Like it really doesn't make a difference at this point.
Speaker: And it helps having a kid.
Speaker: It was hard, but like,
Speaker: It has eventually, it's got to me where I'm just like, well, in the end, he's the project.
Speaker: He's the art and I don't need to worry about this stuff as much as I did.
Speaker: But I was later when I had a kid too.
Speaker: I was 40.
Speaker: A lot of people do that, but I was 40.
Speaker: I do think that made it a little harder because like, you know, I was full on expecting to just be an artist the rest of my life.
Speaker: Just like be selfish and self-centered and do my own thing.
Speaker: And then minus came around and it was like a pretty big shock to the system.
Speaker: But yeah, in the end, I think it's like saved me a little too.
Speaker: From my own destructive patterns.
Speaker: Some of what we were talking about of like the
Speaker: idea of like play and such made me think of a story my wife told me recently.
Speaker: She works at a dance studio and she saw this experience where there's this kid who was dancing and was very self-serious about his role.
Speaker: He's an intellectual, wants to do it right.
Speaker: And he had to be told by his acting instructor, okay, you've done all the work.
Speaker: you've done all the work already in your prep leading up to this.
Speaker: Now you can just go.
Speaker: So just that releasing, trusting that you've done what you need to, to be the dancer now to actually be good at it.
Speaker: You have to let go and just, just do.
Speaker: That's what makes it feel like that.
Speaker: Well, it like also like pushes you to believe that God is in charge, you know, like it makes you realize like, and to be all right with that.
Speaker: Like if I don't, if I don't make anything great, whatever,
Speaker: And I just like, then like, that's what God wanted for me.
Speaker: And I need to be all right with that.
Speaker: You know, like I need to be all right.
Speaker: So I think that allows you to play, right?
Speaker: Like if you can come to terms with like, whatever happens, this is what God wants for me.
Speaker: And I can let it be whatever it is.
Speaker: You know, I don't know.
Speaker: I think it does.
Speaker: I'm just thinking of sitting in front of a painting and trying to make something and just being like, well,
Speaker: I guess this is as much talent as I have, you know, like whatever.
Speaker: I just did the best I could and like whatever comes of it.
Speaker: It does feel like that's where, you know, you can meet God and what he wants for you and just be all right with it, you know.
Speaker: But for years, I just did not accept that.
Speaker: I just assumed like, like I was mentioning before, I just assumed God was like this sort of,
Speaker: I was doing, you know, to be honest, like I never thought it was like personal.
Speaker: So it just felt like I was, I don't know, I felt like, yeah, I don't know, I felt like I was my own standard.
Speaker: I mean, I was like my own standard and I was going to like, and I was going to be the judge at every moment.
Speaker: And
Speaker: Like we had said, so yeah, it does feel a little bit like if you can just trust that God will take care of things.
Speaker: And then also, is there a way that we can bring God into it with us?
Speaker: And I don't mean that necessarily like, okay, we have to make it be super religious or something in what we make, but like, God, I want to do this with you.
Speaker: Will you be with me in this process and have, I want to have the joy of you
Speaker: in this because that's really what other purpose is there than us having the joy of the Lord experience his joy with him and knowing that the joy comes from him.
Speaker: Where else is purpose?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think, I don't know, I mentioned this too.
Speaker: I think relationship, I've been saying like relationship is like the,
Speaker: now like i don't know if i should say no but i i have this experience where i feel like i i understand and i'm happy to be a part of the family and i and i i came about it through like suffering yeah in my own like mortality you know um but i've been saying that like i see jesus through other people like i don't necessarily see jesus like
Speaker: I don't think Jesus is like telling me what the pain is, you know, if that makes sense.
Speaker: But I definitely feel like there's all kinds of people that pop up in my life and I'm like, well, this person needs something or this person needs something or whatever.
Speaker: And I'm wondering how that plays out with like art too.
Speaker: You know, I've been thinking about maybe teaching or like, you know, like those little,
Speaker: Holy Spirit things, you know, like, um, as much as you gave this person clothing or bread, you gave it to me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, I kind of feel like that's like my path in.
Speaker: I'm not entirely sure what that looks like in the future, but I'm hopeful that because I don't think I know what it means to like sit down and make work.
Speaker: There's been a few moments where I pray, but it's never like, hey, help me to make a masterpiece or show me what to paint.
Speaker: I've thought about the idea of just letting it, like, hey, give me an idea here or something, but I've never done that.
Speaker: I'll tell you, I've done that a lot.
Speaker: And it works every time.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Every time.
Speaker: I don't, as I talked about, like bringing God into it, I feel like I'm not usually thinking about being with God in the midst of the making of it.
Speaker: But if I am stuck of like, okay, I have this project
Speaker: how should it, what should it look like?
Speaker: And I'm stuck and I like, oh, I should do what works every time, though I don't do it every time.
Speaker: And I'll just pray like, God help show me what I should do and stuff.
Speaker: And it's like almost instantly or within a minute or so.
Speaker: I get an idea and then it's just go.
Speaker: And it's really nice.
Speaker: It's like, it just feels like very communicative, like a consistent miracle.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That is interesting.
Speaker: It kind of makes me think too, like something I still think I don't understand is like God's love for me.
Speaker: Which I feel like, like, I think if you pray though and you expect something back, it's because you at least have some imagination that he cares more.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I still struggle with that.
Speaker: I don't know if struggle is the right word.
Speaker: It's just not, it's not.
Speaker: It's hard to find.
Speaker: It's hard for me to believe.
Speaker: I think, I don't know, it feels like it's part of my nature if you think about like a competitive person who like is his own worst enemy, kind of hyper self-critical.
Speaker: I don't know that, I mean,
Speaker: then you put that on God.
Speaker: I kind of feel like that's what I put on God and I don't even blame him for that.
Speaker: You know, I kind of rejoice.
Speaker: I'm kind of like, yeah, well, I'm going to try better.
Speaker: If anybody's going to do it, I'm going to figure it out.
Speaker: That's kind of how I see the world.
Speaker: I don't think it's right.
Speaker: I just think like some of these things, that's part of why I just let the liturgy wash over me because like there's certain paradigm level things that I,
Speaker: I don't know how to see the world in a proper way.
Speaker: It's inherently unhealthy to see God as a critic, but it's kind of the only way I know authority, and I love that about authority.
Speaker: I love that whole thing.
Speaker: So I sort of just have to be like, okay, I'm gonna put on my full outfit and just let it be.
Speaker: Maybe that's what I need to do with art more too, which I think I'm doing.
Speaker: I don't know, I would love to feel like God loved me.
Speaker: I mean, there's moments intellectually, I understand.
Speaker: Yeah, put on the fool thing makes me think I was listening today to a video about Pascal's wager, which for any audience that does know Pascal was a brilliant guy in many years, but then he became just really devoted to Christ and like theology and stuff.
Speaker: and his Pascal's wager is like if you're struggling if you should or shouldn't believe in God well why don't you wager that you should because if you're right yeah you get everything and if you're wrong you lose nothing right and that made me think of that with with the love thing why don't we like why don't we
Speaker: bet that God really loves me.
Speaker: And if we're right, it's going to become more true because we're living into that belief.
Speaker: And if we're wrong, well, we didn't lose anything because we just are imagining that God loves us.
Speaker: And that's nice.
Speaker: That's kind of what I do.
Speaker: And I also think, I don't know if you guys have had this experience, but like the suffering that I was talking about, where like, I feel like that was a blessing.
Speaker: Like, I didn't understand the language of like suffering.
Speaker: And I'm not sure I understand the language of love either.
Speaker: It's almost like you have to wait.
Speaker: I keep thinking about how like, yeah, it's a little bit at a time, you know, and I didn't even realize that before.
Speaker: I felt like, you know, I knew as much as I needed to know.
Speaker: And like, you know, then all of a sudden you're like, oh wait, there's this whole other thing in the world.
Speaker: And then you realize there's probably a thousands, thousands of other things that you don't understand people or you don't understand God.
Speaker: But I do feel like,
Speaker: And I don't know what to do with this either.
Speaker: Like what's my responsibility at this point?
Speaker: Because I do kind of feel like, well, he figured out a way to show me suffering.
Speaker: He figured out a way to show me love too.
Speaker: It's part of me that does find peace in that.
Speaker: There's peace in like, with a lot of conversation I recognize and I've had many conversations with people where I'm like,
Speaker: Yeah, I probably have an issue with this.
Speaker: It's not very theologically sound, the way I see God, but I also think, yeah, well, I'm doing the best I can.
Speaker: when it's time, they'll slap me down, you know?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That donkey will start talking and then, you know, and then I'll be like, okay, I get it.
Speaker: I think that place of faith is a great place to start because that's like opening control from ourselves, opening our hands and trusting that God's a real person who does real things.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's something that I've been learning.
Speaker: So, yeah, it's a good place to start.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, the time has absolutely flown by.
Speaker: That's basically... Did we talk about art?
Speaker: No, this was a really great conversation.
Speaker: We'll have to have you back because we didn't ask any of our questions, but I'm so happy.
Speaker: This is great.
Speaker: I love this.
Speaker: I will ask our final question.
Speaker: Are there any resources you would recommend or things you'd recommend for people who are wanting to explore more
Speaker: about the world of art or deep in their own faith?
Speaker: Are there any resources that have been helpful for you or that you would point people to if they're wanting to learn a little bit more?
Speaker: Well, my easy answer is art history.
Speaker: I love art history.
Speaker: It's always been like my sort of guidebook.
Speaker: I don't put away the past at all.
Speaker: I completely embrace that and try to build on it and try to be secure in my own place within that.
Speaker: But I don't know if this is a good plug, but I love having people come to the studio.
Speaker: I love sharing information.
Speaker: I have many artists that will text me.
Speaker: I've been kind of involved in all realms of the art world and making.
Speaker: And so, yeah, if anybody is interested,
Speaker: come to the studio there's living space yeah but people stay there well that's more about this yeah what is this studio i saw something about it on your website we live out in canonsburg michigan uh by the ski helm and uh we i have a studio it's on the property it's a separate building with a separate living space there's kitchen living quarters but it's where i'll paint too okay um
Speaker: But we have people come and stay, but I've had, I was, last year I did, I had college students come and stay, and I would, we would do master copies.
Speaker: The way that I teach traditional techniques is to, like, paint copies.
Speaker: There's certain ones that I feel like you get all the techniques in.
Speaker: But I have people stay at the studio now for, like, just a weekend.
Speaker: But people come out.
Speaker: I mean, I have, like I said, it's a fully functional working studio.
Speaker: I have everything there.
Speaker: It's a separate building.
Speaker: I walk out there every morning, you know.
Speaker: That's what I do.
Speaker: So I have a wood shop out there, not in the studio.
Speaker: I have a wood shop and a maker space and all kinds of cool things to share.
Speaker: So I'm happy to have people come out.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: And we'll have information about that in the show notes.
Speaker: Everybody scroll down.
Speaker: Is that the website?
Speaker: Yeah, rabbithillartstudio.com.
Speaker: Very cool.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Well, thank you so much.
Speaker: Yeah, I want to have you back on because I want to delve into art history at some point and yeah, a little bit more of that stuff.
Speaker: So we'll have you on again.
Speaker: But thank you for coming on and chatting and sharing your story and your heart with us.
Speaker: This is just great.
Speaker: You're welcome.
Speaker: This is really cool.
