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Justin C.M. Brown
2.2k Plays1 year ago
Justin C.M. Brown is a visual artist, musician, writer, cook, and student in the Sociology Department at UCLA.
He was born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina and currently calls Los Angeles home.
Most recently, he donated 3 pieces of his art to his alma mater, Santa Monica College, where they are on display in the library.
He is also currently in Part XII of his year-long artistic effort "Inspired By True Events".
His work can be found at JCMBmade.com, EmperorSteve.com, and ZodiacWaning.com, as well as on Instagram, Facebook, and Tiktok at “@jcmbmade”.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host, Ken Zalante. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer.
Meet Justin C.M. Brown
00:00:17
Speaker
This is Ken Vellante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast. We have artist Justin C.M. Brown in this episode and real art enthusiast, art every day, encouraging folks to do art and look at the world in an artful way. Justin, welcome to the show. Ken, thank you so much. I love that introduction. That was awesome.
00:00:44
Speaker
Uh, I just want to start by saying thank you so much for, uh, for having me on the podcast and thank you for creating a podcast that, you know, I, the intersection of art and philosophy is very excited to me. And so I appreciate you, uh, creating the content. I really do. Yeah. Well, thanks. Thanks for saying that. I, uh, I've always, when it comes to philosophy, I've always thought about it most vibrantly in terms of, uh, art.
00:01:12
Speaker
in terms of creativity, in terms of literature and writing, just thinking of where philosophy is. I see your enthusiasm for that, so I know we're matched up that way.
Daily Art Creation
00:01:29
Speaker
Justin, tell folks a little bit about your art, studying art now. You had a project last year where you are directly
00:01:40
Speaker
creating art each day, um, you know, just that, that is, as, as a lifestyle of learning and creating, can you, can you tell, uh, the listeners just about, you know, that, that dynamics say over the past year? Awesome. Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to start with the advice, the advice that I, that I have.
00:02:05
Speaker
that I found made it possible for me to work on and create art every day is priming your conditions. And so when it comes to the series I was doing last year, inspired by true events, a lot of that was digital art, created an illustrator, vector based, or
00:02:30
Speaker
Photography based it was kind of a mixture of the two and so when I say priming my conditions, what do I mean? I mean having Ideas photos ready ready to be used Uploaded downloaded onto my computer Like ready ready to go as soon as I sit down like I don't have to mess with my phone I don't have to mess with Google Drive like I've already I took a photo the day before I uploaded it I downloaded it's ready and so when it comes time I
00:02:59
Speaker
You know because creating art takes a lot of time and unfortunately in this modern society. We don't really get a lot of it to invest in creativity and so I'm sure I find that in You know in in spare moments the thing that really helps for the creative process is sitting like taking 10 minutes or whatever and going through the last
00:03:25
Speaker
Last photos that I took uploaded through Google Drive and then downloaded to the computer So it's like ready in a folder for me to open up and start playing with the vector images Is a whole Basically, one of my biggest things is I want to encourage people to value their own creative thought In the smallest ways it like any
The Creative Process
00:03:52
Speaker
Whether like, whether it's a small phrase, like a short three words, four words, or a little drawing that just pops into your head. I always, uh, have, I have my notepad. I have a Google drive or a Google doc. I have. Clipboards and sketchbooks and all this stuff ready to catch, you know, it's like a fly ball. So you're like in the stands and you're like, okay, here it comes. And you got to catch it.
00:04:20
Speaker
And so I have these notebooks that are filled with these really small. My drawing skills are not great. I'm not like an expert drawer or anything. So they are very casual. I will say they're casual sketches.
00:04:37
Speaker
of these different ideas you know it's like okay it's a cube and then it's got like these colors take really rough notes whenever it pops in and it takes about 10 seconds it's just really it's really like a you see something out of the corner of your mind's eye and you're like okay what was that let me just write that down and so when it comes time to do the artwork of the day I have this notebook full of
00:05:04
Speaker
tiny stuff. They're not super complicated sketches, but the sketch itself, to me, represents a placeholder or something. It's like, okay, this is the idea. How do I get back to that?
00:05:24
Speaker
As far as doing art every day, the key is priming your conditions, making sure that your workspace is like, I don't need to say clean because I know a lot of artists don't really care for a clean work space. But the thing is getting your workspace set up the way that you want it, getting your materials in a condition that you can use immediately and having a lot of materials to choose from. You know, I'll take, I try to take,
00:05:53
Speaker
three or four photos a day of you know things i see stains i love stains on the sidewalk i take i take photos of stains and of flowers and of architecture uh and you know just random patterns that i see or you know whatever catches my eye and so i'll take three or four of those a day i upload those and then when it comes time to like you know because it's like 30 minutes an hour you don't have a lot of time to
00:06:23
Speaker
make art, unfortunately. I wish I did. But having those ideas in advance really makes the most out of the creative time that you do have. So priming your conditions is the big thing as far as being able to create art every day.
00:06:43
Speaker
Yeah, I gotta say I really appreciate digging right in into making art and just thinking through the pieces to make it easier so that it will happen. I've recently started an online art class organized over a couple months that is really inspired and really directed towards
00:07:12
Speaker
the processes that you said, not the exact processes, but being ready, being prepared, using little pieces, priming the conditions, which is just a beautiful way to put it. And so I'm in that mode more now than maybe than I've ever been. So I'm really sensitive to your comments around that and
00:07:37
Speaker
And you talking about how you were able to create, you know, a lot of different disparate things. I wanted to ask you, Justin, we're talking art, right? So we're talking creating art pieces. And I wanted to ask you right up front, what is art? What are your thoughts about what art is?
00:08:02
Speaker
If I can tag one more thing onto that last conversation, the concept that I understand that made this work for me is that there are two things that happen.
Idea Generation vs. Creation
00:08:16
Speaker
The idea, the moment of the idea and the moment of the creation of that idea are not the same thing and they don't have to happen on the same day.
00:08:30
Speaker
You know, when it comes to having a scratch book or like, you know, taking a photo or whatever, there's your idea. But it doesn't have, I mean, sometimes it's better to do them, you know, back to back consecutively. But thinking about it in terms of the idea and the creation of the idea allows you to separate those two so that the idea is involved in the preparation. And then so you've got your paint, you've got your canvas, and you've got your idea.
00:09:00
Speaker
And then it all comes together in that moment of creation. So I really think that's helpful not to jump in just about just like, I think sometimes when we're like, we see something that inspires us or we're like, oh, I'm feeling all angsty because I haven't created that type of thing. If we do it just raw like that, which, you know, somebody might want to do, but you have to get into the idea. Yeah. Where are the materials? And I think what you're saying here is be set up for art. Right. Yeah.
00:09:30
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, if you live in a city, you know, you don't make it to fifth gear very often manual transmission reference. I know that very well set up, but like, you know, if you're, if you drive a stick shift car in a city, you don't make it to fifth gear very often, but you do switch between second and third a lot. So like collecting those ideas. And I mean, honestly, there's a lot of joy in collecting the ideas because in order to, in order to collect ideas, you have to value them.
00:10:00
Speaker
If you don't value your own creative thought, you'll never get out of bed to write them down. Yeah. Yeah. So it starts with, Hey, I'm a human being. I have this crazy creative capacity and I do believe that all humans do. Um, and it's a process of seeing it and saying, Hey, this is what's going on in my head. I'm going to write it down and I'm going to try to share some of it.
00:10:30
Speaker
And so there's this process of valuing your own creative thought and that's the idea part the creation part Very different, you know take time cost money all that but if we really dig into the value of the creative thought and collecting it and And just looking at it from the idea perspective and like that skeleton wireframe mode or whatever then you see
00:10:55
Speaker
You know you have three ideas in a day and one of them really stands out to you and that energy and that like Affection or affinity that you feel for that one particular idea is the fuel For the creation to bring it to life to bring it into this reality Because you got to value it if you don't value your own ideas you're not going to take them from this intangible form and
00:11:21
Speaker
Invest all of your energy into it to make it tangible to make it real to make it shareable to make it something That is now in our in our mediated space Well, it's it's it's it's it's it's it's another important point that you place right in there to honor you have to be At the point to honor what comes forth right or or be prepared to honor what comes forth and I think
Honoring Spontaneous Ideas
00:11:50
Speaker
You know, a lot of folks are going to be afflicted with the mindset, even if they have a strong inspiration or see something beautiful that maybe they don't know what to do with it or how to interact with it. And I think, you know, you're honoring the idea and the energy of the artist is such, it's probably like that huge fundamental piece where you see yourself as
00:12:15
Speaker
receiving and capable of art and transformation in creation. I know you and I share that. It's in folks, but just getting them open to be like, that idea and that image that I saw was one of the coolest things I've seen in a year and a half. Let me take a photo of it and think about it. Yeah. People underestimate the power of a random photo for restoring a line of thought.
00:12:46
Speaker
And I mean, you know, I would challenge a listener to look in their photo roll and find a photo with no person or pet in it. Just a photo, right? No humans, no animals, nothing. It's just a scene. And then when you look at that scene,
00:13:05
Speaker
You're like, Oh, that was the bus station in Charlotte. I was there with, with Mike and we were doing the thing and you can, you can remember the conversation. And so like, you know, if you need to take a snapshot, little freeze frame, uh, a line of thinking, take a photo of your surroundings, not even a selfie, just like take a photo of what you're looking at. And when you, when you see that photo again, you'll be like, Oh,
00:13:32
Speaker
And that's why they stopped making rotary engines or whatever. I guess I'm going to car kick today. Whatever. Okay. I like it. I mean, I totally understood not being able to get it to the highest gear going through the city in a rapid lifestyle. Yeah, no. And I mean, that is, and we all want to go, we all want to get into fifth gear and do 120, but like, you know, we don't always have the opportunity, but look,
00:14:00
Speaker
when we do get the opportunity, it really helps to have the ideas and the materials ready. Yeah, yeah. We got Justin CM Brown here, and we are getting into a question he thinks about. We think about a lot. You dedicate yourself to this, Justin. Now I need you. What is art?
Art and Emotional Impact
00:14:27
Speaker
OK.
00:14:29
Speaker
I've been thinking about this question a lot since we first got in contact. I believe now that art is anything that creates a physical, mental, or spiritual reaction.
00:14:57
Speaker
And that can be intentionally made by humans for the purpose of art, like painting. It can be made intentionally by humans, not for the purpose of art, like buildings or food. I consider food as art. I know that
00:15:21
Speaker
Unfortunately, it's not as commonly understood that way until you get into the really expensive stuff But no, no your your average burrito is a work of art. I really Not not to compare genres or mediums or anything like that, but there is there isn't artistic value to food so there is also a
00:15:48
Speaker
things that were not created by humans that have spiritual, emotional, or physical responses like nature, like a good sunset, like, uh, you know, hearing, um, bird songs when you wake up, it's, you hear birds outside and you're, there's a feeling there's an emotion that comes with it. You're like, okay, these birds, you know, and it, of course it depends on how you think about birds, but like,
00:16:18
Speaker
I think a safe average reaction to that is like, oh, this is pleasant. But it's not just that thought. There's a physical reaction to that. It causes you to feel a certain way. And that becomes a memory that you can link to about being comfortable or experiencing something pleasant. And that knowledge
00:16:46
Speaker
the knowledge of those pleasant moments has a very real impact on how spiritually we process the world because in a life absent of those recognitions, it becomes a darker place, not to say that. I mean, I don't think that there's an objective answer to that, but like if
00:17:12
Speaker
And I understand that there are people that don't experience that but like if you're able to have an experience like that and You can take if you can take joy from that it impacts your worldview Every day of your life because you realize that there is you know There are two kinds of people in the world, right? There's there are people who can experience joy in small moments and there are people who don't know how yet
00:17:42
Speaker
And it really changes the way you go about a bad day, or a good day, or about a career, or about your own artistic expression. Knowing that one minute out of your day is enough to have a good day. Something really good happens to you for 60 seconds.
00:18:10
Speaker
And that's enough to make it a good day. Well, if you do 100 paintings, if you do 10 paintings, you're gonna get something out of there that is not of the average experience. Something will go weird in that process. And that'll be the thing that'll make you love it. That'll, you'll say, oh, it was,
00:18:38
Speaker
it was cold outside and I had my window open and so my coffee steamed up my paint tray and so they're a little thinner so the sky looks you know and it's just like these weird mechanical processes in the creation of art but those things accidentally create beautiful works of art all the time and it's that knowledge that just these little things these little mechanical accidents and like
00:19:08
Speaker
And, or deliver preparation, you know, some people, you can do it, I guess. It, it's that there's, there's a lot of value in, in one second. And art, when you see, like if you go to a museum, there are, there are certain pieces that will stand out to you naturally, you know, that you connect with.
00:19:38
Speaker
Man, I'm really losing myself on the street right now. No, I want to say right now, Justin, in this, not to interrupt, but I've been really in contact with what you're saying. I'm thinking about in terms of attitude and what happens to your mind and the transformation of the mind in creating art. Like when you said,
Transformative Power of Art
00:20:08
Speaker
You know, there's these pieces and they could be accident and you do 10 of them, but you and I know that there are things there and there are things that are going to surprise. And what I become deeply fascinated in some of the great practices that you point out here, um, is how the brain starts to transform and rewire. And some people might think in terms of mindfulness meditation, which can do all
00:20:35
Speaker
that as a separate discussion, but engaging with art and researching and learning about the transformation of the mind and what your reality is going to be. Like you said, that one second, that one piece, that 60 seconds. I'm really hearing what you're saying, because for me, it's transformation. It could be connection to something larger, could be spiritual. I heard that word in what you said.
00:21:02
Speaker
Um, sorry. Yeah, I really connect with with what you're saying there because I think about it how it transforms us right, um, I You know just to throw just to throw some academic stuff in here because I love to Um, I recently we gotta make uh, we gotta make the university happy i've been away from the university for a while. So with the We we we thank you for doing this. Okay. Okay. Here we go. Go Bruins But uh, this one is from toronto university. Uh, dr. Ann Mullen
00:21:31
Speaker
talking about locating meaning in conceptual art. And it's a really great paper, and I really recommend you look at it. But there are, Mullen describes it in three dimensions. And the same ones that I'm talking about is the physical, the mental, and then the spiritual. And I might be paraphrasing. But there is, on the physical level,
00:21:58
Speaker
something happens when you when you see a piece of art or I mean, you know, you think about like in order in order to really understand this mechanism, you got to dial it up. So imagine that you're like in your living room and you turn around and there is an apex predator, you know, behind you like a tiger or a bear or whatever is appropriate for your geographic region. And when you know when you can imagine that feeling of like your stomach dropping out,
00:22:26
Speaker
Right and and you know, we felt this all before like whether oh, I ran a red light and they know I almost got t-boned or whatever. Yeah We've had that feeling right that visceral feeling can be evoked It that's only one one shade of it. That's that fear response, but there are a lot of different shades Joy response love and all those things but it's unconscious. It's immediate and
00:22:53
Speaker
It's extremely powerful and it's felt it is felt it is not thought it is not understood it is felt and you know, so the physical response to art I I think people would say that it gets talked about enough. I don't I don't think I don't think people really understand I Don't think people talk about the visceral reaction to art
00:23:22
Speaker
And I mean, especially in media, like TV and film, you know, it it creates a physical reaction. I listened to Adagio for Strings by Barber not too long ago. It was for a class. And like I listened to it three times in a row because I love that song. And it just makes your body cry. You're just like, oh,
00:23:51
Speaker
All right, well, this is the finest sad work that's ever been created. Yeah. But it's a feeling. You're not thinking about it. You're not like, oh, these notes are making me sad, right? Oh, I'm feeling grief about this. It doesn't happen like that. It bypasses the thought, right? Yeah. So we got our physical thing.
00:24:20
Speaker
Then you know, I'll skip the mental the spiritual it's it's the ability for humans to collect symbols in their life over time which we use individually internally to construct a metaphysical worldview about what is good and bad about what is a
00:24:47
Speaker
us versus what is not us like I identify with this I don't identify with that and and those those symbols what it represents what it represents again subconscious it happens to you it's happening without like your conscious involvement you're like well that's something that like this painting
00:25:15
Speaker
has horrified me beyond all recognition. And I will always remember this as a representation of how scary art can be. And you keep that. And it's like this symbol that expresses, OK, fear can exist in the form of an oil painting. And you realize that all of these emotions and these thoughts about these emotions
00:25:44
Speaker
can be represented symbolically through art, through music, and through work. I mean, it's really obvious on the surface when you talk about words, but once you start getting into philosophy and linguistics and you realize that I'm just making a bunch of mouth noises and they make your brain think of specific thoughts, it becomes this whole thing that unravels.
00:26:13
Speaker
So it's, uh, don't, don't think about it too long because the next time you go to a drive-through, you won't be able to do it. Well, well, it, and it's, I think, um, again, on, on that point of what, um, of what you're, and I think the terms of the, when you mentioned spirituality and the difficulty maybe around in describing the experience, I just picked up on,
The Challenge of Articulation
00:26:43
Speaker
I think we know, you and I know and others know the feeling or whatever it is that happens to us. We've looked at the Monet, we steered at the Monet, and we can't imagine how such a thing is possible, but we're overwhelmed by a feeling that I think sometimes
00:27:04
Speaker
It's tough to describe. There's one other piece. I read this quote and It wasn't a quote but it was a description and it was right on the point of what you were saying around Words and it was talking about books. It's like, you know, how is it that? We have these marks this this ink these paper sheets of Trees and we look at them in our mind experiences mass hallucinations
00:27:36
Speaker
I was stunned when I read it and then I looked at it again and I said, oh my gosh, those symbols on the page are creating hallucinations in our mind and as we go through Cormac McCarthy or wherever and we're reading that those hallucinations are sheared and they're ours and we're in some sort of state.
00:27:59
Speaker
But what's crazy about that is that we can agree on it. These symbols create similar hallucinations.
00:28:10
Speaker
Is that we're able to interpret them similarly at least in a way that we're able to communicate about it and so this it's you me and this and and and Tolstoy over here And and we like get to understand Yeah, an idea that neither of us had and this person is not alive anymore and
Art in Society
00:28:35
Speaker
They're nowhere to be seen. And so these words like, you know, these these little arrangements of ink, you know, and it's it's really it's really. There is no end to that rabbit hole. There's no end. Oh, I know. And I just I think it goes all the way through. I. Yeah, go ahead. Let me let me close out the trifecta here so.
00:29:04
Speaker
There's a physical and visceral response. There's the spiritual collecting symbols from artwork and through our daily lives in order to create a metaphysical reality that we understand. And then there is the mental one, which is, what do I think I think about this? What do I think other people think about this? Depending on the medium that it's in, whether it's in a gallery, I don't know
00:29:31
Speaker
I don't know how true this is for everyone. But I think we all have, we can easily come up, we can easily imagine standard art gallery behavior. You know, the snooty, like, I don't want to use the word snooty. The, you know, this, this scholar, scholarly academic
00:30:00
Speaker
you know, the swirling the wine glass. Well, this is, you know, we know it's okay, right? We got the character. We got the character. Yeah, definitely. But but so because we can imagine that person, that imaginary person affects how we behave, whether like, basically, we imagine someone doing it. And then we decide whether we want to go with that, or do something different.
00:30:31
Speaker
You know, and so like the, the social experience, the, the mental experience is a social one and that it's, it's mediated by the behaviors of other people. And they have taught us how to engage with art, you know, like the way that like wine tasting is a really funny example because you can tell when people
00:30:58
Speaker
are experienced at it because they do things very casually. And then you can tell who is new to it because they do the same casual things very intentionally. Sure. You know, it's like the legs and the bouquet and all this, you know, it's a performance. It's like, OK, I want to be in this club. I want to be in the club of people who have smart things to say at art galleries. So I'm going to go to an art gallery and I'm going to say something smart. Right.
00:31:28
Speaker
And so it's a social process. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's incredibly important in both physical and spiritual ways for us to have references for our own interpretations. It's one thing to have a
00:31:48
Speaker
interpretation of a piece of art but it's another thing to have someone next to you either agree or disagree with your interpretation because then it becomes three-dimensional or even four-dimensional you know it's like we argue with critics over time you know oh this you know in in the 15th century this was regarded as the worst painting ever painted and now it's on the wall here and so like you know we we engage in this social conversation over time
00:32:18
Speaker
about each individual piece. And so so those are those these three, you know, in your answer to in your question, what is art, it is something that provokes response. And there are three categories of response that result in very different behaviors, understandings and outcomes. I, I, there's a lot of
00:32:47
Speaker
There's a lot of thought on what you had to say, and I wanted to ask you something a little bit related to this, Justin, that is a conversation I had with Pamela Valfer a few episodes back, and she really jostled my thinking, and I wanted to tell you about it. It's related to this, and tell me what your thoughts on it. For many times during the show, I've talked about the
00:33:13
Speaker
a mystical or spiritual experience or me as an art lover enthusiast and being in the art museum, being in the art museum, being in that sanctuary, being in that space. And that space is complicated or I've learned it to be more complicated over time. I adored art museums, but the dynamic that I started to think about was
00:33:43
Speaker
Maybe sometimes, you know, that is the church for us, that you go to the church and you went to church, but like anything religious or spirituality or with where you find art, it's also outside as well.
00:34:05
Speaker
And I think there's like a mental attitude to really deeply appreciate the wonders of like human artistic achievement that you find in a museum. But I felt, as I talked about, I thought that more than my thinking was a little bit quaint on that. So I really appreciate talking to you. And I do find art in a lot of places as you do, but maybe decentralizing adoration.
00:34:34
Speaker
Or that this is the place to find art and then you get a search harder elsewhere and so as you could tell as I'm talking about it's jostled my thinking I was wondering you thought about You know about about the museum as the place to find it does does the museum need to be? And of course, there's lots of different museums. It's a little bit unfair. But do you think there are things that museums
00:35:04
Speaker
need to do around accessibility or to minimize the exclusion of folks from art? OK, yes, I do. I'll start by making a distinction here, and I'm not sure which side I'm going to land on. There is a big difference between museums and galleries. And I think of museums as being
00:35:33
Speaker
a historical store of previous artists who, you know, have contributed to specific movements or like, you know, in order to fit in a museum, it has to be categorizable in some way, even if it's uncategorizable, that's still a category. You know, it's one of those things that kind of eats itself. Galleries. Okay, galleries are
00:36:04
Speaker
a much wider range of sizes, very large galleries, very small galleries, and I think the thing that people forget about, and I'm not sure if this is intentional because I am not a gallery owner, I would not know how to go about this myself, but there is in some cases an erasure of the role of the curator in a gallery and
00:36:34
Speaker
We need I I would like to celebrate curators and I think that curators remove in some cases Curators remove themselves from the visibility of it in order to present a more institutional like it's it's beyond the critique because
00:36:59
Speaker
It's not done by a person. This art miraculously appeared on this wall in this perfectly arranged way. And so there's no one around to say like, oh, I really like this, or oh, I didn't like this, or whatever. And OK, here we go. Here's the big deep dive. It's because we want to present human created work as though it were produced by nature.
00:37:29
Speaker
Right. Because nature is beyond critique. Like, what are you going to say to the ocean? Yeah. Like, even if you had a meaningful critique of the ocean. Like, who are you going to tell? Yeah. Yeah. Like, there's nobody there. It's nature, you know, and so people erase the names of, you know, this this one person, you know, and I personally love the reasons why people pick art.
00:37:57
Speaker
You know, oh, I grew up in Detroit in the 80s, and it was like this, so I like this. You know, there's a story. There's a reason. It's a rational behavior as far as why this art is here. But people like to erase that to say, no, nature did this. It's accidental. Oh my god, it's so beautiful. Everybody look at how beautiful this accident that no one actually did is, and make sure you tell your friends, or whatever.
00:38:28
Speaker
I think I want I love museums and I love art galleries, but I think it's unfortunate that art is being pushed into designated areas. I don't think art is like that. And I don't think that's actually how the world is.
Art Beyond Museums
00:38:58
Speaker
I think art is everywhere, but our socially prompted enjoyment of art occurs in specific places. The same person that goes to MoMA and stares for 30 minutes at a Vermeer or whatever, who, ooh, look at the shading. They're just staring at the patch of brown in the corner. They're like, the brushwork is incredible. And sure, it is. It's a great painting. But that same person,
00:39:27
Speaker
would never look at the painting in the dentist office. There's a real painting by the dentist friend in the reception area. And you don't get up out of your seat and look at it because that's not where you do that. Oh, I'm at the dentist office. I'm supposed to read People Magazine. I want to fit in with the other three people who are all here to get root canals. And so I'm not going to be weird about this. Museums and galleries are set up
00:39:56
Speaker
For people to like really get weird with it and like two inches two inches from the wall and like yeah And you're like, yep, that's definitely blue And so like, you know, I I think You know again to the listener if you see a piece of art go look at it
00:40:17
Speaker
Like, like, seriously, if it's above a water fountain, you know, at your office, like, whatever it is, you know, and examine it. Is it a print? Is it a painting? Is it a photograph? Like, what? And like, you know, take it in, because someone did that. And there's so much behind it. It was as long as you turn that switch on, which is I am interested in art, you'll start to see that it's kind of everywhere. You know, like,
00:40:47
Speaker
There are gas stations in LA that have chandeliers and paintings. I know that sounds so crazy. And it's like, there's paintings everywhere. There's art everywhere. And the only place that we really give ourselves permission to engage in this absorption of art are these museums and these galleries. And that's good. You should do that there. Absolutely. You paid your ticket, get your money's worth.
00:41:17
Speaker
But there is so much more. And the stories that go into the art that you see outside of museums might be as interesting as the artists who are, you know, capital A artists. Right. Yeah. So I would just say that the potential for
00:41:44
Speaker
for artistic experience goes beyond museums and galleries. And you should absolutely support your local galleries and support local museums because they're important. They're, you know, also making sure that, you know, there's a big thing right now in the art gallery or the museum and art gallery world about increasing representation.
00:42:13
Speaker
I saw an article that was all like, should we sell this one expensive painting by a white guy to buy 40 paintings from black women? And I was like, yeah, you should do that for sure. You should definitely, that's a great, yeah, for sure. But like, when it comes to it, if you don't,
00:42:37
Speaker
You know, museums, I don't know, galleries are a much more personal thing, but museums typically are a public service. They're a public good. And so if there is room for pressure to increase the accessibility of museums and galleries to more kinds of artists, because as we know, like, you know, the Western
00:43:08
Speaker
Western aesthetic art world, white men have got a really far head start on making sure they get the wall space. And you know what? I've seen that story. So I think we have an opportunity to increase the representation in these spaces. And it would make these spaces so much cooler, so much more interesting and so much more
00:43:34
Speaker
spiritually fertile because you actually get to see the range of human experience instead of a small segment of the range of human experience. So that's my take on museums and galleries. They're awesome. Support them. Get involved. Make sure that, you know, when it comes like on their Instagrams, they're they're definitely any art gallery or any museum right now is all like, hey,
00:44:03
Speaker
we're trying to increase representation for indigenous artists or whoever, you know, whatever, whatever the local cause is. And I would encourage you stand on the side of marginalized artists to get them that representation because, because we've had enough white male artists to dominating museum and gallery space. That's enough. And I say that as a white male artists, like I,
00:44:32
Speaker
I'm chill. I'm more interested in hearing other people's stories at this point. I'm going to put out my art, but I would like to see space go to more stories because it makes me more full as a person to hear and understand and appreciate other people and other cultures and other views on things.
00:44:58
Speaker
hot take i guess no i uh i really appreciate uh what you have to say and and and different ways of thinking about um the museum and again not to not to not to devalue but um being in this spirit uh you know you being an artist philosopher of you know of critique of looking at what is in in thinking about its history and and really the the opportunity uh with the weirdness to um
Philosophical Insights
00:45:29
Speaker
To make it more inclusive and to see all the things that we want to see Justin Here's here's here's the big one here's the big here's the big one What why is there something rather than nothing I Know you've been thinking about this. I have I have and I think I have a pretty good answer I would argue that
00:45:58
Speaker
that it's not something rather than nothing. I would say that in the case of everything, you need nothing to create something. The nothing, the space between, is what enables the possibility of perceiving something as something. Otherwise, it would be everything.
00:46:26
Speaker
If there was no nothing, it would just be everything. But the nothing in between all the something is what enables us to perceive them as discrete objects and discrete pieces of art. It's that, you know, I'm sure that it's been said in many other places, but I'm quoting it from Daft Punk is the perfect song is framed with silence. You know, and silence is
00:46:56
Speaker
Silence is the unspoke is the unnoticed compliment of every song you've ever heard. It's the unrealized is that in that silence, everything else exists. It's just not expressed. And so there's also the quote from
00:47:21
Speaker
Ray Cummings. I know that this is sometimes attributed to Einstein, but it is Ray Cummings, which is time. The only reason time exists is that so everything doesn't happen at once, you know, is that the time enables us to see things as happening in the morning and in the afternoon without
00:47:47
Speaker
without that measure of distance between those two things, the nothing between morning and afternoon, it would just be one thing. And so nothing and they, nothing turns everything into a lot of some things. I, uh, I hearing your answer in the context of, uh, perception,
00:48:15
Speaker
Right. I really, I really like that the perception amongst the some things and nothings in order for to perceive, right? It's a necessary part of perceiving. I haven't quite had an answer like that. Yeah, it breaks. Nothing is what breaks up the universe into manageable parts.
00:48:38
Speaker
All right, Justin, listeners here, you put out a lot of art.
Finding Justin's Art Online
00:48:46
Speaker
And I enjoy following your work. It's on Instagram. But I want you to tell folks where to find your art, your thinking, music, visuals, words. Where do folks go?
00:49:07
Speaker
All right. Well, thank you. Uh, love this part. Um, my main, the thing I'm on every day is my Instagram, uh, JCMB made. Um, so JCMB M A D E. Uh, that is my business. It's also JCMB made.com. Um, and that is the collection of all of my visual art and some of my writing. Um, my music, my musical alter ego is named emperor Steve.
00:49:36
Speaker
I put out a 27 song audio gallery in 2021. Yes, in 2021. And I'm currently working on some new stuff now, but that's EmperorSteve.com, also at EmperorSteve. I also have a novel slash screenplay. I say slash screenplay because it's not really either, which is a piece of
00:50:05
Speaker
I'll just call it absurdist fiction. And that is zodiacwaning.com. So zodiac, like a horoscope, and then waning, like waxingandwaning.com. But if you want to talk to me, and I love talking to people about art and philosophy, and I love encouraging people to create art or sharing whatever knowledge I have, is JC&Bmade on Instagram.
00:50:35
Speaker
You can email me through my website. But please don't video call me without texting first. Not that accessible. I want to thank you so much for Justin for coming on the show. And I really, you know, and having guests on I like
00:50:58
Speaker
our conversation, doing philosophy and dropping into some of the deeper elements about our experience. But also, I think you have a lot of practical, super practical set up to enjoy and make art advice that you talked about at the beginning. And I really think that's extremely helpful just in our conditions or a lot of people's conditions of not all of a sudden
00:51:29
Speaker
pulling everything together, figuring out everything you have to do, but to integrate behavior in your life that sets you up for art. And I think that's a profound, I think you and I know that's a profound change. And like I had mentioned before, I get excited about how the mind can heal, how the mind can reorder, how the mind can see
00:51:52
Speaker
beauty more regularly and Somebody would have to give some convincing argument how that's not healthy for us Yeah, I don't want to drive this home real quick. Is that for people who? You know either create art and don't identify as an artist or for people that don't even create art Welcome.
The Essence of Being an Artist
00:52:14
Speaker
Thanks for listening. But here's the thing is that when you create art and
00:52:19
Speaker
You do not have to sell art to be an artist. You do not have to share your art to be an artist. If you create things, anything, pictures, music, sculptures, leaf arrangements, stone piles, whatever it is,
00:52:41
Speaker
If you create that, you do not have to sell it and you do not have to share it to be an artist. And what's really important is that artists, as we know, are respected members of society. And you know what? Given the way that the economy and society and politics and all these things have treated the average person,
00:53:06
Speaker
You know, I really think that there is a lot of value in seeing yourself as an artist, as a member of this quote unquote, highly respected class. You know, you could say, yo, you can't treat me like this. I'm an artist. Like I shouldn't be doing this with my time. I'm an artist. I should like, I need to like focus not on
00:53:32
Speaker
there are things to focus on and there are things to let go of because I'm an artist because as an artist I need to make art and I understand the economy and rent and labor and all that sucks and it takes a lot of the time but what time you do have if you were able to convert that into an identity where you see yourself as an artist there is a thing that happens that
00:54:01
Speaker
Enables you to look around at the world and say this isn't right. I'm an artist and I'm being treated badly and we should treat artists well and so and so it becomes this thing where once you're involved in this community, it's like creative human creativity is incredibly powerful and important and so why would they what kind of world that we live in where it's not valued and that and that's kind of how you like step over that line in the sand and you say
00:54:32
Speaker
as an artist, I want to make the world better for myself and other artists and other human beings because the creativity and the art and that experience is one of the easiest, one of the easiest ways to know that life is worth living. Yeah. Yeah. That, that, that it's, it's a, it's a special kind of magic and,
00:55:02
Speaker
Yeah, I want to thank you and talk and you, you know, connecting with me on, you know, and exploring the ethos of kind of the ethos beneath the show and, um, and, and finding, and finding that magic, uh, and transformation. Um, Hey everybody, uh, make sure you check out, uh, Justin CM Brown, find him on, on, uh, Instagram and in his websites, uh, diverse.
00:55:30
Speaker
artistic output, words, incredible visuals and displays, and of course music as well. I wanted to thank you Justin for sharing what you do and actually sharing your attitudes and the cultivation of habits and talking about art. I really appreciate you and wanted to thank you for spending some time on something rather than nothing. Ken, thank you so much.
00:55:58
Speaker
And I wish you all the best and I will continue. I will be a continued listener. So thank you very much. Everybody listening, please follow. Make sure you subscribe to Kim. Follow me. We'll hang out. Talk about art. Cool. Thanks, brother. It's been a great pleasure. Yeah, same here. Thank you. This is something rather than nothing.