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Vanessa Stockard
173 Plays5 years ago
Vanessa Stockard is an Australian painter. I had the great pleasure of speaking with her about:
Cats borne of heaven and hell
Painting
Her time in Oregon, USA
Becoming a Mum
Something
Nothing.
Her paintings, generously displayed on instagram, will steal your heart. When I see her paintings, I instantly feel like I am living and laughing and loving. Make sure you take the time to experience them. Your life will improve.
{Prior to interviewing her I suspected that she was part Trafalmadorian, one of those beings that inhabit Kurt Vonnegut's Trafalmador. Trafalmadorians are beings who exist in all times simultaneously, and are thus privy to knowledge of future events, including the destruction of the universe. I did not ask her about this as my independent research failed to yield any proof. However, I will ask her directly next time . . . }
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Transcript
00:00:02
Speaker
Okay.
Introduction to Vanessa Stockard
00:00:18
Speaker
Hi, this is Ken Vellante, host of Something Rather Than Nothing with episode 20. Beautiful number in 2020, episode with Vanessa Stockard. Really, as you'll hear me gushing here and there, just a beautiful artist, an incredible creator.
00:00:42
Speaker
And a lot of energy and joy and fun that I find from her works.
Instagram and Art Sharing
00:00:50
Speaker
As you'll hear during the interview, she posts a lot of her material, a lot of her paintings on Instagram. It's a great place to interact and to take a look at her work, which I...
00:01:01
Speaker
highly suggest that you do. And it was good to hear during the interview that she's got a book that will collect her paintings and also some poetry that'll accompany it. So without further ado, all the way from Australia, New South Wales, Vanessa Stockard.
00:01:33
Speaker
All right. This is the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast. And we are with Vanessa Stockard.
Life and Experiences in Australia and Beyond
00:01:41
Speaker
And we are calling her and contacting her in Australia, New South Wales. And what particular town is it, Vanessa? I live in Barrow. Yeah. So it's south of Sydney. OK. OK.
00:01:56
Speaker
really wanted to just initially welcome you onto the podcast, Vanessa. It's a great thrill and I'm very excited that you've agreed to chat with us. Thank you so much. You're welcome. So I'm here recording in the great state of Oregon in the United States and I understand
00:02:21
Speaker
that you have spent some time in Oregon. Do you want to kind of let us know, let the listeners know about your time in Oregon? Yeah, I loved Oregon and I lived in Portland probably for about a year and a half. And look, I was on my way out to, I'd had enough of America basically, I'd been in
00:02:46
Speaker
Santa Barbara and and there were like people had these mansions with just no books and it was just so boring. And I thought, OK, like I'll visit a friend up there and see if I like it. And I just loved it. And what what what drew you in? I mean, I I'm I'm from the East Coast of the US originally and made my way out here. I've been in the area for about nine years and it's had a significant impact on my appreciation of the arts and in doing art and kind of
00:03:15
Speaker
Um, expression, just general like freedom of, of expression. Did you notice any of those type of things? Is that what drew you or was it something else? No, it was all of that. You know, some of my favorite writers, um, are from Oregon. And, um, I just love the, you know, your forests up there and, um, people, you know, read and.
00:03:37
Speaker
um make art and music and all sorts of things and yeah everything about Portland I really love maybe not the weather 100 but um but certainly the social aspect I really love that yeah the weather is um something to be adjusted to I find that's very diplomatic uh we'll start diplomatically it's something to get used to it is
00:04:02
Speaker
So what were you like? What were you
Art as an Escape and Embracing Identity
00:04:06
Speaker
like when you were younger? Were you already, you know, were you an artist when you were born or what was your personality like? What was your relation to the arts? Well, I definitely always loved drawing. I started playing the piano when I was three, so I was sort of definitely into the arts from, you know, really, really young. How was I as a kid?
00:04:31
Speaker
I was a bit straight, like, yeah, I was a bit odd. I don't think I was quite on the planet, you know, I never got invited to the parties, even as a teenager, same thing. I don't know, just like social a little bit, um, backward, I would say. Yeah.
00:04:56
Speaker
I mean, I know when I talk to artists and, you know, illustrators, painters and such, you know, sometimes if they have those experience and it's an experience I can connect to of, you know, maybe not feeling or quite fitting in, it's something a lot of humans can relate to. Did you find your art was connected to creating an environment that you could understand or a world that you would inhabit or did you feel you were doing that? Yeah, absolutely. It was my
00:05:24
Speaker
little saving space. Yeah, it saved me. Same with making music. It just, I don't know, I could block out all the bullying and all of that crap that I had to put up with. And I guess, yeah, it gave me a lot of happiness, really. Yeah. So was it, was it, did you feel you're creating like fantasy worlds? Was it a lot of fantasy stuff or? Look, it just took, I guess, the pain away. So and all the sort of bad thoughts. So I could
00:05:54
Speaker
I don't know, it just gave me some, it felt like space. And during my teenage years, which are the hardest years, I think, of your life, I was in a boarding school for six years. And if you live in a school and you're heavily bullied, it's a really, really hard place to get your head around. So definitely the arts played a really important
00:06:22
Speaker
part in, I think, developing my whole character, really, and my serious compulsion to create whatever it is. And do you feel like it's been a kind of like, did you reach a point as far as dealing with what would be traumatic experiences related to being bullied and the fact that you're creative and just kind of trying to figure out how to fit in?
00:06:51
Speaker
I mean, is that a, has that been a kind of like a process of how you've used art throughout your life or how did you deal with that? Cause it's such a, you know, that can be such a troubling and deeply, you know, difficult experience. Yeah. Listen, I tried to fit in and I tried every method and anyone who knows me will just think, Oh my God, like I tried every fashion and every style and everything. And it just, none of it works. So in the end, I think I was in my sort of
00:07:20
Speaker
mid-twenties, I just went, you know, screw this, I don't care. And I just kind of went wild. And then, oh, look, I've pulled back from from those days as well. And I just realized, you know, being yourself and whatever that is, is way better than being like everyone else anyway. So, you know, well,
00:07:40
Speaker
It's part of the trouble. What about the role
Humor and Growth in Art
00:07:43
Speaker
of humor? I mean you I mean I see your online presence on Instagram you I mean I'm not overstating this I mean you're hilarious and and watching the things that you create and how you create some of the characters including the You know the cat Kevin in your recent paintings and
00:08:01
Speaker
Humor seems really, um, important to you. I mean, do you find yourself going into like dark humor or you just want to make people laugh because you're making a lot of people laugh. Is, is that been a helpful device or, or adaptation? Oh, look, I've been doing that probably ever since, you know, I was a, um, a young kid, I think another defense mechanism. And it's just the way that I look at things. First up, I, I kind of see the funny side. I have to.
00:08:30
Speaker
in a way. So that's just one way of sort of battling anxiety and depression is, I mean, life is funny. It is a lot of the time, even when it's at its most tragic, it often is really funny. So yeah, I just think that my mind goes there as, you know, as a starting point. I, um, I wanted to ask, um, I've heard you talk or looked at your, your work over time and,
00:08:58
Speaker
I don't know if you think in terms of periods of, you know, stylistically the things that you're doing, but I know you had done, you know, landscapes and still lives and you're very adventurous in your subjects and what you go into. Can you talk a little bit about your evolution, particularly as a painter from your perspective?
00:09:24
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Look, the older I get, the more adventurous I am. And obviously you paint all day, every day if you can, and you learn so many new tricks, I guess, I call them tricks. And also to take way more risks. So I believe I started, you know, in the more traditional areas, you know, landscape still life and most people can relate to that. And that's sort of, I guess, translated to early sales.
00:09:54
Speaker
And then I got stuck into that for a while and then, um, I actually had a breakdown and I just stopped caring about any sales altogether. And I think that's where I really, I really started coming out of my shell in the best way. So like, yeah, silver linings and all that. Yeah. And did, how did you develop, um,
00:10:17
Speaker
I mean, how did you develop your technique? I mean, we were trained, you know, we were trained in painting and just kind of like started with more traditional kind of, you know, more like you said, maybe more viable commercially, but traditional type of works. Yeah, listen, my my mother is a classical painter and my grandmother was a painter as well. So I sort of grew up, you know, still playing with paints. And then I did go to art school and I did major in painting, though.
00:10:47
Speaker
I think they failed me first year. Anyway, I don't think I learned that much at art school. I was kind of a little young, but I'm mainly self-taught. I heard you mention boarding school. I went to public schools out in Rhode Island and I remember
00:11:10
Speaker
You know, a friend of mine, you know, attempting to choke and stab, uh, you know, the, the assistant principal and just weird experiences like that. Like what, what the heck, what the heck is boarding school? Right. Um, look, if you go to boarding school, you want to be popular. Trust me, you want to come from the right family. You want to look the part, um, you probably want to know some of the other families that you got to come from.
00:11:40
Speaker
I don't know, like your parents have to have the right business. It's, it's really quite complicated. And if you don't, then you automatically in the DAG group, which is, I dunno, the, the DAG, what would you call the nerd group? Yeah. Okay. What's, what's the word DAG? DAG. Yeah. Okay. Um, Australian slang for not cool. Yeah. So you start.
00:12:08
Speaker
there at 12, you're not cool and then it doesn't get any better. Yeah, yeah, that's a hard place. Yeah, it's it's it's certainly a difficult time.
Philosophy of Art and Influence of Family
00:12:20
Speaker
Did you ever ask yourself why you create? Oh, I think it it calms me. I think that's why and it it wouldn't have to be painting or music. It would it
00:12:38
Speaker
could have been writing, being a chef, but, you know, I'm not, I don't believe in, you know, being creative has been so singular in your choice. It, yeah, it could have been anything. So, but yeah, I did hook onto painting after my music career failed. So, yeah. Tell me about the music. I love music. I have a lot of guests who are musicians.
00:13:06
Speaker
what type of things were you doing when you were doing music? Okay, so I was a classical composer. Oh, wow. And yeah, and in that particular area, the job scope option, the, I don't know, like you have to be trained in so many different ways in which I wasn't. My understanding of musicianship was terrible. Like I was
00:13:33
Speaker
I couldn't really read music, which is ridiculous considering I started when I was three. Um, yeah, there were a bunch of things against, uh, that working out. And I think music industry is the hardest one out of all the arts that I can think of. Um, so it just, it just didn't work out. And I knew that by the time I was about 22, I just went, okay, well, I have to move on to something else. And I didn't
00:13:59
Speaker
And so, you know, composing, I mean, I mean, you know, you just stated it's a pretty significant concept, you know, for me. I mean, you're essentially talking about, you know, creating, you know, full, you know, classical movements and songs. Right. And what ages did you do? When did you do that? Oh, like a thing. I don't know. Probably when I was about four. And yeah. Wow. Wow.
00:14:27
Speaker
Yeah, my teachers at my first school, one of the nuns, she used to try and write down my first pieces in a little music school book. And I think I might have been. Well, I was definitely seven when she thought, oh, you're going to be this big star. And she was writing down my first pieces. So, yeah.
00:14:51
Speaker
that that was what I was good at was creating but not I'm not a technical genius and I'm not very good at being perfect so playing other people's music was never never my forte so I did have that bit of a problem as well but the you know the at least the
00:15:10
Speaker
teacher, the nun in particular, I mean, was supportive of, I mean, she didn't try to like get rid of the devil that was in to me. I'm not saying there was devil in your music, but she was, or was there? I mean, she wasn't trying to. She loved me. Yeah. And I loved her too. And I also in high school, I also had a piano teacher who was wonderful. And she also was writing down my scores, which were really, really difficult at that time. So, you know, there was some belief there that
00:15:39
Speaker
But this could really work, but it didn't. Has anybody, like, I mean, I don't know if you still have that stuff. I mean, have you handed it over to anybody and say, why don't you try to play this and see what it sounds like? Have you ever done that? No, I haven't. I do have them. I have them somewhere. Yeah. I bet that they probably can't find a web somewhere in the studio, but they exist.
00:16:01
Speaker
So one of the questions I ask is what type of art forms attract you? Obviously you participated in creating music and writing music and painting. Are there any other forms that you particularly enjoy or wish to do or have done? Look, I think I love nearly all of them that I can think of. I love textiles. I grew up with a house covered in Persian carpets. My dad is like a hoarder of Persian carpets.
00:16:32
Speaker
I obviously, painting is my favorite, but I love, you know, glassware and pottery and any kind of textiles and fabrics and, I don't know, everything really. The pivotal question I always like to ask guests is, do you have a definition of art? I mean, what do you consider to be art? Oh, no.
00:17:01
Speaker
I don't know if I can answer that. You knew I was going to ask that one. I think I must have blocked it out. I think it's my cop-out answer. I think art can be anything you want it to be. And there's also the converse way of asking what isn't art, you know, I'm not quite sure how to approach it. But no, I've had that. I've certainly had that answer before. And a lot of people speak to
00:17:29
Speaker
know, subjectively that they derive enjoyment out of, you know, this particular film, this type of music and kind of open themselves up to that. So it's, it's obviously completely legitimate, you know. Yeah, look, I have a little bit of a problem with the actual word art, and then also calling oneself an artist, because I think there's a pretentious quality attached to being an artist, whereas, you know, another form of
00:17:59
Speaker
making art that does not have, you know, in quotation marks, that high art reputation doesn't mean that it's inferior to what you see in the museums, that sort of thing. So I do have a complicated understanding of what I think is art, but yeah, it's truly, there's something to do with the way that I would appreciate something, whatever that is. It could be an oil stain on the road and that could be art to me as well.
00:18:31
Speaker
And one of the things that I've seen, and like I said, I particularly enjoy and laugh a lot, and there's a lot of humor is just, again, with Instagram, and you have a cat, a black, somewhat famous cat, I think, at least in that realm. Kevin, that shows up in a lot
00:18:54
Speaker
of your
Fascination with Cats and Impact of Motherhood
00:18:56
Speaker
paintings. But first of all, what's your relationship with cats? Is Kevin real? No. My relationship with cats, look, I've been drawing and cartooning cats for, I don't know, as long as I can remember. And I have a very mixed yin-yang kind of relationship to the idea of cats, because I see them as having
00:19:22
Speaker
equal qualities of heaven and hell in them. They can be these cute little fluffy babies with these big eyes that you absolutely adore and the next thing you know, they're murdering some creature and playing with it. And then giving the head to you under your carpet. So yeah, I can have a lot of fun using them as a platform, you know, imagining that they're people or yeah, because they just lend themselves to
00:19:51
Speaker
to being made fun of as well. You're definitely not averse to definitions. I know your definition for art, but I didn't know, yeah, that cats were heaven-held creatures. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's that kind of. And just like people. Just like people. Some have a bit more heaven in them than others, and some have a bit more hell in them than others are found. And I just love that.
00:20:20
Speaker
Yeah, those polar opposite qualities that are embodied in every single cat, if it's got a brain. And with, um, you, you, you, this, you put out again on social media and you, we live far away from each other and haven't seen your originals, but you put out a lot of, gosh, just, just beautiful, beautiful, uh, paintings, um, and.
00:20:46
Speaker
uh they're lovely to look at and but there's a lot of them too can you give us a peek into like do you just paint a whole lot of paintings what's your what's your routine like yeah look i'm a crazy person in there i make um probably you know between two to five paintings a day um it you know depends on the size i've often got about
00:21:14
Speaker
five or six paintings in progress. And I'm just a compulsive painter. I'm a compulsive worker. So it makes me feel good. It's some form of meditation. I call it productive meditation. It's very necessary for you.
00:21:34
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. What about your interaction? I mean, people, you know, I've just seen recently, again, you know, with the paintings reacting to them, getting excited about them, sharing them. There must be a really, you know, in general, good energy and vibe you pick up off of that is that that part of your routine of just seeing how these stories and these narratives and these characters that you have and the paintings themselves are getting people kind of riled up a little bit. Yeah, look, you know, I
00:22:03
Speaker
They give me pleasure to make them. And then in turn, for whatever reason, other people also get pleasure from looking at them. And I really love that. It's a give give, really. And if it makes people feel happy, then that certainly makes me feel good, too. We started off talking about where you lived in Oregon and lived out here for a bit. And of course,
00:22:33
Speaker
now where you are and it was Barrow, right? That was the name of the town. What level of influence does what's around you and what you see and what's outside the window, does that still impact you as far as what you create compared to when you were doing landscapes and we're kind of painting a bit more of the environment?
00:23:02
Speaker
I guess how much does where you are impact what you're painting right now? I would say right now that basically nothing outside, as in the environment, inspires me. Other than roses occasionally, I will paint them and they're stunning. I'll probably always paint them just as practice. And, you know, if I don't have anything I want to say or play with. But pretty much it's to do with
00:23:32
Speaker
social interaction and and what kind of things i've seen or played out or it could be Something political too that i will just put into play um in the in the form of a character so it's um, it's all made up or it's well The paintings are made up, but it's not because i'm looking out the window at something pretty Sure. Yeah what um How is um
00:24:00
Speaker
How's becoming a mother changed you and changed your art? OK, well, that is one of the reasons I paint pretty fast. I've learned how to do that is to really maximize your time because, you know, back in the day, I'd be standing around all day going, oh, I don't know what to paint. I don't have the inspiration, blah, blah, blah. And what I do realize that it has nothing to do with it. It just has
00:24:30
Speaker
to do with you doing the work and the rest comes. And also having a child and watching their wonder and then being reintroduced into the imaginative side of being a child. There's fairies and they believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and all of that stuff. It's so amazing and so inspiring really.
00:24:57
Speaker
I think all of that really really helps my career in general. I've had a recent interview with the guest and she talked about how she had moved more towards
00:25:14
Speaker
writing and having a small space she's a musician as well and but you know with the apartment and who was around and you can't wake the kids she you know took the you know limitations of the environment and just kind of focused on her writing and she's a brilliant writer um yeah you do what you can you do yeah with the with the environment um yeah that that you're in and that then that makes a lot of sense particularly with you know how time intensive uh some of the processes uh can be so
00:25:42
Speaker
Um, I am going to ask you like, uh, some, some general stuff about, you know, projects you got going on or way people can connect with your work, uh, in, in, in just a tiny bit, but am I to understand that, um, there may be a book of your work, uh, coming out eventually?
Collaboration and Audience Engagement
00:25:57
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Um, um, so I'm illustrating, well, they will be paintings and I have a poet doing, um, amazing poetry. So one, one.
00:26:10
Speaker
poem for each page. Yeah, and it's it's going to be amazing. Her name is Laurie Moores. Yeah. And on some of your postings on Instagram, I believe those have been awards underneath the paintings as well, right? Yeah. Yeah, really. And she works as fast as I do. It takes her two minutes to write the most perfect poem. And it takes me, well, not two minutes, but it takes me an hour to do a painting. So it's just it's one of those things that just has to happen.
00:26:40
Speaker
Yeah, the collision of two phenomenal artists is definitely, we can enjoy the byproduct of that. Yeah, yeah. It wasn't something we planned either. It was just a really strange thing that happened and I was like, we really need to do something with this and so yeah, yeah. The
00:27:04
Speaker
The title of the podcast is something rather than nothing. And this question might annoy you a tiny bit, like the, what is our question? But why is there something rather than nothing? I knew it. I knew this. I knew this is what you were talking about. I knew this was the other question that you were talking about.
00:27:28
Speaker
Um, you can get a smart, what's, what's, what's Australian for smarmy answer? Is it smarmy? Yeah, look, I feel so unprepared for this. It's sort of like, are you talking about, is there a God? Um, because God created something from nothing, right? And the idea behind that, um, I would say, I don't believe in that. Um, I believe there is.
00:27:58
Speaker
there is something rather than nothing if that's anything. Yeah. You got a blank canvas, Vanessa. It's blank, and then you've created something from it. It's really about the act of creation, and that's the piece where I become so interested in why something appears or why something comes out. Wait, from action.
00:28:28
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, what's what's the is there is there a deep smarmy answer is that I mean No, no No, no, that's not that's you know, that's not that's not the aim um so with
00:28:52
Speaker
with, like you said, you had put out, you know, anywhere from like two to five paintings a day. And so we're enjoying, you know, seeing, seeing all of that. But what what ways can you know, I'm over here in the United States, what ways can people who, you know, enjoy your art
00:29:16
Speaker
connect with it in a way that, you know, that you can present to them and, you know, not necessarily connect with you, but connect with what you're doing in your art. Well, I think the easiest place to connect with me is my Instagram page because I'm pretty active on there. I try to respond to people as well if they've got any questions. So that's just my name is Vanessa Stockard. And then I advertise shows and whatever collaborations I'm doing.
00:29:46
Speaker
So yeah, most of the information I just, I use Instagram as a platform for that. And that's, there's, there's plenty there and that's, that's a fantastic place. I wanted to ask you, and I know you don't do as many of them right now, but I'm just curious as, you know, I paint, I paint myself in almost like paint myself in the sense of,
00:30:13
Speaker
when you've done the self-portrait in that process. The question is just really limited to when you've done that and you've looked at your self-portrait, what do you feel? The good part about doing self-portraits is you can just learn. And how do I feel? Well, I don't really feel anything in particular because I'm not trying to impress anyone other than
00:30:44
Speaker
get some sort of a likeness. But what I have noticed is that the way that I see myself every day is so different. And I don't think I've got a real handle on the way that I look a lot of the time, you know. My husband laughs at me a lot. He just goes, ness, your ears aren't, they're not that long. Look, I'll show you. I'm going to measure your ears. He's like, you know, like your jaw, you don't have a big jaw ness. I'm like,
00:31:12
Speaker
Yes, I do. Look, I'll show you. Yeah, I get I get laughed at a lot, actually, with my self-portraits. So I don't know. I just I find them that they're pretty fascinating, really, from day to day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was just really wondering, just a very
00:31:32
Speaker
curious about that you know such an intimate connection with you know with that and just wonder what your impressions are i do have to say that during the recording of this podcast my cat mrs mio wallace um named after the pulp fiction character um uh clawed my leg in his drawn blood so you know i'm i'm i i wasn't sure i mean i i'm a cat lover i'm i wasn't sure about your heaven and hell cat theory but
00:32:01
Speaker
Yeah, it just tells when you spend a little time, you know, when you spend a little time together, you might end up discovering that you might share more in common than I do right now as I'm have a bleeding. So not not enough to cut the podcast short. But Vanessa, I do want I do want to tell you that just from my perspective, I've been doing this podcast
00:32:31
Speaker
Since July and I think I told you early on it's a lot of fun. It's a great joy of mine in and I'm proud of it Part of that is being able to to talk with An artist yourself a painter who I just get so much, you know daily enjoyment at looking at what you create so I wanted to just directly
00:32:53
Speaker
Thank you for that, for what you do, but also for spending the time, limited time as you described with your schedule to appear on the podcast. I just wanted to extend that deep thanks. And actually just the fact that I'm simply thrilled to be doing this podcast with you. And I just wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for that. Thank you so much. It's been so fun and thanks for asking me the hard questions.
00:33:22
Speaker
I'm slightly sweating and it's a really cold day. But I'll recover, no problem. I'll just get back to work. No, it's been great. It's been really entertaining for me to try and answer your questions as well. So thank you so much. Thank you so much, Vanessa. And I look forward each day to seeing the beautiful art you make. Thanks so much. Thank you. Bye now.
00:33:56
Speaker
You are the queen of pumpings rather than nothing.