Trenton ReynoldsThis is the Dabalon Podcast. My name is Trent Reynolds and I am talking to artists about the art materials and techniques they're inspired by. This is episode number one. Number one. So I would like to share some of the ideas that are motivating this podcast. Art materials aren't just the tools artists use to express themselves. Often the materials are also the inspiration that motivates an artist to create. You might have heard artists talk about creativity as a two-way process, and not just an artist imposing their will onto their medium of choice. It's a conversation. Materials each have a unique voice. They teach and inspire. They are the muse and the adversary. So the question I want to explore in this podcast is, why do artists choose the materials they create with? And how do those materials inspire them and empower them to create? I love learning about new materials and techniques and what they make possible. So selfishly, I'm here to learn and feed my own art materials habit. I'm also here, however, to learn and feed my own art materials habit. As a teacher of and a believer in the importance of creativity and creation. The world is full of opportunities for us to create order, meaning, and beauty. To become more complete and more fulfilled. So I'm also recording this podcast to encourage more people, you... to stop waiting and wondering and get busy making art. Get your hands dirty and let the raw materials of art making inspire you. I would like for this podcast to last, to go the distance. It takes time and money to make this thing, which is where you come in. If you like what you hear, please consider subscribing at dabalon.com. That's D-A-B-B-L-E-O-N dot com, which is my personal website where I host art classes and many other art-related projects in addition to this podcast. If you don't want to subscribe, you can also make a one-time contribution, which would also be very much appreciated. Another way to support this podcast in a very important and massively helpful way is to leave me a five-star review on Apple podcasts and to share it with a friend or more than one friend. And now let's get to it. For my very first guest I invited on my good friend Jackie Leishman. It was a wonderful conversation as expected and I hope you enjoy it. Here's my conversation with artist Jackie Leishman. In my periphery as I'm watching images go by on Instagram and seems like I'm hearing about lots of shows that you're in and artwork that's being bought and yeah there's a lot of art being bought which is fantastic that is fantastic so so give me give me the overview where what's been happening well i mean um i had
Jackie Leishmanquite a few things kind of lined up and then you know um all of that got put on hold uh for right now, but, um, you know, there's still a lot of people that are buying my work and, um, just based off of Instagram, truly. I mean, uh, which I find to be incredible.
Trenton ReynoldsWell, tell me how that works. Cause that's, that's actually something I'm sure a lot of people are interested in, but I know personally I've, I've been a little bit hesitant and not really known how to approach selling work on Instagram or like what's, what's your general process? Honestly, I don't quite understand it either.
Jackie LeishmanAnd so, um, you know, I see people have a lot of different kind of methods about it. I've always, I kind of was just using Instagram as kind of a, just a way to put my work out there. Right. Cause it's kind of the great equalizer. I felt like, um, you know, especially, um, when I was in graduate school and afterwards and social media wasn't really that big yet. There were so many gatekeepers for your art to be seen, right? By the general public. I mean, if, if the galleries didn't want it, no one was going to see it. And I feel like social media has kind of allowed more people's work to be seen. I've really enjoyed that. And so I was using Instagram as that and then just as a way for people to see what I'm doing. And then I would get these DMs, you know, saying, well, how much is that? you know, I want to buy that. And it's like, oh, okay. You know, so it was kind of this very organic thing and it still is for me, although I did put a store on my website to make it easier
Trenton Reynoldsfor people. So, so on Instagram, will you, when you make a new piece, you'll post that on Instagram always, or is that just like you, you have a, like a select number of things that you'll post on Instagram and then the rest on your website?
Jackie LeishmanNo, it's usually I post on Instagram. Like, you know, I use Instagram as just kind of a way to give a peek into my studio life, right? Like what I'm reading, what I'm thinking about, you know, a little bit, get to know kind of... there's more that goes into the work than just what's visual, right? And so, you know, just to give people a little glimpse of that, you know, I'm not the best at that. I'm sure I could do videos and do more, but that's kind of where I'm at in my comfort level of what I'm willing to share. And, um, Yeah, so and then as something's finished, you know, it also goes up there. Sometimes I show things in process, you know, and it'll say it's in process. I don't necessarily say if it's for sale or not. And people have just reached out to me. And so that's something I'm thinking about going forward. Do I let people know if the piece is available, you know, in the initial post? Is that something I want to do? You know, because in a lot of ways, it makes it feel cheap to me. It feels like I'm always trying to sell something to people. That's not necessarily the plan, although I do want the work to sell because I am an artist and I do want the work to go out into the world. And, you know, I want to have the money to keep making more work.
Trenton ReynoldsLike there's a I don't know if it's it's romance or if it's snobbery or. or exactly what it is that's built into us when we go to grad school. But it seems like, and I'm curious to get your opinion, in grad school you learn that you shouldn't show your work in certain contexts, like you wouldn't want to show your work in a coffee shop, because that kind of sets up an expectation for pricing. Yeah. Or you wouldn't want to show in a certain kind of gallery, maybe like kind of a crafty gallery that's showing a lot of different – anyway, I think over the course of – you get kind of indoctrinated with how you ought to present your work. And again, I don't know if it's like this kind of pretentiousness or – But I feel that in myself kind of leaking into what I feel comfortable sharing on social media and how I present it. Because I guess maybe there's an underlying fear that if I present it in a certain way, it will cheapen the work or kind of shoot myself in the foot or whatever. you know, somehow not feel authentic or, you know, or appropriately valued or does that make
Jackie Leishmansense? Oh, I completely understand that. I do think grad school does a lot of good things for us. And I think it does some really bad things. Right. Um, Because at the end of the day, unless you have a trust fund, you do need to sell that work. Absolutely. I think I'm going to kind of go off on a tangent here, but it's something I often think about. And I wish that there would be more of a conversation about who is going to be your patron. I mean, not everybody's independently wealthy. If you are, then good for you. I mean, that's great. You can be as free as you want to be. But for the majority of people that want to be artists, they're not. And so they can either choose to be their own patron, meaning they go get a different job, right? And then that supports their art making. Right. if they're lucky, their art can support them, but then that becomes a little dangerous because you don't want to get pigeonholed. You know what I mean? You have to keep making a certain thing to sell, and then maybe you do that, and then you have something else that, because if that becomes dry to you or whatever, but it's making you money, make sure you still have the time. Then you view that as your job, and then you have a separate project time to do Like your creative whatever is now creative for you or you you know your patron could be your spouse your partner It could be you know a parent whatever it may be But I think we have to be very upfront about what that is
right
Jackie LeishmanI don't know. Do you agree with that?
Trenton ReynoldsNo, absolutely. But I think, you know, I wonder if it's not just part of people who gravitate toward being an artist and making art, that there's a romance behind, you know, not... bringing up the practical reality that we need to eat, you know, it's like, or, you know, or supporters of like, like we actually need money, you know, cause that's the medium of
Jackie Leishmanexchange in our world. Right. So yeah, no, there is this romantic, yeah, it's kind of a romantic
Trenton Reynoldsnotion of artists. And so acknowledging that and, and bringing that up or as a topic of discussion, just having frank practical discussion on how to, the mechanics of that. I think we all just kind of shy or, you know, generally shy away from it. And we're not kind of oriented to that, you know, perhaps enough.
Jackie LeishmanYeah. You know, I mean, I have my undergraduate degree in international finance. And so I have never viewed business as a dry medium. So for me, like I didn't, I don't find when like artists talk about business side, like for me, I don't feel like they're not being true to their artist self by being that way. Right. But to go to this point about the Instagram, it's a balance. It's I want it to be a place where people kind of can share in my process and see what I'm thinking about and know that they can support that. I always want them to know, like if, you know, supporting me as an artist, that means a lot to me. I mean, it's a. because my friends, you know, are always saying, like, I think people, it's not just what the art looks like, but it's about, they want to support the person too. Right. You know, they kind of want the story behind the work, right? And there's nothing wrong with that. I want to give people a little bit of that story. um Because I like that about artists. I want to know their stories. I'm always reading artists' biographies and listening to interviews. And I find that to all be super fascinating. And as I learn more about certain artists, I actually like them less. you know and I'm not talking about anybody that's alive today but you know the more I've kind of always had a love-hate relationship with Gauguin and I now just hate Gauguin like I don't have very much love for him or his art at all anymore and it's you know as I learned more about him And I find that to be an interesting thing. So I hope the opposite is true that as people learn more, like I hope that they love the work first. I hope it can stand without me standing next to it talking about it. That's always the goal. Like it needs to be an independent entity from me. And then I hope as people learn more about it, it only becomes richer for them.
Trenton ReynoldsI wonder about that though, what you just said, that the work ought to be able to stand on its own. I understand intellectually that idea and something in me believes that wholeheartedly. But I guess I question it a little bit just because... You know, artwork is a medium, not just, you know, of creating an isolated thing. I'm kind of thinking maybe an appropriate metaphor is like having a child. You have a child, you want them to be their own, you know, agent, their own individual being in the world. But that child also represents and is connected to a history, a family, parents. They were a representative of various communities that they're involved in. So there is a kind of a connective tissue there that I feel like sometimes we want to disconnect and kind of isolate the artwork from. Does that make sense?
Jackie LeishmanNo, I hear you on that. I do. I guess what I'm talking about is a lot about... conceptual art, a lot of art where I don't feel like it can stand on its own. I don't think it's about a visual product at all. It's more about an idea. Right, for sure. And those things are valid. I'm not saying they're not valid, but that's not the business that I'm in. I am about making something that is visual. And I want it to be able to be understood on its own terms, which are visual. It's a visual language. It's a visual medium. So I want it to have that. And then I want whatever went into it, like all the thoughts and the things about me to only make it that much better. But does that make sense?
Trenton Reynolds- Yeah, I think we're agreeing. I think it's the same thing as like, you want, again, to go back to the kind of child metaphor, you want them to be their own person. - Yes. - And then it just becomes all the more meaningful and more endearing to find out about their history and their family and, you know. - Absolutely. I thought you would be the perfect person to talk about for this first episode of my brand new podcast. It is something that I've been thinking about for such a long time. And everything you just said about, you know, this, about loving artists and loving learning about their process, loving, you know, That's what I want this to be. I guess I'm most interested in the artist, the materials that they use and why, the how and why. I think the materials themselves and the materials we choose and the techniques we choose speak volumes about the artist. you know, personality, their being, you know, who they are. And I guess I'm interested in kind of going into seeing artists through the lens, I guess, of their chosen media. Anyway, I'm kind of overstating the purpose here. But what... What I think is particularly interesting to me about you and always has been, and I guess an affinity I have or a kinship I feel with you, is that you have a background in photography.
Mm-hmm.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd seem to always be trying to find ways to... combine photography with like studio practices or break photography out of just, you know, a piece of paper that's in a frame on a wall. Um, and then now you're in a place where I don't see nearly as much photography in what you're making right now, but I guess I'm, I'm interested in having that conversation of like how that might still be. I don't know, a mindset or an influence or a presence in, even in what you're doing now and how, uh, I don't know that, that kind of, uh, tension between those two worlds. And then also just, uh, maybe getting into the specific materials you're using and, and why you've chosen them, what they do for you and how you feel like they're able to, uh, influence. communicate what you're about. So there's a lot there. Yeah, yeah. But let's start with the photography part. You started with photography. Can you give us a little bit of background there?
Jackie LeishmanYeah, so, yeah, I love photography. And I think I initially, when I started taking it more seriously, I was in college. um i had a boyfriend that was taking a photography class and so i would go to the dark room with him and i fell in love with the dark room and you know so much so that more like that i was way more into it than he was and um he was like why don't you just take the class yourself you know this whole i was like okay i will and i had an amazing photography professor her name's cheryl harrison and um she saw something in me and really encouraged me and you know said you you might have a gift here and soon after that class I actually went and did a study abroad program in Paris and um you know, ended up hanging out with a lot of photographers and artists in Paris. And I was like, this is what I want to do with my life. And I ended up doing a summer program in Montana that was all about photography and just it was my thing. It just, it felt so natural. It gave me, I still love, I loved the dark room. I mean, I think that was kind of my, the image was always secondary to what I could do with it in the dark room.
Trenton ReynoldsSo tell me about that. What do you remember specifically? Was it sight sounds? Was it the magic of seeing the image appear?
Jackie LeishmanIt was kind of the science of it, the chemistry of it. I mean, I really love science. Um, and I just loved kind of the tinkering of it and yeah, the magic, right? Like this idea of taking an image and you don't quite know what's going to happen. Like until you see it kind of develop and the developer, right. And kind of emerge. And I loved the magic of that. I loved that sense of surprise, um, And then, you know, how I could later, you know, as I grew in my skill level, I could really start to manipulate photographs in the dark room and really do some really interesting things with the materials. But in the taking of the images... It was a way of being able to see the world in a different way. And I think, you know, Sarah Moon, a really famous fashion, she's French fashion photographer, said she photographs because she wants to see what something looks like photographed. And I've always found that to be a profound statement.
Yeah.
Jackie LeishmanIt's like there's something about the learning of it. And it was interesting because, you know, I mainly worked only in black and white because I liked working in the dark room. And I grew so that I actually didn't see color for many years. I mean, it's like I could see color. It's not like the... But, like, I was only... really looking at light and shadow and form. And like I could envision something so much better in black and white than I could in the color. Like the color was a distraction to me from the essence of whatever it was. So, you know, I did that for years and, you know, I ended up going to graduate school for photography. And as I, you know, got further into the program and I had a fantastic, uh, mentor there, you know, he, he ran the photography department, um, Lon Clark and he saw that I was just pushing against these like ideas in photography, that everything had to be clean and precise and, you know, the zone system and all that. And, you know, all of that's valid. I'm not saying like, that's not, it's just, It felt so confining to me. And I think a lot of people that really get into photography, they want to talk about their lenses and, you know, all this kind of stuff. It's all about the gear. And for me, it was always about something beyond that. It wasn't about the gear for me. It was about the ideas behind the image making. So he encouraged me to take paper making classes and, you know, sculpture classes and metal and, you know, all of these kinds of things which, you know, were really outside of the photography purview of where I was, but they really saved me and I had, you know, some professors that really introduced me to some artists that were really questioning the photograph and doing interesting things with it. And I ended up after graduating interning with the Starn twins for a summer in Brooklyn at their studio, who they were doing fantastic things with photography. So I feel like I just had a lot of exposure to thinking outside the box of what the photograph could or should be, that it was now just seen as a tool, not as the end, you know, as the end object. It was a tool in my tool belt that I could use because, you know, after a while, I would only photograph a few times a year and then I would work with those photographs. for months. You know, I wasn't the kind that was shooting all the time. And, you know, everybody that's a real, I'm putting that in quotes, a real photographer, they shoot every day. They always have a camera on them and all of this. And so it just, I felt really conflicted about that. And then as, you know time went on and I started to have a family at the same time that I started to have a family dark rooms just died you know everything became digital and I realized that I don't like sitting in front of a computer um you know the the the image making was never you know the number one for me it was like number two or three on the list of you know priorities of you know in my And so I had to take a few years while I was having kids, I had to reinvent myself as an artist to say, if I can't have a dark room anymore, what do I do? Because I was printing photographs on collages and metal and, you know, like really different materials and being still very experimental and creative. I really loved that. But, you know, when that was all gone, you know, I tried to work with printers and doing things. And I got all the stuff that, you know, you can have to, you know, I was running everything through printers and, you know, ruining printer after printer. And, you know, I was just doing things and it just all felt great. it felt so mechanical in some way, even the way the ink sat on the paper for a digital print, even if I coated it with, you know, these things that you can, you know, can coat it on like fabrics and, you know, more other papers, like it all just still, it didn't feel the same as when I could work in the dark room. And so, uh, The textures were wrong. The blacks were wrong. I couldn't get them how I wanted. And so I spent years just experimenting. And I don't know what happened. I just started making just collages without the images. I mean, I still had a lot of imagery and I'd cut it up and it would go into the collage until finally... there's very little of the photograph left.
Trenton ReynoldsI wonder if you've had the experience that I have, is as you have a family, as you start having kids, there's this winnowing that happens just naturally because you don't have as much time. And necessarily things just have to be shed naturally And it kind of just naturally refines what you're doing to the most essential because there's just a practicality of the amount of time and energy and resources you have. Yeah, it could be. Do you think that's... Did you think that's part of it? Just like having kids is just make forces you to, to figure out what is the most essential.
Jackie LeishmanYou know, I've never thought about that because for me it was that there were no dark rooms anymore for me to work in.
Like it was, it's,
Jackie LeishmanThat was the issue. But yeah, maybe it was also a time thing.
Trenton ReynoldsDo you think if there were dark rooms reintroduced, like somehow they become popular again and people want to go out and do that, do you think you'd go back to that? Or do you think you've...
Jackie LeishmanNo, I thought about it recently, because I'm in the process of building an art studio.
And...
Jackie LeishmanYou know, my husband's asked me, do you want to have space in there for a dark room? And I said, I don't want to sacrifice the space for that because the way that I work in a dark room is I can get everything done I need in three weeks.
Mm-hmm.
Jackie LeishmanYou know, if I go, like, if I can just rent someone's dark room for a week, but I have to have complete control over that dark room. I mean, the way that I work is I cannot work with other people in the space. If I could do that... I'd be set. I had not found anybody that will allow me to work like that, um, in LA. Um, and you know, I kind of stopped looking after a while, but the, you know, it's the thing like, yeah, I think I would totally go right back in there and I would do it. And I, and I think the work would be even better than what I was doing before. Um, And so I need to think about, you know, and see if I can find somebody to do that for. But, you know, right now there's things about photography that still show up in my work, which I find to be really interesting in the sense of, you know, I do printmaking, you know, I draw using a printmaking technique and it's, you know, not really typical. And I come from printmaking, not really having any printmaking experience at all. So I just kind of make up my own ways of doing it. And, um, but I draw on the backs of the paper. So it picks up the ink on the front. You know, I coat a piece of acrylic, you know, with my ink and then I put the paper face down and I draw on the back with my hands, with scissors, with dried out pens. So I can't actually see what I'm drawing and I draw, and you have to think of the composition backwards. And I often do it upside down as well. And it's, It's the same as looking through an 8x10 camera, right? Because it was always upside down and backwards and your brain would have to flip it around to make sense of it Yeah, that's interesting. I'm actually drawing in the way that I used to look all the time through a viewfinder and I think that's fascinating and My drawing is only in black and white. I also find that to be interesting. I don't draw in any other colors and um so like the bones of the piece right the essential of what it's about is still very much referencing how i used to see and and how i make sense of the world um you know and then the collage materials kind of come in and that's where the color may or may come you know not come into the piece depending on what it's about but um Yeah, I find that, you know, these kind of these references to they don't leave you like your education and how you're formed and shaped and how you see the world. It's the same whether I'm using an 8 by 10 camera or now I'm drawing, you know, blind pretty much, you know, I can't see the drawing because I choose to use things that I can't see with my because I also like the magic of seeing what happens, right? It's that dark room moment, right? It's the developer and it's slowly emerging. I turn the drawing back over and I can see it again. I find that to be so satisfying, you know, and it's, It works for me. I don't know if it would work for anybody else.
Trenton ReynoldsI think that's really interesting. You found a way to introduce a process that brings back some of the alchemy, some of the magic of developing a black and white photograph. I think there's something so important there. For me, one of the things that I struggle with is I tend to get too locked in, too tight about how I'm rendering. I've got too much control. So to combat that, what I do is I tend to take a piece of sandpaper and periodically just cut give my best scrub over the whole thing just to like have a physical representation that, you know, you can't get too precious about this stuff, you know. Anyway, I think it's interesting how we find processes to kind of combat or reintroduce the important I don't know, psychological or emotional aspects of the creative process. And it's interesting to me that your entry point into art making was that magic in the dark room. And you found a way to translate that into a studio art practice. That's, I don't know, that's...
That's really cool.
Jackie LeishmanYeah, well, I mean, I had to, right? I mean, it's not like I was going to stop making.
Right.
Jackie LeishmanBut I made a lot of bad stuff for a long time.
Trenton ReynoldsWell, that's also key. That perhaps is the most important lesson is that you just got to be willing to... to make a lot of bad stuff to get to the good stuff.
Jackie LeishmanYeah. And I mean, also part, I mean, talking about materials and process, like I don't throw anything away. So all those mistakes that I made, all the things that, you know, were on the they're in bins that I end up tearing up and putting in another piece. So for me, they don't feel like failures. And, you know, something that I've been thinking about lately, because as I've been trying to figure out what I'm doing, um, you know, I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but it's like you go into the studio and you have all these great ideas and you do them, right? And you're like, man, I'm really in the zone and this is fantastic, you know, and then you're done with your session for that day. And then you, you go back the next day and you're like, what happened here? I can't, this is horrible. All these ideas are like the worst. I can't even, I can't even look at it. It's hard for me. You know, and so the beauty about collage is, you know, well, I just start covering them up again. But I love having them peek out. I love having those mistakes and layers peek out from the work. And I also realized that I can't. I have to believe that every mark I'm making is the right one while I'm working. It can't be like, "Oh, I'll just cover this up later." It doesn't really matter. No, it matters. It matters a lot that each day I show up, I do my very best and I try to make the best choices that I can that day. And then the next day, a new person steps in, right? And it's like, wow. Either, you know, sometimes it's still good. And sometimes it's like, no, that was really wrong. You really went down a bad path. But it's not like I'm beating myself up about it either.
Trenton ReynoldsI think that's so interesting because I'm totally opposite. Like, I cannot believe that. I can't let myself believe that what I'm doing right now is...
matters. Oh, okay.
Trenton ReynoldsI don't know if that's the right way of saying it, but for me, when I start a piece, I need to scribble. I need to just destroy the perfectness of the white canvas. Get something on there that purposefully is ugly, nasty, wrong color, wrong line in the wrong place. Something just to destroy the pristineness. And also it's something to go up against. True. Yeah. But I always need to know that it's like, I can, I can, it's no big deal. I can just, I can just get rid of it. You know, I, this, this doesn't matter what I'm doing right now. You know, this isn't the real thing yet. You know, like the real thing's going to come later.
Jackie LeishmanThat's interesting. Cause I feel like the energy of whatever that was is still in my work. even if no one can see it, the energy of it is still there in the work. And I take that seriously. Not that like, it's like a weight on my shoulders, like everything you need to make, but it's like today, this is what I think there should be this blue line here. And then the next day it's like, wow, that is really the wrong blue, but it will still peak out. You know what I mean? And so, and it will end up somehow working.
Right.
Jackie LeishmanAnd I find that to be, it's almost like, Like it's like how I'm trying to make sense of my life, you know or life in general like there's so much There's so much bad and this is something I kind of you know, I feel like every artist Has something that's like they're like Center, right? That's like kind of what all their work is about even if they make work about lots of different things There's usually something that is kind of the unifier in it. And I feel like mine is tension. And it's this idea that I constantly live with tension. I believe all things could be true and nothing could be true all at the same time. You know, it's this idea of both and. And so is there a way... that can live visually in a piece. I find that to be fascinating. So whether it's I'm doing landscapes that aren't really about landscapes, but about inner things, or if it's about figures that aren't necessarily about figures either. It's this idea of tension. And sometimes it's visual, right? Visual tension. But sometimes it's the ideas that are behind it that are at tension and they're manifesting, right? So yeah. I don't know. I just, I think it's, for me, it's important to understand that about the work because it gives me a way to approach it. And, you know, I was doing this workshop, the lawn Clark, who I was talking about at my graduate program, he left soon after I finished and started his own school in San Francisco. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, I would go back for workshops and there was this one that we were doing. I think it was a figure drawing workshop. Yeah. And as we were like looking at all the work that we had made over the period of three days, um, you know, he asked like, well, which one was the hardest for you to do, but which one, you know, and then it was like, we talked about it and he's like, well, which one is the, you know, the strongest. And it's usually the one that we had the most difficulty with. And he He was like, why is that? And for me, the answer was drawing from a figure in front of me is unbelievably difficult because I'm going up against the real spatial constraints. How far away is this thing? All these ideas that kind of... But for me, having something to bump up against... makes the work even better. Like for me, I love seeing that struggle of trying to find the line. And if I'm just like working from my imagination, like I can get really carried away with myself so much that it ends up a pile of mess. But if there's something that is like a wall that I keep hitting, so then I have to kind of veer, it always makes the work stronger. And sometimes my walls are ideas and sometimes they are visual, you know, physical things that I'm looking at. But it seems like that you're constructing that on your own canvas.
Hmm.
Jackie LeishmanYou know, with your whatever, you know, just to kind of mess up. You can't help but then have to, whether or not you cover it up, you still have to confront that line or scribble or color that you did.
Trenton ReynoldsRight. That's an interesting way of seeing it, seeing it as a wall or an obstacle or something. Because it is enabling in a way, right? It's both, it's, I guess, simultaneously restrictive and enabling. It, you know, puts a barrier.
Jackie LeishmanFor which you can be free in, which I find, again,
Trenton ReynoldsAnd that's the ultimate paradox, right? Perhaps is that... You need both. You need the... In order to be free, you have to have parameters. Yeah. You have to have constraints.
Jackie LeishmanYes. I talk to my students about this all the time. There's that movie that was at Sundance, I don't know, a long time ago called The Five Obstructions, which is very much about this idea of constraints and constraints. the more constraints you have, the better the art becomes. Really fascinating film. But, you know, I'm talking to students, like I said, what's the most paralyzing thing for an artist? And they're like, you know, you telling us what to make. You know, it's always about me, like telling them what to make. Right. You know, and I'm like, I actually think the most paralyzing thing is for me to not tell you anything. You can use any material, make anything you want, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like you can be paralyzed by options. For sure. And you can just spend hours doing a bunch of nothing, being paralyzed, because you can't figure out what to do, how to go forward. So, yeah, I think constraints are really helpful, and it is a paradox, and it's also one that I find in my life, too. Yeah. And yet I kind of acted out in the studio. So I find that to be an interesting process too.
Trenton ReynoldsWell, speaking of constraints, one other thing that I would like to kind of dig into is another aspect of your work that I appreciate and that seems like an important thing is kind of going beyond the rectangle. Right, so in photography I know you were tearing up photographs, you were taping them together, you were doing multi-layers so it became more three-dimensional. And in your painting, now you're, I don't know how long you've been doing this, but it's a relatively new thing I think that you're painting on unstretched canvases, right?
Jackie LeishmanYeah, I do that sometimes. Mainly I'm working on paper, but so interesting that you bring this up because that is, I want the work to become less and less about the rectangle.
Trenton ReynoldsWhat does that represent to you? Why is that important?
Jackie LeishmanI'm not sure, actually. You know, my current body of work, which is all these, like, landscapes, you know, which was inspired by Yosemite and mainly the American West landscape, you know, kind of the skin of the land and the piece of wild things, like these poems that are about nature. The body of work right before that, which... I'm still fascinated by, and it kind of got looked over as this other work kind of came online and people really liked it. But it was about the creation of elements. And I did not work in a rectangular frame for most of it. And I still look at that work and I somehow want to merge those ideas that I was working with because they feel like maquettes for like bigger things, right? with these landscaping things that I'm doing. And I haven't taken the leap yet. That's something I've been writing about just recently about how to go about that. And I do think the unstretched canvas is part of it. I think sewing is part of it. So because I use sewing as a way to draw, um it was so interesting i my sewing machine i thought was broken but it's because i actually don't know how to use it that well until we went to this shop to get it fixed and she's like oh you just have this like that's all that you needed to do and i was like oh okay and then she starts asking me all these questions about my sewing machine i'm like i have no idea what you're talking about i only use it to draw lines like you know all this all these words you're telling me i are beyond my understanding. I just want to be able to use this to make lines. So it was just like, I was like, wow, I'm really out of my depths with this woman and her sewing abilities. But I think that,
I think that,
Jackie LeishmanI think there's something about, I don't like being put in a box and I don't like my ideas being put in a box. And so I want the work to reflect that. I want the work to feel like it could go in different directions. I don't know if that really answers it, but I mean, that's where I'm beginning to go with it.
Trenton ReynoldsI think it's just interesting in the context of what we were just talking about with constraints. Like that particular constraint is one that you don't want to respect or that is not a productive constraint for you.
No. Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsWhereas a lot of people, I think myself included, a lot of times it's helpful to me. It's empowering to me to have that decision made and to have that assumption always be there. That these are the boundaries of whatever it is I'm creating. And that frees me up to just focus on what's going on. I say that also, I've personally been exploring shaped canvases or shaped surfaces as well, so that's not entirely true, but I think that for many people is the case, knowing that the format is set. you know, is empowering. Whereas it sounds to me like that's something that is always kind of been nagging. And I think all of us probably have, you know, some people don't like the constraints of certain media and feel like it's not quite enough or not enabling them to get where they want to go.
Jackie LeishmanYeah, no, I agree. And it's figuring out why. I mean, I feel like you kind of find your way into that answer, right? But you have to understand the question that you're asking. Like, why is it that I can't stand hard edges?
Trenton ReynoldsRight. I think that's so interesting. And you know my studio mate, David. Yes. David Wood. So I look at his work and he does these big shaped combinations of different pieces of huge cuts of wood that he makes. And then he's got all sorts of different media that are combined. I looked at those shapes and they're so... clearly and authentically embody him and his personality. Like I could not, if I saw a painting that he did that was rectangular, I think. You know, you say, David, what's wrong? He's like, what happened? I think I'd have a hard time feeling like David was there.
Right. I don't know. I think so.
Trenton ReynoldsSo interesting how how we kind of find a way to embody ourselves in these objects that we make. or have them be an authentic expression of something that is core to who we are. Anyway, I look at your work, and there is that authenticity there that is so compelling and makes me... Some work I feel like you can look at and you're like, I'm not sure if... if I'm seeing somebody here or if I'm seeing a projection of something they want to be. Does that make sense? All the time. And then, and then, uh, you know, sometimes you come across work and you're like, you really get a sense for a human being, for a soul, for an identity behind that work. And, uh, that's something that I've always felt about your work and, uh, you know, definitely appreciate. And, thank you Trent that means a lot and for that reason and many others it was a pleasure to have you be the first guest on this show thanks for making the time
Jackie Leishmanyes no I'm excited for this podcast that you're doing that's I love that you're constantly not reinventing, but like experimenting. It feels like wild experimentation. And I love that.
Trenton ReynoldsThat is part of who I'm just accepting I am, is I am a compulsive dabbler. I cannot stay still in one place doing the same thing for too long. Like I'm always just feel like I'm looking for the next thing to learn about and try. And for better or for worse, we are who we are. Thank you, Jackie, for making time to talk with me. If you're interested in learning more about Jackie and seeing more of her work, you can go directly to her website at JackieLeishman.com. That's spelled J-A-C-K-I-E-L-E-I-S-H-M-A-N.com. And I will also put a link to her site in the show notes at dablon.com. forward slash podcast. Join me every week for another artist interview, subscribe, or make a one-time contribution to support this podcast at dablon.com. That's D-A-B-B-L-E-O-N.com where you can also find more information about my art classes and other art related content. And most importantly go make something find a tube of paint to squish out cut up an old painting glue it back together Get messy
♪