WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:01:17.240 It is Friday, July 26th, 2016. This is Room in the Trees, a podcast about acquiring, having, and growing. transporting, storing, shipping, using, and loving stuff. I guess we hope it's more about actually making the stuff. We make stuff around here. The following was recorded on July 7th, 2016. This is episode number 14, Textured Stuff. Room in the Trees is hosted by Sabrina Harrison and me, Trent Reynolds. including pictures, links, video, and more for every episode can be found at roominthetrees.com. Please, please, please help us reach more people by writing us a review at iTunes.com. And if you like the podcast, please consider subscribing at patreon.com/room. As promised, this week we will be talking about stuff. and there is a lot to cover. 00:01:18.380 --> 00:01:19.080 Here it is. 00:01:19.720 --> 00:01:21.280 I would have been out here a little bit sooner, 00:01:21.440 --> 00:01:25.600 but they gave me the wrong dressing room, and I couldn't find any place to put my stuff. 00:01:25.800 --> 00:01:38.020 Do you remember talking about the comedian George Carlin? Mm-hmm. And remember his piece about stuff? place for my stuff you know how important that is yeah we gotta yeah we gotta put that in show notes 00:01:38.020 --> 00:01:42.480 i thought it'd be interesting to talk a little bit about stuff 00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:50.400 and is there uh an event that's happened this week that's making there is yeah 00:01:51.200 --> 00:02:08.400 It was a week ago today that, which is incredible what can happen in seven days, a week ago today, my dad and my friend Emily were in Portland, Oregon, going through my stuff, and now my stuff is here. 00:02:08.400 --> 00:02:10.860 And I'm sitting on my stuff right now. 00:02:13.400 --> 00:02:18.860 How much stuff are we talking about? What's the poundage? 00:02:19.660 --> 00:02:22.820 We're talking 600 pounds. 00:02:23.220 --> 00:02:25.460 We're talking 600 pounds. 00:02:25.660 --> 00:02:29.120 That is 600 pounds that Sabrina solely lifted. 00:02:30.100 --> 00:02:31.600 upstairs. 00:02:32.620 --> 00:02:37.000 How did you do that? So you rented a truck to go get this stuff, right? 00:02:37.560 --> 00:02:40.920 I did. Happily, the press was Zip Cars. I rented a pickup truck. 00:02:41.420 --> 00:02:43.680 And how did you get the stuff in the truck? 00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:57.940 I got the stuff. Well, the funny part is that I talked to Emily afterwards. She's like, yeah, your dad was pretty over it. 00:03:00.540 --> 00:03:26.320 I can just picture the whole situation right now. He's like, he was pretty over it. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. so when it was wheeled off so i went over there to amtrak in milwaukee and there was 20 boxes like okay 20 boxes 00:03:47.200 --> 00:04:08.000 there's a random backpack just like tossed in the pile it was like there was like one of the things I asked for was all my DV tapes of the past 15 or 18 years of my life that I've been carefully not really carefully but definitely documenting and recording it I thought I've ever gonna make a little film or do a documentary about you know 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:13.060 projects in the True Living Project, like these are vital. They're not backed up. I don't have 00:04:13.060 --> 00:04:31.180 them, I don't transport it onto hard drives or anything. And so I asked, they're very special if you find them. So I opened this thing that looks like a pizza box. The tape is not even really on it. Like it didn't, I didn't have to cut any tape away. I just opened it and there was all my DV tapes. I'm like, oh, cool. 00:04:32.600 --> 00:04:34.240 Glad they made them. 00:04:35.060 --> 00:04:36.640 Let's hope they play. 00:04:37.440 --> 00:04:47.800 But super cheap. If anyone out there is booming stuff, 600 pounds of stuff costs $397. 00:04:48.860 --> 00:04:51.980 Wow. That's amazing. 00:04:52.720 --> 00:05:02.580 Even like one package to France with normal mail could cost that much. it was a pretty heavy package 00:05:02.580 --> 00:05:09.820 600 pounds of stuff across the country yep 00:05:09.820 --> 00:05:11.580 so 00:05:11.580 --> 00:05:22.000 so you've got mini DVs in there and what other kinds of stuff were you talking about well 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:23.200 um 00:05:23.200 --> 00:05:28.220 Random stuff. I don't know if it... 00:05:28.220 --> 00:05:29.800 Well... 00:05:29.800 --> 00:05:32.340 Let me tell you one more thing about... 00:05:32.340 --> 00:05:32.860 Okay. 00:05:32.980 --> 00:05:44.500 I really want to talk about the storage, because storage... I don't know people listening. Storage has been a big, big part of my life. Big... I don't know if you have anything in storage, but... 00:05:44.500 --> 00:05:53.860 I'm also curious, you as being a part of a family where you have children and then their stuff, and what do you decide to get rid of? 00:05:56.080 --> 00:06:48.940 Something I want to bring up real quick, but we'll talk about after in regards to stuff. I've found that not having room to store stuff has affected for sure the kind of artwork that I make. I would love to make... bigger things, you know, but just I know I don't have anywhere to put them. And then that and then, oh, there's something else that I was thinking about just in terms of stuff. Anyway, like how, oh, like I get students or I talked to, especially like kids in college, there's this anxiety about producing more junk for landfills. And like almost that making artwork is immoral in that sense. Like we're just making more trash for the earth. Anyway, we'll talk about that at some other point. I just wanted to throw that out there. 00:06:49.960 --> 00:07:07.820 That leads quietly into kind of the point that my dad would make. Yeah. that's right that's right because i tend to work on stuff that is kind of trashy like 00:07:07.820 --> 00:07:14.620 i don't so my dad said we gotta just he said to emily and then i got a text he said we gotta 00:07:14.620 --> 00:07:30.500 just throw this art away we gotta just i'm just gonna buy her some new art supplies we're just gonna throw this stuff out and emily's like okay um you know he was just over because he's someone who likes new fresh like if the seat belt's 00:07:30.500 --> 00:07:36.260 twisted in his car it's like time for a new car can't remember him saying that once he was just 00:07:36.260 --> 00:07:54.860 kind of joking but right like i love kind of broken down found collected discarded forgotten stuff yeah he's like you've got so much broken yeah The amount of broken furniture I've hauled around just because I like it has, it has a story. 00:07:57.120 --> 00:08:08.360 That's the thing. I'm very attached to everything. You know, it's, I've always thought about what I have kind of like, kind of like part of a set of a play. Like it's, it's, they're the props. 00:08:09.100 --> 00:08:21.260 You know, maybe it's because I've lived so many places, so everything I have, I've kind of found somewhere. And maybe it's just Fort Builder style. Like it's just kind of instinct. 00:08:22.720 --> 00:08:32.400 Well, and maybe worth mentioning that you would probably pay as much money to keep that old broken stuff as you would to buy new stuff. 00:08:32.520 --> 00:08:35.860 That's what he made very... Very clear to me. 00:08:41.640 --> 00:08:53.640 I would so love just to have video of that whole dynamic of him navigating that whole situation. I know. 00:08:54.080 --> 00:09:09.160 I know. I should have had them. So that's why I remember when I had to get off the podcast last week for a second, because that's when he was like, FaceTime frantically like, I'm sending stuff on a train. You know, so I had to kind of answer the call. 00:09:12.040 --> 00:09:12.540 So... 00:09:12.400 --> 00:09:33.280 I, yeah, it's a, so yeah, that's, so when you talked about last week, the John Baldessari thing about burning all his stuff, I got me thinking about one solution. It's not a perfect solution, but it's one idea I thought of. 00:09:34.060 --> 00:09:34.560 Okay. 00:09:35.280 --> 00:09:36.720 What if I... 00:09:36.720 --> 00:09:53.300 So I have a lot of really big pieces on wood that are like four foot by four foot that are from forever ago. They are from when I did the music video for Sixpence and the Richer. Forever ago. I've hauled them... from San Francisco to New York. 00:09:53.300 --> 00:10:00.980 - I didn't know you did a music video for Sixpence and the Richer when that happened. - Oh yeah, look it up. - Look it up, it's online. 00:10:00.980 --> 00:10:02.860 - I'm in the video. 00:10:02.860 --> 00:10:03.700 - Are you really? 00:10:03.700 --> 00:10:10.120 - Yeah. Those pieces of wood in that video, so if you look it up on YouTube, it's Sixpence and the Richer, there she goes. 00:10:12.320 --> 00:10:16.660 - Oh, even that song, I think I was in the Philippines when that came out, so that would explain it. 00:10:17.740 --> 00:11:06.600 - It was really popular. I have the pieces of wood from that project and I've moved them from San Francisco to New York City. New York City back to San Francisco. San Francisco Oh my gosh, so many times. I just have to stop. I just have to stop. And I've worked on them the whole time, just paint over them, do something different. Extremely heavy. So what I thought is kicking the edges off them with a big sledgehammer and then hiring someone who is a handyman that can just drive up and... Sorry, it sounds... 00:11:06.600 --> 00:11:20.700 it sounds kind of sketchy but drives up one of his this will be videotaped drives up and 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:56.560 drives up in his van drives up in his van and he has a table saw and we just cut all the pieces down to squares and I just have a bunch of small works on wood that I can work onto and I pack them up like they could be 12 by 12 or 18 by 18 squares and if I just bust all the sides off the stuff I could just have textured stuff. 00:12:03.560 --> 00:12:04.160 So. 00:12:05.960 --> 00:12:10.640 I think that's a great idea. I think that's a great idea. 00:12:12.180 --> 00:12:16.100 But I feel I couldn't just throw it out. 00:12:16.100 --> 00:12:22.200 Well, and if this has been in a music video, that's kind of a cool thing. 00:12:23.420 --> 00:12:34.660 But it's, yeah, there's, I've left them with different people all across the country as I've moved from place to place. There were originally 23 panels. 00:12:35.800 --> 00:12:46.800 so I'm watching the video as we're talking here it's pretty fantastic shout out Brandon Dickerson who is the director 00:12:46.800 --> 00:12:47.840 he's an awesome guy 00:12:47.840 --> 00:12:55.380 and who's the dude that oh Adam Goldberg I think yeah he looks really familiar 00:12:55.380 --> 00:13:18.240 yeah he's in a lot of TV shows a couple movies and stuff So funny. What I also have in there is every page of every one of the books, so like, uh, close to a thousand pieces of art that are originals. Did I have to do something? something with. 00:13:19.200 --> 00:13:29.400 - What are you gonna do with all this stuff? So you talked about maybe repurposing some of it or cutting some of it down or selling it off or? 00:13:29.400 --> 00:13:31.900 - I'm ready to let stuff go. 00:13:32.720 --> 00:13:33.560 - Right. 00:13:34.680 --> 00:13:40.100 - At the same time, I don't know where to begin with it. Like, especially with all the original pages. 00:13:40.100 --> 00:13:41.640 I just start 00:13:41.640 --> 00:13:47.560 are you feeling like you need to document it or is it not really 00:13:47.560 --> 00:13:50.580 well it's documented in the books 00:13:50.580 --> 00:13:54.900 right so you don't need to do anything else with that 00:13:54.900 --> 00:14:17.700 I could take really good high res pictures Cheers. Which I try to do, and by the way, that's just hard to photograph your artwork. That is just so... It is. You light your stuff really well in the studio, but oh my gosh. It's so maddening. You do it all, you think you've got the light, and you really import them all, and you go, nope. 00:14:18.460 --> 00:14:46.040 Yep. No, it is very tricky. And I even when I try my hardest to light things evenly and I watched hours of YouTube videos and Linda.com videos and bought equipment and even still it's just hard to get really good, even exposure and I end up, you know, pulling it into Photoshop and trying to fix lighting issues all the time so it's hard. 00:14:48.700 --> 00:15:00.980 want to talk about your stuff what about supplies are you just are you a thrower outer of stuff 00:15:00.980 --> 00:18:14.080 no you know laura is really good about that and we well there's one thing one thing is that we live in a fairly small space you know it's a two-bedroom apartment and we have a lot of And we do have a private garage, so there's that. But I made a bunch of really large paintings for a solo show I had down in Santa Monica, probably it's been several years ago now. And I had nowhere, at the time I was using the garage as my studio. and I had nowhere to put these big paintings. My parents were moving out of their place and you know, whatever. There's just no other place to put them. So we ended up putting our bed up on cinder blocks, the old-- cinder block tricks. So we have like the, my wife and I sleep on a bed that's on top of cinder blocks because my big paintings of green guys are stored under our bed. Until recently when I moved into this new studio space, I pulled the big paintings out and they're now in the garage. But But so there's that. I also have just accumulated a huge amount of art supplies over the years. And the kind of hard thing about art supplies is that I can't tell you how many times I've been in a very specific situation where I needed a very specific art supply. And I'll go in and I'll and I'll have that art supply. from when I was in high school. Like, I kept this little packet of oil pastels that I found on Mealift's, you know, whatever, throwaway art supply bin. Yeah. And it was exactly what I needed in that moment. And had I not saved it for two decades... You know, I wouldn't have had it. And so there's this anxiety about throwing away art supplies because you know that the time is going to come when you're going to need exactly that one thing. And so I've got, I've got like, you know, gallons of oops paint from Home Depot, you know, in these nasty colors. But I know that I'm going to be teaching a workshop and wish I had a bunch of oops paint for people to play around with. Yeah. and multiply that by, again, two decades worth of collecting all this stuff. And then I teach one of the schools I've been teaching at for the last eight years is Emeritus, which is for older adults. So I've had two adults now, older retired adults. One passed away, and she gave me all her stuff. So her house, her help, she was disabled and in a wheelchair. And her helper would come with her to class. Her helper showed up one day distraught, you know, very upset that... this woman had died and she told me that she had some supplies to give me. And I said, okay, well, um, you know, just go ahead and bring them into class. And she said, no, you've got to come outside. 00:18:17.120 --> 00:19:23.820 Like a car packed full, full of stuff like two easels, um, pads and pads and pads of paper, drawing boards, charcoal, brushes, you know, and, and of course I've always have students that need stuff. And I also like to be able to give people stuff if, uh, you know, if they want to try something that they don't have the materials for. Anyway, all of this. And then I had another student that was moving to an assisted living facility, and her kids were trying to get rid of all of her stuff. So I inherited like 200 art books. And again, like drawing pads and watercolor paper blocks. You know, these watercolor paper blocks are expensive. They are. $50. 50 bucks for like 20 sheets of watercolor paper and she gave me like five of them so like exactly you can't turn this stuff away but then i'm put in a situation where now i have a tremendous amount of stuff So that's my stuff situation. 00:19:25.700 --> 00:20:09.060 I wonder if there are people that have done projects where they're like, I'm going to use everything I have in this house. Like, I have so many pieces. Like, one of the things I got is a box full of just pieces of paper. I keep little bits for collaging and so on that I've had. that's my thing is that these little remnants of things that I think well this will work in a piece this will work in a piece and little textural bits of this and that and I like what if I just I'm looking at this box right now with these eyes are just staring it down right now I'm thinking what if I used in this box, and he just had to make something with this stuff, only what's in the box. 00:20:09.060 --> 00:20:32.400 - There's something so tempting about purging, about just like getting rid of all of it and burning it to the ground and starting over, because there is, there's like this psychological weight of, and just the logistics of putting this stuff somewhere and storing it and maintaining it, and it's just horrible. So yeah, I totally get that. 00:20:32.400 --> 00:20:49.800 And I feel like I have to change mediums because I love fabric. I love textiles. And like she sent me up all this random fabric. I'm like, I don't sew. I don't quilt. What am I thinking? Like, what am I? How do I even keep? What do I do with this fabric? But I love it. 00:20:49.800 --> 00:21:16.100 Right. Well, that gets into the question of how much the acquiring of stuff, supplies, materials, affects what we produce. I want to do big paintings. That's where my heart is. But there's just the practicality of I don't have anywhere to put these things and people aren't buying. 00:21:16.100 --> 00:21:22.260 What if you change the surface of it? material, can it be stuff that's rolled? 00:21:23.160 --> 00:21:55.260 Yeah, so that has been my answer. I've started working on big sheets of paper, which I like a lot. And even just the idea of paper, I like how impermanent it is and... you know, it's kind of more fragile than a canvas or a big panel or something like that. So I do like paper, but we have, you know, there's in this area for whatever reason, especially in this apartment that we've been living in, there's a lot of silverfish and they like to chew up paper. There's a lot of what? Silver fish. 00:21:55.560 --> 00:21:56.140 What's that? 00:21:56.680 --> 00:22:01.140 They're the little earwig little bugs. 00:22:01.980 --> 00:22:03.340 They're called silver fish? 00:22:03.700 --> 00:22:09.800 Yeah. They look like little miniature tiny, tiny little fish that you've seen them before. I guess. 00:22:09.900 --> 00:22:11.020 I didn't know that's what they're called. 00:22:11.400 --> 00:23:10.440 Yeah. So silver fish eat paper and they leave little trails of chew marks. So that's something that... That's a problem with storing paper. But it's okay in your studio? So far. So far in the studio, I haven't had that problem. But, like, I pulled out a bunch of drawings and paintings that I did on paper to move them over here. And there were these, like, chew marks on the paintings. So... I don't know honestly the chew marks sometimes they add I kind of like the they create interesting little dot patterns that I kind of like but but they're you know they're a problem with storing that stuff And when you roll something up, especially paper, it seems like, well, A, if it gets damaged, if somebody steps on it, then you've got this repeating crease down the whole... 00:23:10.440 --> 00:23:12.580 Oh, yeah, that is so frustrating. 00:23:13.140 --> 00:23:49.600 Yeah, I was so angry at my dad. I had students, and I was teaching at Loxah, L.A. County High School for the Arts, and had my students all do these huge drawings that I rolled up and put in my... trunk and my dad came along and threw this huge heavy something or a box and just landed right on that rolled up all these student final projects oh they were all rolled together they were all rolled together these huge drawings and every single one of them was just you know just destroyed anyway so there's that too 00:23:49.600 --> 00:23:56.460 Is there any way to get creases? You really can't. You can't, like, iron it out, right? You can't really do anything about creases. 00:23:56.900 --> 00:24:31.440 It depends. Like, you can... If it's acrylic, you can mist the back of the canvas, and sometimes getting it wet will... we'll get rid of some of it and you can try ironing it but then you got to be careful not to melt or you know burn something and that could probably affect the color and how brittle the paint is and all sorts of stuff like that there are people like I don't know Leon Golub and Kerry James Marshall that paint on tarps you know it's like grommet grommets around them 00:24:31.440 --> 00:24:35.840 I love the idea of painting on tarps that's really I would love to see what the work looks like. 00:24:36.480 --> 00:24:51.880 So, so, uh, our use of materials or accumulating stuff or storing stuff and never like having to just deal with stuff definitely can dictate or limit the kind of artwork we create. I guess that's an obvious thing to say, but. 00:24:52.400 --> 00:25:56.540 And, you know, the other thing is my work is so personal that when I, I just got a box full of some of the journals I just before you. our podcast today. I thought I had a few minutes, so I just opened one of them. Like, what am I going to read? And so with every book that I've done, there's probably 15 journals worth of writing, you know, for, so it was probably only 25% out of those 15 journals goes into one of the books. So I've all been writing around what I've chosen. I have the 10 pages in front of it and behind it. And it was interesting to open up. So a lot of what I've saved, which will be interesting to let go of, is a lot of stuff that's about those memories, a lot of personal, just personal, memory triggering items, I guess. And so, I think that's why people store stuff too. 00:25:59.420 --> 00:26:04.800 And so letting that go and trusting that those, all that lives within me, 00:26:04.800 --> 00:27:07.680 My wife is a very avid journaler and I don't journal, but I have kept every scrap of like any letter or note or whatever piece of paper that somebody has written to me. I have boxes of these old letters and I kind of consider those to be my journal and I don't know that anybody would ever... read those someday, you know, some descendant of mine, but it kind of makes me, like, that feels like my personal history. So, like, I have a really hard time thinking about giving all that stuff up, even though there are these boxes of just, you know, letters that probably are minimally significant to my life, but, you know, through my history. - And where do you store those? There is a bookshelf in a closet in our apartment that I've got probably two or three pretty good size boxes of letters in. 00:27:08.800 --> 00:27:14.400 What's Laura's trick for getting, you know, keeping, because there's four of you in that apartment. 00:27:14.400 --> 00:27:46.200 yeah so that's the deal is like luckily she is really good at um just regularly going through everything and getting rid of rid of things does she donate it does she she yep she donates it she gives it to like like kids toys she'll give to other or swap with other parents like um oh that's cool for other stuff. Uh-huh. Yeah, so we don't accumulate more. She'll take, you know, some toys that our kids are done playing with or sick of playing with, and she'll swap them with somebody else. 00:27:46.280 --> 00:27:54.500 Does she ask them if she can take them? Because I would think that would be hard, too. Like, the kid would be like, no, I want that! And you're like, dude, you don't play with it anymore. They're like, no, I don't want it! 00:27:54.800 --> 00:28:41.360 No, if you ask them, then they, of course, they're going to say, like, that's their favorite toy. So she just knows what they will... And if it's something that's in question, she does this with me too. If it's something that she's not sure about, if I really would miss or not, she'll just hide it. And if I don't say anything about it for a while... That's clever. Yes, well, we've had a little tension about that in our relationship because she very proudly announced to me one day that she had thrown something away. that I really wanted to keep. 00:28:42.260 --> 00:28:42.780 No. 00:28:43.140 --> 00:28:55.240 But she had hidden it for a whole year and I had not mentioned it at all, you know, or even, you know, whatever, looked for it. And she felt like that was long enough time to make the decision. 00:28:55.460 --> 00:28:57.300 Where's her secret stash? Yeah. 00:28:57.300 --> 00:29:17.020 I don't know like she'll just put it like way in the back corner of a closet underneath something so it's like there's no way I would go looking there and I can't even remember now what it was that she threw away that I got upset about but I was like I can't believe you threw that away that was that's my stuff yeah way 00:29:18.400 --> 00:29:28.400 Did you have something to say about the... You were talking about the grad students or students in the sense of not... 00:29:28.400 --> 00:30:25.720 Yeah, yeah. So there is this kind of strange thing. I don't think it's strange necessarily, but it's understandable, but... strange in that it's not something that ever really came to my mind before I heard other students bringing it up and that is like this anxiety that some art students feel coming into coming into art school that they don't want to contribute to the to the trash on this planet. They feel like we're just drawing on paper and making bad drawings and more bad drawings and throwing the paper away or storing it or killing trees and filling landfills. and uh that it's like there's almost a moral issue about making art like we're just contributing to uh you know the junk on this planet what do you think about that what would your response 00:30:25.720 --> 00:30:31.760 be to that i i didn't whatever that sounds like such an art school like i just feel like 00:30:31.760 --> 00:30:41.680 then what are you doing there like go buy a tablet and just draw away on it never touch a piece of paper and material with your hands again. Like, come on. 00:30:44.600 --> 00:30:54.540 Right. So does it seem like just a totally unreasonable point of view? But to a certain degree, like look at in your own work, you kind of repurpose. 00:30:54.860 --> 00:31:12.600 Exactly. That's what I... So you're referring to directly like, if they have a solution like repurposing, like, oh, I do not, I rarely buy brand new paper. I love going to reuse it. It's more of an adventure that way to discover. 00:31:12.620 --> 00:31:18.700 But that's not out of like a moral obligation to not produce more trash, right? That's like, you just like. 00:31:19.440 --> 00:31:19.940 Yeah. 00:31:20.120 --> 00:31:24.100 You like the story, you like the history. Because it already has a story to it, yeah. 00:31:24.240 --> 00:31:25.200 Right, right. 00:31:25.200 --> 00:32:00.060 But I do, I can see people, I think there's a lot of waste as far as containers. Like you don't have to buy a bunch of brand new white plastic container for this, container for my mix in my water. Like use some mason jars, use some yogurt containers, you know. Yeah, I see that. I see, I definitely see that, that I would agree with that. I have a big problem with people constantly buying more art supplies. Like, just come on. It's not going to make you a better artist at all. 00:32:00.580 --> 00:32:01.380 Right, right. 00:32:02.080 --> 00:32:07.880 You can use some berries on a tree and a number two pencil and you can do some stuff with it. Right. 00:32:08.400 --> 00:32:38.440 Right. Well that is an interesting thing, just you know, that somehow there's this perception that accumulating more stuff will make you better. And I guess this isn't just art, this is anything, right? And that's rarely the case. Usually it has more to do with you just actually putting time doing, developing that skill, whatever it is. and has little to do or less to do with the materials you're using. 00:32:38.900 --> 00:32:54.460 Like think when you travel and you just have a bit of... I just keep laughing because I think of George Carlin. It's so funny. Everything I'm saying just reminds me of that stuff. a piece he does about stuff. But when you travel, you just have a bit of stuff with you. 00:32:56.500 --> 00:33:17.820 And when you have, say, art supplies, like I think about being in Italy and you just have a little set of watercolors and you have a little sketchbook and you can... what you can do with a little bit of acrylic medium and some watercolors and two pens and a pencil. You can have magic moments. 00:33:18.860 --> 00:33:19.360 Magic. 00:33:21.300 --> 00:33:28.160 I've seen a friend of mine in grad school did these drawings just smearing dirt on paper. 00:33:29.140 --> 00:33:29.640 Oh, yeah. 00:33:29.620 --> 00:33:52.620 And they were amazing. They were really lovely, lovely drawings. Not to say that, you know, there are a lot of different characteristics and different reasons you'd want to use different kinds of materials, but this feeling that you need stuff to be creative or need to acquire a certain kind of stuff to be creative and find fulfillment. 00:33:53.520 --> 00:34:00.220 If you were to use a supply that was not, that was just from the earth, what would be your first go-to thing you might try? 00:34:00.500 --> 00:34:03.360 Supply from the earth. 00:34:05.960 --> 00:34:26.980 I love the color of cherry, cherries, like cherry juice, and tea, like that kind of sienna, sienna-y color, I think is beautiful. um 00:34:26.980 --> 00:34:30.200 can you do something like that this week 00:34:30.200 --> 00:34:34.240 make something with cherries or teas 00:34:34.240 --> 00:34:46.260 whatever it has to be something you find on your way to and from the studio is that possible or around the property you can do something that's on the block that you're 00:34:47.200 --> 00:34:49.700 Okay, I'm going to write this down. 00:34:52.000 --> 00:34:55.200 So I have to do something with found... 00:34:55.200 --> 00:34:57.920 Natural objects. 00:34:58.800 --> 00:35:04.960 With found natural objects or materials. 00:35:05.120 --> 00:35:05.620 Materials. 00:35:06.700 --> 00:35:17.280 Do we want to make some declaration or final comments about stuff? Or should we just leave it at that? Yeah, let's have a moment for that. 00:35:18.200 --> 00:35:19.160 A moment for stuff? 00:35:21.200 --> 00:36:58.180 I just want to say... In conclusion, I feel like, I think I get this from my dad, like the need to kind of wrap things up and tie a bow, you know, so I'm gonna go ahead and do it. And I'm just gonna go with this. I want to say to the people out there that have this anxiety about creating more junk, that you just, you got to embrace the fact that we are creative beings. And I think that's weak sauce to turn it into this moral issue. And it's not, you're just afraid of messing up. You're afraid of making mistake. You're afraid of taking a risk to actually try something new. And if you don't wanna use, make more junk, then find, you know, find an old piece of paper, go to a landfill and collect little bits of used paper and make some drawings on them. There are a lot of different ways to become a creative person without adding to the problem of junk on this planet. And shame on you. I'm going to say that right now. Shame on you if you're keeping staying away from your creative impulse because you're afraid of adding to the junk on the planet. There's a lot of better ways that you could spend your concern for the planet. We definitely need more creativity on this planet, not more fear of creativity. that's all. 00:36:59.280 --> 00:37:09.960 Well said. Well said. And use... And also for people to really... If they have a stack of paper, start using the paper. Start using it now. Don't save it for later. 00:37:11.300 --> 00:37:31.320 That's... And I think that's definitely part of it too. And I guess... that I wanted to, was thinking of is that people don't use the stuff they have because they're afraid of using it in a bad way. Yeah. Or making junk, making stuff that is not worthy of the material that they're working on. And that's, that's stupid. 00:37:31.320 --> 00:37:38.400 Think of, for a perfect example, the two women that passed on their stuff. They could have used all that stuff up and really, you know. 00:37:39.200 --> 00:37:41.200 Yep. 00:37:41.200 --> 00:38:55.680 yep use your stuff use your stuff use your stuff my my my kind of final thoughts about my stuff is i really am people listening i am in the middle of really deciding what to do with my stuff i'm in the thick of it So, any, um, that, so I have a third of my stuff, I have 600 pounds of my stuff here in Madison. I have a lot of my original work is still in Portland because that was just not going to be sent on the train. So, I will be headed out there and I, people have asked about coming and seeing what I have and purchasing some of my work, which... I would love, and there's, I haven't ever held onto my stuff 'cause I wanna keep it all and I don't wanna sell it. I just have never put my focus on finding an artist rep or an art dealer or a gallery that should have my stuff. If people have ideas or, you know, I don't want to spend the time carefully going back again. You know, you can get stopped. I think, well, I have to photograph everything really well. I'm kind of trying to avoid some of those easy hang-ups. 00:38:57.860 --> 00:39:01.360 You're primarily interested in getting it out there, though, right? 00:39:01.580 --> 00:39:42.140 Yeah, I just have beautiful work that I want to be in people's homes. I don't have the space to keep it myself, and I've loved making it, and I treasured, the process of making it, but it seems right that they should be in your homes out there. And I love seeing my pieces in people's homes, you know. So I kind of feel lonely for them. Like they're stuck there and they want to live and be, you know. be around you. So let's make that happen. This summer, it's going to happen. My goal is to have that handled by September. 00:39:43.500 --> 00:39:45.140 Fantastic. I think that's great. 00:39:45.800 --> 00:40:36.600 Good podcast. That was funny. You can find show notes for this episode at roominthetrees.com. You can support us by subscribing for five bucks a month. Folks, that's less than a burrito. At patreon.com forward slash room. That's p-a-t-r-e-o-n dot com forward slash room. There are some very funny outtakes we send you each week. It really helps us to reach more people if you would rate us on iTunes. We're reading your reviews and we thank you so much for taking the time. It really helps us. Thank you for the shout out on Instagram this week, Jen Barrows, from a splendid messy life. It was very cool to see us being your top four.