A.I, Getting into Galleries, Finding your Stride! Kenneth Yarus | #TheCreativeEndeavour Episode 51

hi there and welcome to the studio and welcome to the creative Endeavor podcast this is the podcast bringing you inspiring stories from creative professionals from around the world it's real conversations with real artists now here with the new series of podcasts that I have to share with you I've decided to actually put them up here on my main Channel as a podcast I used to share the exclusive video version with my Academy students and there will be a special way that they can take part in future episodes but I really wanted to share this video version here with you and sharing some of the inspiration that I get whenever I talk to another artist now I've been making art professionally for 20 years and in that time you kind of tend to get into a habitual kind of GrooVe you get set in your ways I like to think that I'm open to all sorts of new approaches but there's nothing quite like rubbing shoulders with others talking shop and working out what makes others tick creatively particularly some of those people that really inspire you and so that is the purpose of this podcast is to reach out to other artists other professionals working today and find out just how they do it and so my hope here with this podcast is to share with you some tips and strategies and things that maybe might not be on your radar but something that will give you just a little bit of an edge you see if you want to step out and become a professional artist and maybe even just kick your creative Journey along a little bit or just have something inspiring to listen to while you're working in the studio then that's really what I hope to bring you here with this podcast now of course if you want to listen on the go there are audio versions to the podcast as well you're gonna find links to those in the description down below but in this episode I've got a special guest joining me I'm talking with Kenneth Yaris who's an amazingly talented young artist out of Montana now Kenneth produces some knockout killer beautiful landscape paintings and it was really fantastic to hear how where he started he ended up doing this kind of work because it wasn't necessarily a straight path there were a few hurdles that he had to go through and a few subjects that he had to explore before he landed on what he really wanted to do what he was really passionate about and through this conversation I got to hear a little bit about can this mindset and just what it's taken for him to be able to develop the mental fortitude to be able to sustain long hours in the studio build great habits and some of his strategies for success now Kenneth is represented by about half a dozen reputable galleries in the United States how do you do that I get a lot of questions quite often about how to get represented by Galleries and that's one of the purposes of this podcast is to give you some of those strategies and tips and so Kenneth really shared quite a bit there in regards to the gallery question now before you get into this episode make sure you're following Kenneth right now on Instagram he can be found at Kenneth Garrett as well as his website at www.kennithyaris.com I really hope you enjoyed this episode of the creative Endeavor podcast and that there's a takeaway or two for you here something that you can apply to your own creative journey and if there is if there's a little nugget here that you can latch on to I'd love to hear what that was for you I've got a few that really got me thinking but I'd love to hear from you so go ahead and hit me up in those comments down below and of course go ahead and hit that like button and if you want to see more podcasts just like this make sure you subscribe to this channel now without further Ado here's Kenneth Yaris and the creative endeavor [Music] [Music] Kenneth brother how are you man I'm doing great how are you good good to see you man it's it's been it's been a long time coming we've been talking about this back and forth back and forth for gosh maybe the better part of a year I when I was doing the creative Endeavor last I really wanted to connect with you and and then I ended up putting the creative Endeavor podcast on on a shelf for a little while but um it's so good to kick off creative Endeavor third season 3.0 let's call it uh here with you so welcome to the podcast oh that's a huge honor like I said I've been just eagerly waiting this it's it's a big big point of excitement for me and thank you for having me oh look man I don't I I'm so so excited to get into whatever we have to talk about so if you're cool let's just jump straight into it yeah yeah awesome so look obviously we've been following each other for for years I I think I might have been following you first okay I found you online on Instagram and and I was looking at these paintings just going this is unbelievable the quality of work it's just incredibly well executed beautiful landscapes uh people would have heard from the introduction a bit about what you do so I hope by now they've been able to go and just follow you on Instagram check out your website but obviously these paintings and how well executed they are this is the result of countless hours of toil in the studio experimentation dedication what I'd really love to know is where did this start and when did this start for you because you're you're a young guy you've you obviously started last week so so how how did this all how did this all happen for you take us back to the beginning yeah sure no it's it's you're you're not wrong about it the the endless hours of toil I mean that's and I think the listeners of your podcast will know that there's no I wouldn't necessarily say there's no such thing as talent but there's absolutely a uh an assumption that this comes easy to people and it it it just doesn't there's I mean I think what I try to think of outside of talent would be aptitude you know and that would be something maybe that I had really really young as a kid just being known as the art kid and having family thankfully they supported that that's a you know I can't really stress that enough that whatever that childhood is like you know being encouraged into the Arts was something that I had on my side and I can't take credit for that you know it's just really cool family and and supportive community that that made the Arts feel attractive and rewarded me for it so yeah since just being a little little lad I was always drawing and my mom would talk about just you know me throwing Hissy Fits if I couldn't draw before school or Draw when I got out of school and I would get in trouble with teachers for drawing during class you know it was just like a constant thing for me so it's that's talent I don't know just thousands of hours of doodling on top of actual training so in in high school I was really fortunate to have a really really fantastic art teacher I think without her you know I don't you call that like the Divine connecting and that that happening because she's made several professional artists um that are still painting and drawing in our community now that all went through her her High School time it's just a pivotal time for a young person to kind of start conceptualizing their future so Susan Guthrie was a huge huge proponent of me pursuing the Arts and doing trips to Europe and stuff like that that were able to expose me to Just Master paintings and that kind of you know broaden the scope of a little country boy like me and it really was inspiring so I think without her I wouldn't be where I'm at um but you know the training during High School is always just kind of you're in a mixed class with tons of skill levels and and I didn't I don't think I really got into it until I left High School to get into the academies so I studied with the filma's family so Samuel and billmez and Daniel billness who you've actually interviewed he was one of my teachers oh fantastic awesome Yep yep and that was that was right out of high school and I did a couple little stints this is a little side story but it's one that I always want to stress because I know again people are listening to this podcast like I I tried to go to the traditional College um we're reading a Forbes article you know for the best art schools in America and seeing this uh Chicago Art Institute the saic and and that was one of the top schools and my parents saw the price tag for admission I think it was like forty thousand dollars a year back then um so who knows what it is now but they thought hold on kid we're gonna send you to a summer program and that ended up saving me and them a ton of money and a lot of misery because I realized very quickly that the aims I had as an artist being inspired by the Old Masters and and all that was just like they even though it was the finest art school in America they had not a slightest idea on how to teach some of the fundamentals and so without that energy interjection in my life I don't think I would have ended up where I am or found my way into the academies as soon and I noticed that going to the academies that most of the students were in their 30s 40s 50s even having been let down by the school system in America at least in the scope of learning traditional you know the craft of picture making so it was I think very fortunate that I kind of went that route and ended up in the academies like I did and that's you know there's a whole other thing but yeah there's a lot to unpack there about the the art schools and academies on I want to come back to that um but I'm curious because you touched on so many things there um with that that wonderful introduction but how were your parents artistic at all what were they were they in the Arts were they were they a bit you know creative crafty or anything like that no not at all um wow really actually not at all uh there's I mean I would say that my they probably both have the ability to like do some light sketching but both are very very uh they both read they were a small business together doing heating and air conditioning so they're they're very you know they're working people and but what happened that I think the real feeding element of this is a bit of a family history because my grandpa who I didn't get to meet he died when my mom was only 16. so he actually was artistically inclined he had studied at schools in England and was actually a professional draftsman before they had you know computer-aided design and all that I mean he actually would hand draw mechanical things and and did you know we have a portrait of Winston Churchill he did and stuff like that so he really was artistically inclined but in post-war England you know he was always told that you can't have a family if you're going to be an artist the kind of mythologies mixed in with lots of unfortunate facts you know for people that it's definitely harder to manage things financially as a as an artist but anyway he had to kind of leave that behind and I think my mom took that I'm literally named after him so his name was Kenneth and I'm Kenneth and um I think there's been this weird kind of uh I don't know like I I kind of push from a whole other level that's not driven by their own creative process necessarily but by their just love for art and and an honoring of him that's helped push that further that's fantastic because there's certainly definitely coming through in the work and so I'm looking at you here for those fortunate enough to be watching the video version of this podcast they'll be able to get a glimpse into the studio of Kenneth E Harrison right now I'm just looking at some epic paintings brother like really inspiring stuff I I do want to do a deep dive into the technical uh aspects of painting and really pick your brain there because I think I could learn a lot from you just from just hearing you unpack your process but you know I I you touched on something there and and as you said it it's it triggered something in me so I went on a bit of a stent in uh January and on into February and now we're in March and I just started I put down some of the videos I shouldn't have been watching you know the the conspiracy stuff I was a little getting a little bit heavy into that that kind of alternative media thing it was really hijacking my Consciousness and I went on this Bender of just listening to personal developments and motivation stuff some spiritual stuff as well and and I came across this book called building a story brand um by Donald Miller highly recommend it for anybody in a creative business yeah write that one down and um it it it's caused me to think about things in terms of myth and story and you know about Joseph Campbell's hero's journey have you heard of that where no no yeah well it's it's a it's a classic framework for narrative and every movie that seems to do really well or every book or every kind of film or narrative that we seem to have as part of our pop culture it kind of follows the same structure and so I I start looking at my life in terms of that structure as well but but what is it I mean it's the it's the Avatar it's the Luke Skywalker and Star Wars it's um it's it's uh it's it's the Dark Crystal it's so basically you have a hero who encounters a problem they're not a hero yet they start off as something uh ordinary then there's a coal and then they see they need to rise to that call before they can become the hero but they're missing a vital piece and that's where the guide steps in and so at that point in the story when the guide steps in they set the hero off on the journey and the quest is laid out in front of them and they have to make it through adversity to ultimately become the hero at the end or heroin and and it doesn't matter what story we're listening to and so as I was listening to your story it suddenly just popped into my long-winded way of putting this but it popped into my mind where's the guide where's the guide because there's there's got to be a guide here in in Kenneth yaris's story in this in this mythology which is just beautiful and and you mentioned the high school your high school teacher her name one more time it's Susan Guthrie Susan Guthrie so so can you take me back to the to the classroom because I mean I I won't wax on about my experience with high school it didn't sound anything like yours it was pretty terrible but I can relate to drawing during class and getting in trouble for that but what was that moment like of being in the in in her class and do you feel that that was really the thing then that that set you off oh yeah I mean I think well man it's it's Susan was absolutely the the regular I would almost say like boots on the ground element of mentor to me where a month all the chaos of high school you know you're just emotionally erect you're covered in acne and just life's hell um you know I can't say I enjoyed high school either but she was always the reprieve for me being able to yeah I remember actually skipping school attendance rallies or whatever they're called you know where they'd have like these these big stupid parades for sports and stuff that I just wasn't into and being allowed to sneak back to the art classroom and we'd have our little like art hideout in there with a couple of the other art nerds and that kind of stuff was so empowering you know and and helped reinforce this in that mythology that we have that like art is an escape for me and I think that that started in those emotionally tumultuous times in high school and she was just such a positive person she is still to this day and um she's a friend still which is awesome oh great yeah so there's there's her and then even earlier than Susan though there's there's other mentors in quest guides you know like you're talking about that there's an actual world-class illustrator that lives three houses down for me that I had no idea about early on you know my parents somehow found out and when I'm 10 years old or 11 years old whatever the heck I was being you know allowed to go over there and my parents said hey you know my kid likes to draw can he come see your studio and getting my mind just torn us under with the coolness of what was happening in there I mean that's that it's a kind of like James Gurney level like little armatures and sculptures and lighting marionettes and incredible sculptures or uh you know paintings of knights and dragons and just like the coolest stuff and so Greg call that's his name and he's still a neighbor and still is Brad and uh you know those are the the between him and that experience of seeing professional art walked out and and you know realistic art you know he was a drawing you know I remember getting prompts from him that like the kind of Hero's guide like you're talking about like you know I want to draw scenes from The Hobbit I just read the book and loved it or whatever and he'd be like okay let's do thumbnails and I go do my five thumbnails come back and he'd say okay go do five more and I'd be all pissed come back with five more and he'd do one more time go do five more thumbnails so I'm going crazy um but it's all stuff that you know unbeknownst to me is a 13 year old but like it's a part of that creative process now that I think has given me a better handle on design you know I mean it's it's so much support was poured in to me in those pivotal years that maybe it wasn't as structured and disciplined as what Michelangelo or you know some of these old school guys that got way back in time you know it kind of came from a mix of sources but yeah I owe so much to those those people that that were in my life at that time yeah it's it's very much the wax on wax off you know and I think there's a lot of people that are starting out when they look at somebody like you you know a professional artist that is just kicking these massive goals and doing these knockout paintings I think there's always the assumption that somehow this is easy because you the truth is you make it look easy but they're not counting those wax on wax off moments and and what is that I mean it's that repetition of the boring stuff um and and I I don't know like when I when I look at artists now such as yourself I I get insanely excited because I want to hear about those moments of of boredom of of just the the tedious just almost dreariness of of having to do the same thing over and over again because it's repetition that drills these things so deep within your your psyche and so you're able to call upon them when it really counts and it and again I mean I I say wax all likes off because it reminds me of of uh of Mr Miyagi you know we're gonna we're gonna wax the car now we're gonna paint the fence and then something he said well what is all this and then it throws a punch and now suddenly he's blocking he's doing all this stuff so I mean there's another hero's journey for you the karate kid but it's it's it's really exciting so so you come out of high school and then you go in and you start your your next level of training after that when you're just branching out into becoming a professional artist can you tell me about that moment in your life in your artistic journey and what that was like for you and and how did you get and maybe tell me about your your your first break there sure absolutely so well and on a note really quick with what you had just mentioned something that I've always loved and lived I've had as a background on my computer it touches on what you just mentioned is uh it's attributed to Aristotle but it's apparently kind of a more 70s rewording of a longer essay of his but it's something that I've come to rely a lot in my life and it might help it's been listeners out is um Excellence is not an act but a habit and oh I love that part I guess the beginning part is we are what we repeatedly do and so anyway that saying has always kind of manifested to me with with whether it was you know even things like Fitness you know it's like you don't go to the gym and get strong after one session like things just take time and and repetition and the more at peace you can be um that's that's hard in our modern day where we want everything really fast but but anyway yeah that's just another yeah we can talk for hours about all that good stuff but but that that is that is awesome I mean you are the accumulation of your habits I I want to throw another uh book out there just since you mention it uh Atomic habits Atomic Habits by James Clear um that that book is is really um kind of blowing up you know and there's um there there's a lot of people that have gotten into that and and James Clear has just done fantastic with that book but I that's one of my favorites I've listened to the audio version now three times and it really drove into me that it's it's an accumulation it's an aggregation of tiny little gains and when you plot that out like a graph that one percent Improvement or that tiny little gain from a consistent habit ends up compounding over time but the opposite is true of decreasing or at least continuing with the bad habits that you got you know and and then then that that accumulates and you start getting that graph going down the other way and and it really drilled into me that that the power of good habits but also you know becoming a little bit more conscious about the artistic habits that I had you know going back to those fundamentals but um what what so so back to the the trajectory here yeah it because you I mean in recent years and I hope you don't mind me saying this but I've just been I've been looking at some of the posts you've been making on Instagram and I'm just like good night this is world class painting you know bierstadt would be shuddering he would be he would be gone okay I've got a rival here you know and I'm not just saying that bro like some of your stuff is just knock out crazy good so so you obviously not everybody starts off painting amazingly well like we all start somewhere right but when did you first realize you're like oh shoot I I could actually make this work as a gig well yeah so in that you know the questions you both questions where you talk about you know kind of how you get going and and some advice I got really early on that made a huge difference especially you know coming from academies there's there's this and it's not bad but the learning drive and the the Excellence Obsession that they have is it can become handicapping there there can become this level where you know like one of the things that felt stress to me it may maybe wasn't as verbal as I making it out to be but it's like you're not good enough yet um and that I think is a little damaging and and that you kind of when the when you make work a body of work and you try to go sell it and you're out into this this other realm that's not in that insulated Academia way where it's all about getting the perspective of the feet right or the angles of the muscles right or whatever you know nuts and bolts that matter to artists you know you do need to matter to other people and so early on getting into some of these Western art shows and even just having a rep um his name is Steve Cadre and he's like a kind of a local Legend he helps manage his wife's our career but he is just all business all the time I mean brutal brutal business and he's great at it and he's hilarious and he was he kind of took me under under his wing and helped me get into some shows and those little bits of propulsion really matter and you start to see your work in frame start to see your work getting observed by people you're getting advertised and I did these ballerina paintings that were they're fine you know they were great and uh but they helped me understand that like you know you're gonna end up doing this for money and the ballerinas took off I started having these like backlogs of ballerina paintings to do and kind of commissions for them and and I started getting this heart palpitation kind of thing of like I I hate this I don't want to paint ballerinas and realizing that you know if you're not careful you get sucked down the rabbit hole on that and you know the galleries I work with still to this day but I remember being kind of stressed out and asking them like hey what do I do right now and he's like he's got to stop painting ballerinas like what do you want to paint and I said landscape and being empowered in that way really opened the doors um because I was really trying to like fit into a scene or fit in with what was working and that that was gonna go nowhere ultimately as weird as that sounds like it was until I felt empowered to step onto my journey as an artist and getting away from the Academia getting away from how things should be done into this kind of new open realm has been so much more fun but also successful because I think now you're out there doing something kind of new at least to a degree I was like beard stats been around doing that forever so he's one of my big heroes beer starts amazing I mean he's one of my favorites too I I I don't remember ever seeing an original uh I I I imagine I I might have at some point maybe as a kid back in the States but most of what I've seen has just been reproduction so I'd relish the opportunity to to gaze upon an original and just stand there um but it would you so would you say like looking at some of the originals of him and and what were some of the the European Masters because you mentioned that you you got to see some of those epic Works what are some of the standouts for you that that impacted you well in I mean we went through the eufitsi in Florence and then just being around Rome in general and you know the Sistine Chapel all those those kind of huge a lot of them are frescoes they're not really like a painting they're in that mural category at that point but they're just that scale and the the kind of you know the reality that like a human hand made that you know it's it's Europe is full of that kind of mind-boggling stuff and we have big buildings here and some amazing stuff they're all just concrete and Machinery but it's like this was hand carved by by dudes and people died making some of those buildings so I wouldn't say it was even just one particular Masterpiece of being you know that changed me in that but in just seeing the scope of what human hands and Minds can do and just having that kind of just blow my lid you know just was amazing and the real shift I mean if I want to think about that kind of is in New York city so going to academies and and struggling with kind of what do I do now is and I left school early it's kind of a rebel um didn't do anything right uh but in New York was where I was really having an identity crisis struggling with depression I mean New York City is is horrible uh but that's coming from a country kid a lot of people that love it they're obviously 10 million of them do but it's it's horrible it's a nightmare in every possible way really but the men apologized to New Yorkers right now sorry sorry New Yorkers they can email me and I will I oh direct all complaints together all right I made it a year and that was people said if you make it too you're stuck you know you'll find your little Groove in the city and and um and you'll get stuck there and so I left after a year so My Time at GCA so I went to the Ashland Academy of Art and then moved to the Grand Central Academy of Art and that was when they were right in Manhattan so it was you know it's just circumstances you know I had to live in a little tiny doghouse apartment with another dude but literally I mean you know the stories in New York are so so many and so bad but it was it was a great time of challenge which is what a young man needs and I uh you know back to the how art art really felt like a reprieve and that I would get to go to the met and see just these felt like breaths of fresh air you know and and that reminder that what I was doing in academies mattered and that the training that brought these pieces to life was similar training what I'm doing now was always a constant hat on the back but I would go and stand in front of this Thomas Moran painting and you know it's just a scene of the Tetons and I did a study after of it a couple years ago but that painting changed my life because I would sit there in the midst of my homesickness and just hating New York and see pine trees and I feel like I could feel that cold air and the sun on the mountain and just I literally almost cried several times looking at it and being so homesick and and longing but also it helped Galvanize that like that's where that's where I belong I can't I can't help but feel that and and so that that that painting drove me kind of back West and back in to the realm of the landscape because I've been studying portraiture and I mean from early age I always loved illustration and stuff so I felt like a bit of a nomad for a while there but that painting really was like the landing lights that I needed to say go home this is this is where it needs to be you know when I um when I was going through Art School the lecturer said something to me it was the darndest thing they're like um I had some painting lecturers um you know almost bad mouth painting certainly traditional painting and it was all about concept it was in the academic world it's it's all about the idea and I came to find that it was it was actually an utter utter lack of ideas um it was quite funny um but but what you describe There is almost a a spiritual experience that you're having in front of a work but it's not a worshiping of the work like some sort of idol it's not you're not you're not looking at the work it sounds almost like what the artist was doing as well was touching on something that I feel as Humanity we all have that in common that we're trying to search for something greater and something more and we find it and connect to it instantly when we're in the presence of Nature and creation and and there's something that just draws our spirit out I find that so much in the landscape but then when you get you know in the hands of a talented artist you know like our heroes from the past they they hit that nerve they're like no no this is what you're looking for and so for something that's Universal for something that is so you know human it almost feels like home in a real deep sense it seems like such an insane thing to then want to drive that out of a person when they're funneled through this bottleneck of the academic system it's like no no no that's been done so we can't do that anymore well who says so who cares like this is and that's the one thing I got that was my criticism that I received was this is no longer a valid form of expression I I don't see anything that could be more valid than than touching that nerve within yourself because the authenticity shines through and and your your authenticity man just comes through and and it's this consistency over over that body of work and and I I so I'm glad look I'm sure the ballerinas were awesome I think you're probably being a little bit too hard on yourself there but the the the work now man I'm glad you you went for the Landscapes because these are these are shocking they're they're beautiful so take me back then so you're you're you're starting off as a professional you're you're now your agent has kind of taken you under the wing where did that first big break come through did you have a solo show or was there commissions that started to mount up professionally speaking when did you see those cogs really start to turn for you it's unfortunately I can't really claim that there's been a break and hopefully that can be a consolation to folks listening that like you know I can be one of those those you know kind of grind it out people it just took there was a show that happens in Great Falls I actually just did it again a couple weeks ago there's a Montana artist named Charlie Russell who died you know a long time ago it was just a Montana Cowboy artist and he there's a museum there and lots of uh you know they do a whole first birthday there's a whole thing called Western Art week over there Charlie Russell days and all these artists get together but getting a room there and where I could display my art it all happens in this weird Hotel uh it's you know one of those kind of local things it's a Montana thing but it was sorry just it was enough of that what I mentioned earlier where you are putting your work in front of people and repping it yourself so it wasn't like uh you know it wasn't like an Art in the Park it's a little bit above Art in the Park but but a kind of similar thing where you're just there repping your paintings and and that experience is so so so beneficial because I was around lots of professional artists and welcomed in which was really nice even though I made really bad stuff um in that era they there was fans that you develop and people that loved watching me progress that were excited to see me come back the next year so I can't really discount that you know those those kind of seemingly trivial you know like I think it'd be easier for a lot of artists to say well I'm not going to do a thing like that or I don't want to you know go to that level or you know I don't know how people think that they deserve something to happen good for them whether it's a gallery or a Big Show or or whatever that it felt like the grind it out every year I'd make 15 20 paintings for that show and when I couldn't get other galleries that was kind of my big thing and I was working other jobs and definitely not a professional artist but I think there was Roots growing you know underneath the ground even though it was just a little crappy leaf on top it stuff was happening you know and I don't want to discredit that that era of I mean I'm talking five six years probably and it wasn't until I moved kind of back to Montana and was able to basically move into this studio and with the support of my family kind of be told go go full time and with that I gave myself a five-year window saying okay if I can't this doesn't make sense in five years and it's gonna want to call it and go do something else and in that five years fan it's been amazing and worked you know but the The Big Break never really happened it's been just a slow slog and a a you know saying yes to things that's a there's a good movie called yes man I think it's got Jim Carrey yeah and uh I think of that like you just have to say yes to stuff you show up to paint outs you show up to Gallery stuff you show up to art events and and it slowly starts to shape into this this career and uh you know hopefully the next five years or just more of that and and I've gotta I've had solo shows the last four or five years and they've all been great and sold well and and it's I think none of them have been some big game changer but they all are a confirmation that I'm going the right way and they're it's it's super nice to have galleries be behind me you know there's a lot and I know you've mentioned you know worked with lots of artists on this podcast with different approaches and so far I've been one on the gallery gallery defense I've I've stood by them and there's definitely I feel stressed by that a lot but at the same time it's it's worked for me so okay let's stay there for a second so stressed by that what what is the uh what's the what's the cause of that stress do you think do you mind going there sure no I mean it's it's the you know as most artists know there's that commission loss when the gallery sells stuff they're they're taking a cut so you're you're generating so much possible income right I can make so many of these paintings back here a year and the reality of getting less than that and being responsible for framing it myself there's a kind of uh you know feels sometimes like an ax blade that's right there you know and and wow I think when I see the or the internet's expanded and I know you're a huge proponent of that and knowing your history too with with having the galleries you know just disappear on you it's a very real thing for me too like it's something I'm aware of and and I would say I'm suspicious of you know it's like I love my galleries but I'm always kind of like well in any minute they might just be gone you know and that that part's the stressful part but the other time you know the other aspect of things I'm sitting here painting and doing what I want to do and checks just come in the mail and that's so nice because I hate I hate business I hate running things you know I mean having to ship things and package things and all that is just a nightmare for me and so it's so great to be able to like drive to a gallery drop off work and just get checks over the summer time and it's yeah it's it's been so attractive for me as a painter and then seeing other artists that I look up to and emulate and in their career Arc that there's a kind of trust you know that the galleries are out there schmoozing and and being in front of the eyes that I would maybe have a harder time reaching in the in the internet way a lot of my collectors are probably in their 70s or 80s even so whether or not they're following me on Instagram just fairly unlikely you know but there's there's just been I guess I've I've just I've built myself into that with the Galleries and there's when you step away from galleries like right now if I was to say I'm gonna go do everything on my own I know that I wouldn't be able to make what I make with the galleries maybe sometime I could it would add up but it would come at Great expense to me and so I try to rationalize that the expense I pay them is is somehow worth whatever it would cost me to handle all the shipping and emailing and schmoozing and rent and everything else you got to pay extra of that that I currently can just hang out here and paint and I love that you're selling it well I must say because I I I've had a uh a terrible attitude towards galleries in the past I I must admit and and even recently and I kind of go back and forth and back and forth and maybe people listening to the podcast because I've probably been doing the podcast over the last three years on and off and people that that are familiar and have listened to the episodes might just be going to just make up your mind on it already but there is something to be said to to delegating those tasks towards you know to other people who can handle it you know let's face it better than you could and if they that's their strength and then let them go ahead and have it and this insulates you and protects that creative time and if there's one thing that's actually really frustrating me at the moment it's not getting enough time to create and so it's been a challenge you know personally speaking because I constantly find myself in a position where I'm stuck in my business and and doing business stuff and it it takes an enormous amount of time um but you know the the commission is the other side of things but rather than looking at it as giving money away for nothing I mean I think you really highlight their the valuable service that they provide for that fee you know depending on the commission right of course now I won't be rude and ask you how much you're paying a commission but you've got um you've got a couple of galleries that represent you is that right oh yeah I think I got uh six maybe I gotta there I'm in a wow I got that wrong okay a few guys oh yeah I'm in a situation where I I have more Galleries and interest that I can make paintings which is the challenging piece I feel bad I'm juggling things and and always letting somebody down you know if I get five paintings to this Gallery then this Gallery just sold two and they went four and then these got you know it's this I feel like I'm putting fires out you know like just running around and that's not a complaint like I'm very very very fortunate to have that demand going for my work and I'm yo it's it's just a person for the personal journey of it it's kind of hard because I'm a people pleaser and and that that experience is a little yeah because it creatively you get put into this this little bit of a pressure cooker there where you're trying to make people happy and make art that you want and I was one of my you know standards there is just like trying to keep the quality of the work high and that being that being everything you know I could probably make more money if I could paint faster I could probably make more money if I painted something slightly different and added some narrative stuff that would help the painting sell whatever you know those are things that I don't want to compromise on and thankfully yeah I've got a lot of Galleries and it's I think something that if there's listeners that want to know more about that kind of gallery element which I know you have a lot of people asking you know how do you get into them I have never had to apply to a gallery there wasn't some going through the process it's always been Word of Mouth maybe doing those things and saying that yes man thing showing up to paint outs showing up to uh you know shows with good work and I think if you make good paintings that's that's your number one concern as an artist whether you sell it yourself or you're going to trust other people with that process like you got to make sweet stuff don't don't think a gallery is some magical you know magical thing that they're going to sell things for you just because they're a gallery like you have to make work and you have to believe in it and if that's going then you know I've had Galleries and lost Galleries and gained more Galleries and I'm sure they'll close or change over time but that's it's okay to trust that process if you the work happening in the studio is is solid then the rest of that kind of happens um and and I've you know if I needed to do it on my own if I wanted to like I think it's like you said there's a business thing that you got to take seriously if you're going to step away from the gallery stressing it then it does become your job to become a new professional in a different way and I just don't want to do it yet a lot of artists I know are doing so well selling on their own and uh it is tough to see the commission costs I keep track of it so I always sell and I have a spreadsheet whenever I sell paintings I Mark what that retail value was and whatever that commission is so every year I see it and it's it's sobering you know but at the same time that I know them as people the galleries I work with are all friends of mine so it feels a lot better you know knowing that it's it's employing people and providing community service you know that's something that I love galleries I love going to them I think it's so fun that that they're a part of our life and as humans you know it's such a cool thing so that does take us artists also being a part of that process but but yeah it's it's it's tough I I don't say there's one way or better than the other that's for sure yeah I mean you are selling it man you are selling it because when you say that yeah and and and you're right they're they're people they're people too and they do provide a valuable service and shout out to Colin and and guy from um from Perth Western Australia my first agents because you know that's when that first really hit home for me that this is these are people and they they got your best interest at heart and they uh they're representing you uh to the best of their ability and and really putting you out there and you know it's got to be worth worth something for sure for sure but um you know while this is all happening like you're you've got your own website you've got social media you're doing all that side of stuff as well so I don't want to get you in trouble here in case one of your galleries uh you know is paying attention to this but are are you are you thinking in terms of if despite being happy with the gallery model are you thinking in terms of building up this personal brand because there's one thing that has come about in in the last decade and that is you know this notion of the personal brand because it's not just what you produce it's you you know and Kenneth Yaris is an entity that you can now go and follow right now on social media like this is a paradigm shift and and that can be the foundation for a business as well but is this something that you kind of toyed with or thinking about because I mean you're posting amazing stuff and it's always just hey just just sharing the latest thing from the studio that's really cool but I don't know is there something there in the future that you think could work oh yeah I mean I think the diversification piece is something that uh kovid I think was was a one of the big teachers of like you know again like in the Paradigm element you're talking about and I'd say with the gallery or simplified even more just the retail concept you know that there's a store people have to go to to buy something I mean that's being challenged worldwide society-wide it's you know whether or not people like to go shopping or want to go down to a gallery or do something it's a brand new frontier this is and that that is a cool thing and I'm a big techno nerd I love computers and stuff and so for me there's definitely been an awareness of all that and the the reality if you know if you sell something on your own you do make significant more money which is great but you're also able to then interact with people and your fans and stuff so I I try to do you know have a healthy awareness of both of those things because I think that again without discrediting my galleries have worked their butts off for years and have created me into this thing and they've got buyers that if I send them to work they have got people they can email to do it and again I love not having to do that so um the thing that I have started and been trying to do which is hard is is getting into the YouTube Element and you're a major hero for that I mean when I think of I almost get a kind of uh uh imposter syndrome you know it's like man there's already so many amazing content creators that like what do I really have to bring to the table here and that's that's a scarcity concept that doesn't help me to think like that so I try to like shoe that part of my brain that uh wants to come up with that kind of negativity but ultimately I think that you know price point wise and in a business idea right this is advice I actually got from a art dealer that I really loved and and it ties into say your brand making you know if you think it's guys like Mark Maggiore even where there's there's galleries he works with and there's there's professional support that he can rely on but there's also still this reality that like you are this engine that's creating the art you're creating some of that hype it's not going to be solely up to a gallery anymore to do that stuff and that's just the nature of the age we're in so it's hard for artists that maybe want to be introverted and stay home and not do anything because I don't know if you'll be able to get away with that in the next 20 years you know since we all got to be our personal celebrity um but I you know the main point that I wanted to stress about that was like basically in the financial game there's a ton of people that can afford something for a hundred dollars right and there's way fewer people that can buy something for a hundred thousand dollars so there's this pyramid element and and trying to build your base and your followers with affordable things that they can love and cherish you know and that's that's a ties into kind of the pricing thing too but like I want to be able to offer a broad range of things that can support That Base building and as your pyramid grows and that point gets taller and you're reaching maybe that Fame that will happen sometime as an artist it might be until I'm 60 or 70 you know but by then hopefully I've built this this big base that just supports that that really special fine painting that I can make in 20 years that's going to be amazing you know but it happens now and it happens with people buying cards or YouTube video you know the workshops and stuff like that I mean they're all a part of that that building and so I think that as artists we have to baby will manage all that and and think about how how we're growing our future because you can't control everything but you definitely want to have fans out there and if you go out and just want to hit those top one percent people and sell something for 100 grand right off the bat it's like sorry it might not happen it does happen you hear about people getting really crazy lucky with that stuff but but you know I think that with with the internet you have that ability to reach that broader margin you know where you can sell something for 50 bucks or 100 bucks to thousands of people and now you made a hundred grand so you don't want to underestimate the the reach of social media and the opportunity to to bring in fans into your your fold you know and they might not be the ones that buy a ten thousand dollar painting you know but they might buy something from you and that's pretty dang cool so it's tough I sell most of my big expensive things through galleries but I want to use the internet to reach a different kind of audience and sell a different type of product and you know laughs all right to be honest I hate social media I hate Instagram wow [Laughter] I hate I hate the the runaround and you know it's all AI thing it's it's you know with Tick Tock and everything becoming these reels and and that's maybe what straw me more to say YouTube where I can do long format videos I can do a 10 minute long video where I can talk about my process and actually share and connect with people and I'm not just this scroll bait you know spam stuff that's turning us on to goldfish like I I really don't like so much of that so I'd be trying to use the platform as I can but the reality is I want to be a part of a different different thing and so I'm hoping that YouTube can be that whenever I can does any more time to it because I freaking tapped out right now but uh yeah social media is is tricky I really don't like what it does for my mental health and and there's a documentary called the social dilemma that I think people should check out because it it does kind of highlight the you know and even mentioned it like you know the rabbit holes you can kind of get sucked into and absolutely yeah and it's I think actually kind of a dangerous thing for society and um aren't obviously being the really cool part about it I mean sharing art and I think of the old school Instagram where it was just photos and art and and that was it you know and but it's turned into this other monster and so I I don't like supporting it but it is it is where people are now So It's Tricky so that was a big tirade no no I I not at all I love it and that's that's what the uh that's what the podcast is is all about it's uh it's a series of dirt roads in the middle of nowhere and and we're just gonna take a hard left or a hard right into things and and that's what I love is exploring these topics because it brings so much color to um to who you are I mean look to be honest you know I build up this this mental image of what Kenneth Yaris is is all about and and then when I meet you I'm like wow there's just such depth here and it's just such a cool it's it's such a pleasure to meet you finally you know and have this this chance to really talk with you but you know you mentioned something there and I chuckled to myself uh because the irony is I'm going to take that little bit where you're hating on social media I'm going to turn that into an Instagram reel and post it hating people you know scrolling on their phone and that oh there's Kennedy theorists what do you say bring that back you know oh man it's it's it feels like a necessary evil or or you know whatever you're just they can't escape it well I I think it's by Design I I really think it's by Design and and there are you know we're fed this this pack of garbage where all of these platforms or companies are started by some genius in their garage and it's just not true um you know if people want to dig into the uh to the backstory of some people um the names are fake the places are fake I mean call me a conspiracy theorist I don't care but all we did need to do is actually really look at this stuff and and realize that a lot of this stuff is by Design and then my question is why and at the end of the day I think this is a spiritual thing you know just my personal take on it and it's trying to remove us from what's important I mean it's a bit like your art for instance you know we could celebrate your art which really for me hits that button and touches the Divine it's it's a reminder of what really important and you can look at that and and you know we could we could think about what you charge versus the the person who duct taped the banana to the wall you know and and this is this is a thing that's going on and I think ultimately whether we're talking about technology and social media and these platforms I think at the end of the day they're robbing us of who we really are on a deep level and and your art again brother your art just really it reminds us that there's there's more important things there are things that are vastly important and so whether you're working with a gallery or or or you know selling it direct or whatever I'm just glad you're out there doing it because it's it's I think it gives us permission this is the other thing as well you know you mentioned so much there but the other thing as well is that your own authentic guy and and it's kind of cold to hear that you went through that pain Point early on going how are you going to say I want to do this anymore I wanna I wanna I'm about the Landscapes I want to do the landscape stuff so um that's super inspiring too but while we're on the subject I mean you mentioned you're a bit of a techno guy you know so it's interesting you hate on social media but at the same time you like technology what are your thoughts on AI ah yeah AI is a big big deal right now I um I I love elements of it um you know I was actually just talking to my buddy Nate Claussen when we were driving out to that art show and we were talking about Ai and one of the things that we you know I think the structure like even it's so for a fine artist like me I don't feel particularly bothered by it you know the whether or not somebody wants to buy something that's printed out that AI made is it's up to them you know I don't see that being super valuable long term but I'm I'm out of touch with most people and how things work in the you know modern world and I'm okay with that uh but when I talk about the thumbnails that I have to do or I'm working on these design things like I definitely could see the tool element saying okay AI I've got these five different reference photos that I took of this area hit me with some stuff let me see what what you got is this does this create a spark to say oh yeah this tree was moved here because I'm doing that all the time I'm not at all a you know photo painter I'm I'm always rehashing stuff and and so I could see the AI being a useful tool and that instead of me wasting two hours sitting there doodling it all just saying generate and have it be done in eight seconds or about you know one second you know being given that kind of creative fodder and something that I would do but maybe not to that level you know and I think of stuff that like uh Dibble does I can't even remember his first name is it Dave David Dibble um just right mad scientist style rehashing of compositions and like run it's so so fantastic and obviously your own artistic Vision comes through through that process but I could see AI being a useful tool in that way but realistically paintings made with the human hand and the human expression will still always be valuable to people somewhere and in my other nerd side because I used to love I still love video games and I always wanted to be a video game designer and worker and and one of the big hold ups for me to be able to make my own game is assets you know if I want to make a tree that's a huge amount of Labor to render it and skin it and do all the UV mapping everything else is required to make this asset that now you can just say hey AI machine make me five trees and boom you got five trees for your game so I can see like cool things happening from it but you know that's tough because some guy that designs trees for computer games is probably sweating right now you know he's freaking out right now dude yeah yeah and and you know I think that's a broader deeper discussion and into like kind of what what matters and and that's a hard thing for our society right now I think there's some in that paradigm shift that you're talking about there's there's an element of like you know we have a downtown in our like most towns have a downtown right but half of it's empty it's just it is like it or not man I just shop at Amazon most humans just shop at Amazon here in America and it's killing the downtown but none of us are behaving differently and you're gonna have to have that crisis kind of of like what matters then what you know what is downtown if it wasn't just a shopping area you think about all the way back to Medieval Times it's like that's where people bought and sold stuff happens to be on the internet now so we have these internet downtowns but what's this new value going to be in our real town what really matters to us when it's not just crap anymore just stuff stuff you know like hopefully they get turned into places for community and hopefully there's more room as computers take over these jobs that humans can hopefully enjoy other things in life and they don't have to just work all the time that's the like utopian me thinking that hopefully that you know Ai and some of these speeding processes up allow more freedom for humans and more people can become artists and maybe it'll be more galleries down there I don't know yeah I I I I hear people talking about you know uh some sort of universal basic income as a way for you know your basic needs to be met as a result of this process that is kind of Shifting everything towards Automation and and these these computerized systems you know whether it's driven by AI or some sort of mechanized process you know a big industry that I think is going to be quite yeah uh displaced let's put it that way is going to be the transport sector you know whether you're a a cab driver or a driver or an Uber driver or or a truck driver you know as things kind of move towards this automation those people are going to be out out of a job and you're looking at potentially millions of people and and that is a huge concern and that's something that some people might go well okay well that's going to cut cost and efficiency and maybe there might be some sort of environmental payoff there or whatever but I I think ultimately the human cost that's that's almost immeasurable somebody that's put their life into that and that's all part of their identity that's um that's an incredibly painful thing to have to go through um life-changing or earth-shattering for somebody in that position and so so I I'm concerned about that but you said something very interesting about um you know something made by the human hand so you're not particularly concerned about AI from that standpoint which is kind of a refreshing thought as well because there are artists right now that are freaking out like some artists are really excited about it because suddenly they see this as an opportunity and they're using it as in in their process I am not one of those people um I I've had a few people comment on some of my digital art videos going hey ai's got you whipped and that might be but it's it's fascinating to see the different sides to this and I don't know if there's a right or a wrong here just yet I think this is still it's so new that we're starting to really it's interesting watching people find their feet let's put it that way but personally my my concern with it is is that anytime you have a paradigm shift that shakes the Bedrock of the economy there are flow on effects that you don't quite anticipate and I've explained this in the podcast before and the people that follow me at my Online Academy Link in the show notes by the way and they'll hear from the talks that I give on art business that you know in the past when I lost my business and hopefully people can learn from that so they don't have to go through the same thing when that happened it was an unintended consequence there was a downturn in the resource sector where China stopped buying iron ore so where I was kind of getting established as a professional artist that was the backbone of the Western Australian economy was arnor exports and so when China starts stops importing that and manufacturing steel they just say no no more we're good for now suddenly you have the mining companies just laying off wholesale just Executives and people working there and these are people that make money and they buy stuff and one of those things that they buy is like a nice painting to hang on the wall and now suddenly my waiting list goes from like a a few dozen people to cut in half to gone and it reminds me of that South Park episode where the guy's gone and it's gone you know that was very much what it was and I didn't see that coming man that was like getting slapped upside the head with a cold fish it was just a rude awakening I'm like what is going on so I I think we might be facing another one of those and I'm not sure what form it's going to come in yet but I think the displacement of people will have a flow on effect for us artists you know yes there's the creative concerns of course always but but still there's got to be demand for what you do you know and I I I believe that very much because you you can't you can't Outsource that you can't delegate that it has to be created by Kenneth Yaris with his brush yeah that's that's maybe and to tie it into your the you know the kind of modern branding of things like AI art it's just not that interesting I mean the the story of it isn't interesting there's there's a couple nerd friends I have that are you know they'll get crazy about it but people as a whole you know humans if there's something that's true through all of this crazy craziness of life and The Human Experience is that we are communal animals we connect and share together and computers I don't think I mean there's I guess I should I won't say anything because who freaking knows what's gonna happen but I know that that's that's one of our deeper drives and so for people to buy one of my paintings it's not just because of one of my paintings it's because of every every painting up to that point of of what I stand for as an artist in person to what they stand for as a person and collector I mean there's so much that AI can't touch there that I'm not tremendously worried by it um and on those other fronts economically that is that is a whole whole can of worms absolutely and I I curious to watch the next 50 years if I get them you know to watch Watch What Happens yeah it's you know the and I think of that with it's even you know a couple hundred years ago most of us were farmers most humans had to be and I've like I've actually worked at an organic farm and do a bit we do a pretty serious Family Garden here and it's one of the things that I think people take for granted it's just food you know but like how much work it is and uh what a pain in the ass that is that we're very lucky to get to paint all day because my hands are nice and clean and and my back doesn't hurt and I'm not out in the rain and you know like the farmers and and where food comes from is messy hard work and if it wasn't for farm machinery you know you think of what a combine harvester took over for you know thousands of people's job jobs were taken but but they freed them up in other ways in the economy so it's something that I try to use to dispel some of that that freak out sensation um that hopefully with human creativity and connection you know there's just more jobs to be made as more of these other jobs are taken away that we still keep making more humans and somehow there's there's things for us all to do somehow including jobs that were only I mean God I think of the people that get to play video games on the internet now like twitch and all that like if you told me high school me that I could have just kept playing Counter-Strike and made more money than an NFL player like I mean that's freaking amazing that that's all new stuff you know those are new jobs and new monies and humans have an insatiable need for entertainment but at like you said there's a spiritual cost to that I think too but yeah there's some weird times weird times behind weird times ahead it's all pretty crazy I'm still gonna stick to something that I've said though and and I I I still believe this firmly and and maybe in a way I have to believe it but I I don't think there's ever been a better time to be an artist and I'll say that in and maybe this opens up another tangent but I which I welcome um but you know it's it's funny how we were talking about beer stop before and and just what a badass that guy was and even you mentioned Thomas Moran another one of my favorites um and and I think we have the tendency to put these guys on a pedestal but I I imagine what it would have been like to be in that day and age because there's probably hundreds more artists that we never heard of that were just trying to get the break at that time as well but I I don't know what it is maybe we we just kind of assume that there was something in the water back then and we deified these people you put them on this this pedestal and it's unattainable what they were able to to achieve we can't do that today but I would go as far to say that there are some artists that are alive today working that are you know equal in in terms of their skill and how they deposit the paint I I'm just continually blown away but it's the opportunities that we have now you know galleries are still here but we have this whole new world that's opened up I mean for goodness sake you're over there in the United States here I am in the south island of New Zealand we're having a conversation in real time on the internet on video HD video and and whereas before if I wanted to talk to Kenneth Yaris and it's 1850. good luck I'm going to send you a letter and six weeks later maybe it gets to you if it's six or six months you know six months oh yeah yeah it's crazy it's insane it's crazy and I think that I would I would stand by that too you know the the now is is incredible you know the from what I have learned from just biographies and the the stuff I've just gained learning about these older artists and and you know back to the you know the stuff I saw in Europe you know that like you had to have a king vouch for you or a church I mean the the per capita rate of being an artist was just minuscule you know I mean I think that's where you see craft and art being so separated was that you could be an artist and that you carve stuff and did work you know and could be an artistic person back in the medieval times but if you were an actual artist of name of which we probably have what a couple thousand worldwide you know I mean now there's millions of us artists out there and it's that's what's so cool about the modern day is that the Paradigm that existed as much as we might hate galleries or might hate the Internet it's way better than having to you know wait for some King to decide for me you know that I can be an artist you know we all we have our destiny much more in our hands now and that's that's pretty freaking cool yeah it is and and I I think that it's important to just stop for a second and check in with these things I I think you know there's a lot to be said for just being grateful right yeah yeah that's unfortunate I think I mean it's not unfortunate I think uh it's it's in that spiritual realm there's there's so much that just thankfulness covers that you know we all at least in America you know we're just driven so so hard for more and to consume and to have and thankfulness just destroys that I mean it just stops it in its place where you can be like Oh I'm thankful for what I have and that's it's so powerful and so deep and you know I think that that it's not stressed enough at least in America you know it's kind of Counter Culture to be thankful in a way but it's it's really where freedom is Freedom I'm a big freedom guy I'm all about it I love uh something I'm into a lot lately is stoic philosophy oh yeah yeah okay excellent tell me about that I just finished a book by Ryan holiday which is uh discipline is Destiny I think of what the title was but uh if you have you gotten into that one not into that one I'm gonna write it down here because I think you would read many more books than I than I get into well just just just on that though uh Kenneth because I so I I'm I'm not a reader okay I I don't read I I I hate reading I just don't like it I don't see the sense in sitting down and and doing that because I'm so busy with the business and then I want to draw something I want to paint something but I I'm a listener so I think you know we we have this thing now and I guess people call that reading books I don't know if it counts but I I've got quite an audible budget that I'm building up every month and heck yeah man yeah I will stand by that as reading I okay good people are like you didn't read that book it's like oh my God whatever like I didn't sit there and turn the pages you know but I'm with the audible all the way it's there's some books that I I think are you know kind of heady or something you know I gotta almost take notes from them and audible hasn't suited me well for some of those those reads but I I am a big time audible guy I'm with you if you can paint I I couple that I couple it with the the app called short form um so so when it when you're when you're listening to an audio book and then you want to find that title uh not sponsored by the way uh if you're listening to this but just just a fan um so some of the books though that I've listened to haven't come up on short form um so I listen to this David Goggins book which is just mind-blowing uh called never finished and I try to find the notes of that one if I'm remembering correctly and I couldn't find notes in short form mind you it probably didn't lend itself to notes per se but short form will give you a a a a summary and a synopsis and then expansion in particular areas and I found that to be quite quite beneficial um but but stoicism tell me about that because I've look you'll know a bit more about that than me I've only just begun to to dabble my toes uh in their um after having a bit of a chat to um John fenerov uh who's who's a big big fan of stoicism but um I would would love to to hear your thoughts on that because it's it's super fascinating oh yeah I think I mean and I would I am so far from being you know intellectually up to par on on my stoicism and my my reading of it you know I've gotten most the way through Marcus alias's uh meditations which is one of the kind of pillars of stoic philosophy and that he he was just one of the more well-documented writers of it but but stoicism is tied back to you know Way Way Back In into western western civilization and tying some of you know these old old paintings old art the the ideas and principles kind of driving them it is so hard not to touch on stoicism and the kind of you know the way you think about reality and what matters you know because Beauty and nature are things you hear repeatedly in these the kind of quotes and thoughts and and good and and evil and what's right and wrong I mean all those things the philosophical entertainment or those ideas has always been interesting to me even when I was like a little kid I remember like getting books on Aristotle like when I was like in high school and not understanding anything and I still don't understand it in a fully philosophical kind of way like you know whether what ideas he's you know proposing in what reason and logic they're made up you know all that stuff is too heady for me uh but it's it's the overall gist of them is so appealing to me I didn't grow up with a religion my family didn't teach us any particular spirituality so I think I turn to it as a way of of trying to understand the spiritual realm you know and having those Notions like you said there's times where you can't help it as a human but you feel drawn to something you know and and whether that's that truth or goodness or when you see something that's evil and bad and you can't really describe why or how it's that way but you know it you know that there's some some deep stuff there and stoic thought is so so ingrained in our society in the western end of things that like you just kind of take some of them assumptions for granted and then they become almost colloquial you know momentumori is one of the ideas there that likes basically just remember that you're gonna die it's kind of morbid you know but momentumori is is uh one of those when you think about that and you think that way it changes your presence it changes how you are in the moment and that's powerful and so I think that stoic thought has always just tied me back to the kind of the roots of right now it becomes almost a spiritual practice in how you overcome suffering and how you work for what matters and and avoid kind of what the world and the noise says it kind of gives you this this Shelter From the chaos of things and I've loved that about stoic thought you know it's close to there's a lot of you know Buddhism has some similar principles I mean Christian thought jumps right into stoic thought you know stoic started a little earlier than than some of the Christian principles but they all just meshed into Western Civilization as we know it so I think it's so cool for people to to read that stuff and and see that there's some of these sayings are like oh that hasn't changed you know even though we have cell phones and all this crazy stuff that they would have never believed humans are still the same you know what we suffer from is still the same and the antidote is also right there and it's normal right here between our between our ears if you can take stewardship of it which is a lot of what stoic you know a lot of stoicism happens there it's interesting because I I think so many of us artists are run by emotions and that was a big takeaway for me again just just dabbling my toe in there going oh this seems like a bit of a bit of a framework for first getting yourself under control you know realizing the nature of who and what you are and and controlling that raw emotional energy and really taking hard a good a hard look at yourself and taking personal responsibility you know as a Christian you know people have have and I've had debates with people and conversations with people about it and and it's it's a kind of a relatively new thing for me I've only been a Christian for the last four years but when I try to describe it to somebody who isn't I I just kind of say well I I you know yes Lord and Savior and and all of that and I love Jesus But ultimately it is a is it a it's a code of of Ruthless personal responsibility and I I find myself I have to continually check back into that you know I have to continually um take stock of that where am I at am I am I living true to my word because that's one thing that that we've got to be is is kind of is honest you know and and honest with ourselves um because you're you're not gonna lie to God are you and to get away with it but oh man this this went this went down one of those dirt roads real fast I love it um but there's something here let's bring it back to the art because there's there's something about this where you know if you're taking personal responsibility and you're going for this thing that is so important to you and the driving force behind your career it's going to take discipline so would you would you describe yourself because the evidence Bears out you you do appear from the outside to be a very disciplined person I mean because the evidence is sitting right there I'm looking at it in your studio that takes hard work that you're not going to get around the amount of time that that's going to take to develop those techniques so so run me through that like how would you describe yourself would you say that's accurate are you disciplined oh I so in that that kind of radical self-judgment that can happen you know I I would say I'm fairly disciplined at all you know to the capacity I know I could be you know am I more disciplined than other people or my more discipline than I would be you know it's it's I think the mentorship and the element of of what happened in that hero's journey if the the teachers that helped held my nose or the grindstone literally that that was needed you know as a young person that could go a thousand different ways it's so great to have teachers say hold on a minute you know um but I would say that I like discipline you know that's that's going back to those that that stoic mentality that like you know and it can be a little brutal or something like you're gonna die and your life is only pain and that kind of stuff like it's that's not really like the big takeaway if you're gonna go with those spiritual Realms but like there is freedom in it and there's there's there's fruit in that structure that's undeniable you know like I said like back to Aristotle you know we are what we repeatedly do Excellence therefore is not an act but a habit and making yourself friendly with that idea that like you know even this painting back here is still a step in a journey this isn't my be-all and all painting it's not the thing I've been working to all this time that thing is the work itself and and I'm not going anywhere you know there's no Final Destination for us as artists there's just the endless creative journey and and that's so wonderful if you can learn to accept the journey and not think that this next painting is some some breakthrough thing you know and similar with with like how the philosophical piece affects life is like you know the it won't be when I buy a house that I'm magically gonna be happy it just won't and it makes it hard for me to do stuff sometimes because it's like what you do if it's just a journey it's like just got to be in the moment and be free and be happy and you know that that's for me to have if I want to grab it right now and that's that's spiritual and it's hard hard to be there all the time you know so when it's not there work work on Art and work on all kinds of stuff you know I would say I'm disciplined in that I like I said I like health and fitness you know I like going to the gym I like having those kind of routines I like you know I mean even in my passive like I love video games where it's like I will play those with a disciplined nature that I'll play that game until I've leveled up everything and whatever that's not traditional discipline that I'm getting anywhere with real life but you know it's it's I will focus on things and I seem to be kind of and I think you might know just like creatively there's like that kind of you know I think you have to wrestle that with your different businesses and being like okay if it's gonna be YouTube like I imagine that Andrew gets sucked into that with everything you know and I'll I'll get pulled in those rabbit holes you know I I have to be so careful Kenneth man I I tell you what I have to be so careful like I tried the video game thing for for a little while they could I think the last console that I bought was back in 2016 and I tried it because I I kind of wanted to see what it was all about and because I didn't grow up with video games or I didn't even grow up with TV and and so I I went in and then I got hooked and I have such an addictive personality that I was like you know what I I I'm gonna have to give this thing away and just go cold turkey and I I'd never touched a console again I don't even think I've had a chance on on a on anything so so I was going I bought an Xbox but the last console I had played before that was like a uh not a Super Nintendo a Nintendo 64. golden eye oh yeah that was okay all right so yeah I'm showing my age here no I love the 64. I still play mine sometimes that's pretty hilarious but it's the um I I have to be careful so I have to choose personally I've got to choose what what's the thing I'm going to get into I'll tell you the big thing for me now that I'm kind of getting obsessed with besides the whole working out and exercise thing because I'm back on that kick but the um spear fishing is has has really you know taken taken my imagination and I'm just thinking about the next spot that I'm gonna go and do a dive and this is coming from a guy that that doesn't get in the water like I I'm phobic still about the water and and sharks and seals and and and things that that uh and and mainly the things that that prey on the seals because I'm still convinced despite what the seasoned spear fishermen tell me I still think you look an awful lot like a seal in murky water and and it's uh so there is that so if you don't hear from me for a while folks uh just check with the uh the hospital um but I it's it that's something because I gotta have those things outside of art right I've got to have something to just hit that reset button but I I was terrible at it for years I I never had that outlet outside of of Art and I thought no maybe I need to pick something up here but um it's interesting that that it's you know video games for you um it's it's great to hear it's like maybe I'm assuming but it's it's great to hear that you can control it because I couldn't I I was just I was in I'm like I got I gotta unhook because I I gotta get me that Halo I gotta get back into it you know yeah they're made to hook you and and it's man it's by Design you know and it I do not control it well I mean that's what I'm saying the discipline piece is always challenged by those kind of things that you know if if I won a lottery tomorrow and could choose to paint or not I think I would come back around a painting but who knows how long it would take me you know the the hunger Drive is is still you know I think it keeps me in the easel but I think being said being I like grinding you know I like to feel like there's that uh quality of work and reward you know and I struggle more with like you know the kind of the manifestation mindsets where like you just kind of magic things happen like like no man it happens through hard work and determination and grit and both are probably true to some capacity you know and that's I just have to get over that uh but I also you know just tying these like personal things like if you if you you know don't have other stuff then I think art I don't know I think like art and I saw that I always feel like an imposter kind of when I was in school it's like I I like painting and drawing but I don't like it the most I like all kinds of stuff and you know and it's so fun to live life with that than being just like super obsessed with one thing but at the same time it's hard because I feel like I identify in so many ways like almost like a split personality where I like yeah I'm a big nerd but I also love hiking and backpacking and mountain biking and adventuring and you know like there's Seasons where I live in Montana and America is we have in literal Seasons where it's just snowy and garbagey here for five six months and having indoor Hobbies is very convenient um but all summer I'm out paddle boarding and biking and hiking and backpacking as much as I can and it inspires my art so there's yeah there's a lot to me I guess that's I mean there's there's got to be man I mean I I look I I um it would be such a crime to have you on the podcast where we didn't actually talk about painting and I um I love hearing about what makes you tick and all the stuff going on behind the scenes and even how you started as well and some of these influences and it's also I it's fascinating because we're we're occupying very similar spaces and it's it's interesting to get your take on on the the way the world is now and and how that Paradigm is Shifting again I think we're right in the middle of another one and and again we're just going to see how this shakes out but all that stuff to one side I've had a blast talking to you about it the painting itself now you you're doing your hiking you're out in nature what and I know you're you're an amazing Plein Air Artist as well and so I imagine that's got to be a huge part of the artistic process walk me through this how does this masterpiece that you're sitting in front of right now the one that's just over I guess unless Zoom has mirrored this it's over your left shoulder there so tell me tell me about this painting and how would a piece like that from the ground up from from the beginning from walking up to the edge of this Creek before it opens out to that Lake where is that by the way this is actually the Sawtooth Range down in Southern Idaho so this is far away from my normal stomping grounds but I'm a mountain lover through and through I don't care where the mountains are I live next to Glacier Park so I paint that a lot but this is this is a kind of a headlining piece for my solo show in July and it's in Coeur d'Alene Idaho so I thought hey this might be a great time to paint the scene that yeah with standing there at the foot of that Lake was you know and you know most artists know there's like kind of like I'm gonna paint this like that's it's not about you know matter when it happens but I knew I was gonna paint it it was perfect it was so hard not to just not you know sit there and do sketches then obviously I took hundreds of photos you know that's my my going practice and in that nuts and bolts kind of discussion Plein Air is has been kind of a challenge thing I mean it's like Plein Air painting is has been a challenge in the like on the deeper element of like why we do it you know and as an artist I think you know my draw to Plein Air is in the process and the experience of being there understanding nature better getting out into the inspiration and and capturing it being there for two hours at a time like there's so much fruit to be had plain air painting but then you know a place I found myself caught in a couple years ago was like okay cool you can make a little late by ten that's great you know one you can only sell that for so much money but then also it doesn't do enough sometimes like this scene as an eight by ten doesn't freaking cut it you know like and I look at beard stat and Miranda these guys that are like no no we're going huge and realizing that like that has to be a part of my artistic statement you know there's I can't just be a pleiner artist as much as I love going out and playing air painting it really only feels like the research and development phase of something like this is really where it happens and when I'm doing this I'm not thinking about Plein Air at all you know I'm not like I don't even reference Plein Air studies anymore like it used to be a thing I used to kind of have to convince myself that Plein Air risk for something and hmm I had to start just shifting away from that because it felt like a weird box that didn't fit like you know I've been making these Plein Air paintings and they just they weren't my art they were my attempt at capturing things and they were fun and I love doing them and people like buying them as people like the pleiner style small unframe things or affordable you know again Think About That Base building you mentioned earlier it's like there's a cool place and space for Plein Air painting but when it comes to these big epic paintings like I have to switch gears and get out of that like copying nature mindset or you know Big Brush Strokes mindset like I'm going for a different goal and that's okay but it took me a while to get to that Comfort level as an artist I used to just always feel like you know the all the Prima method was everything and now I don't work all a premium hardly ever I freaking hate all agreement now it feels like I'm rushing and struggling to fit everything in and it seems unfinished and choppy but that's just my own personal aesthetic and workflow you know I props to the painters that can do that you know I they're they blow my mind it's just not how I can do things that's too hard yeah fair enough fair enough so so this piece behind you is that a 36 by 54 it looks like almost it's yeah it's a three foot by four foot so yeah 36 by 48 48 yeah okay okay brilliant yeah fantastic a big piece you know I mean I I only make a couple of those a year most the time and like I said it's it's tough because I want those compositions to have a certain something you know they have to have enough to carry the scene and there's artists that make bigger paintings with just like a horizon like the guy I shared a studio with Richie Carter I'll do these amazing paintings that have almost nothing in them sometimes but they're so beautiful and that's you know that's his aesthetic he sees that stuff and responds that way but for me these big pieces if it's just the tie-in to the old Master works but I want there to be enough to enjoy you know for someone to see a painting from a distance but then get close and have things to enjoy about the scene and some of that then you know becomes what you render and how much story you're telling is as you get close to things but you know that's that's the nuts and bolts of it are definitely like I do photography Gathering is like the kind of pillar of it where I'm out getting the material I really can't just work from other people's photos I found that to be really you know kind of stale or something for me like even though there's really amazing photos out there it wasn't my experience so there's something I can't draw from when I see just a cool photo and you know there's like stupid things like in this picture I have all kinds of detailed shots taking of these rocks and stuff that they don't mean anything as a photographer you know like the photo is not remarkable but what it helps me out as an artist is so helpful so anyway getting that material and sourcing it and then taking notes of it in my head is is one of the big things where I just got to have the experience and it's a hard thing to rationalize like my girlfriend or my family who all see me out having fun all summer and it's like I really I'm working guys like it's hard to say like this I'm having a fantastic time but if I don't do this and I don't make the paintings then I don't make any money which is so awesome you know for me yeah so so I gotta be out of my paddle board in the Middle with the lake it's it's work guys hahaha I figured then 40 miles of backpacking and this was our last day at this Lake and wow you know it was ah like you know it's weird but like that's the kind of experiential piece that I draw from and maybe to touch on the the tie in the spiritual stuff and the the you know philosophical stuff that goes on with this like I think being in nature and the physical Journey right of hiking and climbing hills and mountains but then again I'm away from my screen in the society and you're back into this like raw human form in a raw animal world that you are you got to be turned up and the sawtooths actually don't have grizzly bears but where I normally am have huge scary freaking Bears so you're you're just on this heightened awareness that I think makes everything more beautiful it just changes everything and if I don't have that coming into this artistic process like I don't know if I could fake it you know I don't know I don't know that's I haven't tried it I guess maybe someday when I'm old and that's the thing I think about now as I get out here and get these materials and get the inspiration because someday it will be a lot harder for me so for me to do a 50 mile backpacking trip now it's like heck yeah Now's the Time and yeah so that's that is the foundation when I think about these paintings it's like those experiences those moments where nature just just does what it does it's just they're awesome just yeah yeah it's just awesome but then yeah it's all the other nuts and bolts of drawing and sketching and so so how long would you spend and drawing for for a piece like that a typical 36 by 48 because I I just personally speaking when I'm doing anything at that kind of scale I feel like there's so much writing on this process so I'm going to be here for weeks if not months I got to get this composition right so I might even spend a couple of weeks on on the composition alone in the Sketchbook maybe something digital but definitely a color study so so so what would that process look like here for the for this piece yeah oh and and on that note a thing I kind of hang hang my hat on and I think I believe in and it's just kind of stupid saying but it's so true but it it's well begun is half done so for me oh I love it you know especially coming out of school you know and the academies did not teach this you know that'll be something I would I would fault and caution people as they're pursuing whatever education is like academies are all about like working from life and understanding light and form and very useful very useful tools and stuff I'm grateful for in a in a craft sense but boy they didn't teach anything about picture making you know they don't teach they did a horrible job about teaching composition it could be because I quit early because I was a bad boy um but ultimately there was so little in that like you know how do you compose like you could set a model up and they could all paint models on a stand perfectly well but it's like all right now what you know give me a boogero I don't have a lady flowing out of a tree can you do that it's like no you can't rig a model up to do that and that was a thing that I think they they struggle from in a modern sense of like okay cool you know develop these things and it does take time I'm glad they do that but this other stuff like you said it's like so much sketching and designing and like kind of like feels like improv poetry or something just like throwing out ideas trying to get something to stick and my Sketchbook habit which was a long time thing since high school just sketching and and thumbnailing and and gesture drawing oddly enough is something I did just thousands of hours of and you wouldn't think that would apply to the landscape but there's so much Happening Here and when you think about the forms of mountains or trees that like gesture and that flow is so useful and I mean the school in New York they they really didn't they didn't they felt gesture was kind of a waste of time and I think that's a huge detriment to to their folks because gesture is like I think it's still everything for me and uh yeah but sketching wise I would say I know I've switched to everything being digital I have an iPad now mind-blowing just the procreate and the usefulness of its tools has just completely changed my process wow and I mean ultimately it's the process is still me sketching you know I I tend to look at the photo and draw and not I mean I occasionally I'll drop the photo on and just skew things that's if the photo is like really amazing and I feel like it's got enough to bake a painting as it is but I tend to kind of cherry pick things and it allows me to go from that like sketch phase where I'm just thinking okay you know small composition or you know zoomed way out and I'm thinking about those big shapes big values big angles and just throwing down those sketches and ideas and placing things kind of as I see fit and then zooming in and saying actually okay that rock I'll grab that rock from over there oh that rock I'll change the shape or that tree I'll get rid of it you know you start to have some fun with the process and that took a long time to get to because I used to just kind of wait till I had a really great photo and had the self-confidence to say okay now I can go ahead and paint that but this way is so much better and I think I make way better art now than I used to excellent wow okay yeah I I I I I mean I for one love the digital process I I'm a big fan of Photoshop so I'm drawing on the Wacom tablet all the dang time to to design some of the bigger work um but procreate uh fantastic as well you know I haven't gotten into it as much but I've got the iPad and the apple pencil sitting right there and I could just get straight back into it but recently the the thing that kind of twigged for me was that when you're doing a physical drawing and the SketchBook well you have the drawing you know at least you've got the physical thing and I still am having trouble walking away from the physical thing um I got an email from from somebody recently shout out to Richard Richard's a big fan and has been following for a little while he's like I just I wanna I wanna buy a a drawing from you every six months I just I just want something to just track your progress uh and so I was I was really touched by that but if I was just doing the digital I would I'd kind of go well I'll print this out for you I I so so I'm having trouble walking away with a Sketchbook I I think having a good balance of both is great but I hear you man like like on the on the iPad front that is such a handy thing to have um and and it's it is faster but there's there's a lot more Dimension that you can add to something and make boldness I I think that's the biggest thing for me is the Bold decisions quick and if you don't like it then just X out of that and just revert back to the saved version or a few steps but but it when you're doing something in real time analog that's a lot more difficult that there's there's time then you know and I I find even still as free as I like to think I am I'm still like oh I don't know holding on to it pretty tight oh man yeah that's that I just made a painting later earlier this month that I had you know these trees coming out on a you know really clear landscape and that's always one of those like you said there's a lot of consequence and and I tend to do except I'm not an all Prima painter so I kind of paint the background in and just left these indicators of where the trunks were and where that tree will be but when it came down to all right it's go time I gotta paint those those Limbs and commit to that drawing and you know there's only so much turpentine would have done to get rid of some of that stuff and you better believe I took a picture with my iPad and sketched out some ideas of where I wanted those lines to be and how I wanted that flow to happen because I just as experienced as I am I didn't have the kind of gumption to say boom here's the branch you know not until I got to experiment and play with it some and the iPad is just like you know you're so right like I won't be able to sell things from this and and I don't I kind of like that sometimes where I can just this truly just feels like the like the mechanics yard where you're just banging on stuff and figuring things out and there's the end goal is that I make a functioning working thing but the process is just messy and dirty but I do still believe and I love drawing so like that like the kind of sacred object concept you know that like this drawing I'm going to make is a drawing for its sake and I like that I kind of like the planar thing like a Plein Air is it's its own sacred thing the drawing is its own thing and they do inform each other but creatively if my goal is to make a big painting I'm at a place in my deadlines and stuff and it's like it's freaking go time I gotta get this stuff done and the fastest possible way to get through that r d is needed for me right now I wouldn't encourage it for people learning you know it's like it feels like a professional tool that I rely on but like you got to draw with your hands and learn the medium and just the tactile element of like drawing with charcoal or graphite is like I spent thousands of hours doing it and you know I don't regret that I love it right now when I'm trying to make paintings that gotta sell I gotta do that as fast as good as I can and and it feels like these digital tools are just tools they're not really art which is a bold thing for me to say because I know some people really love the digital art and it can become that for you you know but like again for me I just mine's back there that's it's in the handmade thing yeah and the digital piece you know people won't be going through my hard drive someday trying to make nfts out of any of it I mean maybe they will maybe they will if nfts are a thing I mean that I was talking to my buddy uh Samuel Earp about this and I want to get him back on the podcast but we had a bit of a challenge in the last series of the creative Endeavor where we're like okay rice to go and and get your first nft out there and he beat me to it like hands down he just got out there and did it and I I was still working out what an nft was but it seems to be a bit of a a flash now that they don't seem to be quite the thing that they were touted to be in the beginning and there's only a select few playing that game really really well and I just didn't feel like I was at that level where I like knew what I was doing enough to be able to go although I'm I'm stoked about crypto and decentralization I I think that's an interesting opportunity as well and could be something interesting for artists but you know whether I talk about that more on the podcast I'm not too sure but it's something that I'm that I'm looking at but yeah look on the digital side of things I mean again whatever this is a thing whatever helps get you there in that process because and I've got to mention this because somebody commented on this on on a video because I was starting a bit of a series called sketch Zone which was digital art on my YouTube channel and I had this guy somebody commented and said um look you keep saying this is a means to an end but it is a art form in its own right please show a little more respect I'm like oh yeah I kind of got me a little bit I'm like and I didn't mean to be disrespectful at all but I'm thinking hang on guy you know this I I don't think you for all of us it's a different thing it's just who's anyone to judge this is your process and it's a way that you see that and and I just find that just so fascinating you know um and for me yeah it's a means to an end I I do look at digital art and digital artists you know as art and artists but for me I I I don't think I'm going to print out my my uh digital designs and hang them on the wall um maybe they're better suited for a t-shirt but but they informed the painting and and that was the necessary step that I had to go through I I it's important to look for the edge though isn't it you know whatever is going to help you get there use that yeah and that's that's right uh my the Russian teacher I had early on and he kind of said like you know his job is to give you the skills but he's like at the end of the day when you go out to make art your only responsibility is to make the best art you can and that's kind of liberating when you you know especially in the academic Dogma centralized thing or like you said in the regular education system where it's got to be all about the idea it's like the other day you just gotta really be doing something for you authentically and then finding people that like it you know if you're gonna make any money doing it anyway but that whole process is like it's it is kind of Hardcore radical self and and digital is such a good playground because you don't have that that you know the kind of commitment phobia where it's like okay here we go I'm gonna make that line and I can't get it off again like in oil paint's really forgiving but it's still it's so nice to have that digital tool so I'm a huge proponent of it again I'm a nerd so I like that kind of stuff anyway um but yeah well these all happen digitally now first and then I grid them I'm doing some new stuff with acrylic paints first so this is all right okay was this one underpainted underpainted with acrylic first wow okay yes I mean every this is actually only halfway glazed and I'll tell you right now that I only started glazing it today and I only glazed it for probably four hours so all of that color work that you're seeing in the background took less than four hours to do you mean color at all was it like a grizzai like black and white first yep what are you seeing down here that's still grizzai there's no color there yet um so this piece is not even not even close to being done really I've got many many hours of work to do but that that is acrylic paint it's an acrylic grizzai and yeah this is kind of my new crazy radical witchcraft thing um because yeah it's it's it's new and it's something that I've been experimenting with and it's it's super fun I think it's great to be trying out new things um and and a part of that process for me has been you know trying to recognize shortcomings so I really struggle with texture and trying to make paintings that have more oomph to them you know and I would try with these quick dry oil paints and oil Grizz eyes I've always bugged the hell out of me because you have to sit there and wait for a week or two for this thing to tack up and then any paint you add to that has to be you know fattened up so you're working that fat over lean element and I hated it like so the graziah I knew wasn't working for me and that process was was unenjoyable so this new thing I'm doing I'm actually liking much much more because it's allowing me to build texture and body with the acrylic paint adding these like texture paste and super fun fast drying responsive things that are giving this painting so much more fun while I'm only worrying about the drawing and value which is also makes the process much more fun because I'm not getting super heavy with my color in depth and atmosphere it's like just value it's just drawing to me at that point so I'm I'm able to like juggle one ball and then after it dries which again takes a day you know you give acrylic some cure time but it's really pretty fast I can go straight in with Washi oil paint and build my normal oil paint layers up as I would so it's felt super fun super responsive and yeah it's it's new and spooky I'm not sure I'm gonna stick with it all the time like this painting back here was done just you know oil paint directly but it's yeah kind of my new crazy thing I'm experimenting with that is so exciting that's really exciting because I mean from from what you're saying from just looking at the piece right now it looks so resolved uh mind you it's just a little bit through a a screen on zoom and zoom video quality is not that great yet but still I'm looking at that and I'm just shocked I I just did a Grizzly uh for painting I was doing a Monument Valley in oils on a copper panel and and I can so relate to what you were saying because I was waiting for weeks and weeks for this thing to dry and I got in touch with with Ray Aslan who who makes these panels and I said look what am I doing wrong bro because I you know it's not dry what's going on I said I'll run through the colors that you used I was like okay lead white uh permanent crimson and then I also used um cobalt blue and he's like there's a problem you know that Cobalt is going to take a while I'm like ah of course I knew that but ah I didn't do it but secret weapon yeah it and a lot of my my new ones will be with those those Earth Tones and I you know it's funny I don't use a lot of umber I'm a big fan of the burns umber but I'll try the roll Ember I'll try that but probably any of the umbers they I know the the dry time is this is actually you have to be careful glazing with raw because it's such a finicky color they have to over oil the crap out of it sometimes just to get it to not dry because yeah it's always just trying to get chalked up yeah but it does go fast and with acrylic paint I mean this is another acrylic design I can show you back here we're getting the tour here folks this is phenomenal that one is beautiful wow the next piece so it's there is warms in there like there's yellow ocher mixed in with my acrylic um right just acrylic yellow ocher so this is still just all acrylic underpainting but now I'm freed up to do color as I want to and it just it just feels like a it's an extra step but it seems like it's a step that that actually makes that process faster like I said you know well begun is half done this feels like some of that preemptive attack stuff that if I can get my everything in the right place it's go time and and then you don't have to worry about it so much like right now I'm just painting color and it feels like I'm just having a ball I'm not thinking the drawing's all in the values are good enough I'm freaking just able to have fun rendering rocks and forms and getting my light to bounce and and creating those atmospheric colors I don't have to juggle everything at once which is such a um it just makes the process more joyful for me at this point that's fantastic I I I'm experiencing a little bit of a mental shift here for myself thinking okay maybe there's another way around this this is really you're inspiring me right now that's really cool I don't know that I could stoop to that low of having to get out the acrylics but I know I know I had to oh I had to buy some for this community art event I did they were like okay this you know you have to do acrylic for this thing because it was this painting it was going to go hang in the in the in a business locally so it was like this you know just Community Dart thing making one of those Yes Man things where it's like I didn't make any money at it but I was a part of my art community and I love that but anyway the push I got this acrylic and was like man I hate this I hate acrylic paint and it's so frustrating and like you're fighting it all the time and it wasn't until like I kind of had this chain of ahas where it's like well I hate how long black and white takes when I'm doing oil but I like how fast these acrylics would dry if I didn't have to deal with color I was like well you don't even have to glaze like I was getting these weird glaze mediums for the acrylic paint doing everything I could to try to push acrylic into the oil family and that failed it was still frustrating it dries in 20 minutes so like all of a sudden it was like oh no I can do the black and white in acrylic where everything's working how I want it to and I can do the color in oil and have a full day to mess around and shift these tones and and then as soon as they dry I can go through with impasto because they're actually I'm still building a healthy paint layering instead of you know mixing up those fat over lean things so it's been I'm hoping you know this is still new like this is probably only the fourth or fifth one I've done so hopefully it's something that I've refined as a process and hopefully you guys can out there see oh he's you know getting better at painting hopefully that that's always the goal isn't it although it's hard to imagine I must admit I'm not saying that to blow smoke man but it's I'm just so excited to see where you go with your body of work um so so how long then and I get this question all the time and it's so hard to answer because it depends on what you're painting but how long would a 36 by 48 take you given the the recent change in your process well yeah that's that's it's it's an important question and it is but the answers I've always loved you know say the right answer to that question is for me to make this painting and the time it did it's taken me every painting I did up to that point so it's taken me five years or you know whenever people come up with that number and that is the right answer for an art collectors try to bug me about it um but then as a professional so obviously my goal is to make it as fast as I can you know and as good as I can it's always those are things that they fight each other sometimes but this experimentation is definitely driven by that you know okay there's problems with working all a prima uh you know there's things I could do within a day or two while that paint's wet and then I have to start getting into the layering or glazing and modifying things that way so uh you know something I've thought about just as a side note to this but it's it is helpful it's helped me out a lot but like when we see dancers perform or an actor it's like you don't see all the rehearsal lines you don't see all of the tripping and falling down they do over each other that happens being up to that performance so when it comes to like this piece or a show I've done my rehearsing you know I'll go there in the iPad sketching out my stuff or in the valuing and the transfer process like I want this thing to feel like a performance without a hook and to make it fast and to make that Flawless is actually the goal um you know it's not to sit there and toil over it and you know I think there's that's kind of like romantic image of like an artist just beating their head out in their painting and it's like that's stupid you don't want to do that like if you're doing that and you have a deadline or you have a gallery wanting good work from you then you are sabotaging yourself like do that do it creatively and and in your process when it's a safer space to do it but don't do it while there's a deadline hanging you know don't do it while you're got you know this is hopefully going to be in some magazines and stuff like I don't have time to get lost and confused with what I'm doing so all that said I'd probably spend about 12 hours painting the black and white underpainting on it yeah I'd probably say another four or five hours tweaking the design and messing around so probably getting close to that like 20 hours but then today it's like four hours and the color's halfway done hopefully I'll have you know I'll work probably till nine o'clock tonight and then some tomorrow and I'm hoping the color will be kind of getting good and be done you know so 40 hours is my goal maybe incredible but I might run into some problems with it you know some of that stuff you this thing's dry you know you might be like oh crap I gotta work on that area more and I tend to kind of do this funneling system as I'm finishing work and you know the process the critiquing process like the self-critiquing process is where you kind of step back and you look at it and like I kind of we do these things with figure drawing where you're like washing your eye over it so you don't try to look carefully but you just let the eye wash and then like if something grabs it if you're like oh that that green is too saturated oh that edge is too hard or yeah that cloud is bad like didn't you just do that and do that and do that and do that and eventually the time span gets longer right so I'm there painting for five hours but I've probably only made 15 changes instead of the original Block in time where I'm just hacking at it and you see all this progress you know the last part where you're just really changing super super subtle things just pushing a form back you know tweaking a tree changing a drawing bit you know you're just that finishing phase is so tedious sometimes but again I'm hoping through proper uh lead up work I avoid some of that really tedious stuff at the end fantastic man well that's inspiring to me I mean definitely I can uh I I I could safely say well just watch this space because you you've yeah you've inspired me to maybe play with a few more things maybe stick with the graziah a little bit longer because I I'm just blown away that level of detail and rendering and and just finesse over some of those fine points within that landscape and the amount of time like I I you know anyone looking at that could just go easily four times the amount of time that you're you're saying but incredible inspiring stuff a Kenneth this is this has been such an inspiring conversation I I always like to to wrap up these podcasts um because it's something that I find I get obsessed with and maybe maybe it's a bit of a waste of time but at the same time maybe it's necessary to kind of reflect on one's life and trajectory in in their art career but the more I'm learning now the more I'm kind of thinking man if I knew this 10 years ago what would I be doing different you know what would my life look like today so let me ask you if you could go back to your your younger you know self 10 years from this point now back what would you tell yourself what are some of the things that you would do different I mean are you are you happy or satisfied or you know content at least in the place that you're in now or would you like to be further ahead and maybe a bit of a painful question there but what would you have done differently 10 years ago to anticipate this moment now you know the the biggest I mean I really like you know the advice I've had from Galleries and and even just in the mentoring element of watching other artists I have a lot of uh Grace for myself I guess like I'm still so young even though I'm in my 30s now it's like in the Fine Art world that's nothing you're still so young like to think of myself in my 20s trying to take myself seriously it's like man just just be where you are and like stay learning and stay curious and the biggest thing that like you know part of this this process you know not not believing some of the narratives that I did let run the show early on whether it was that kind of Academia like you have to work from Life thing or the you know because I really love Richard Schmidt and some other really cool Brushy impressionistic stuff that like I do love but it was not true to me and if I had could have liberated myself earlier from that you know like one of the things that I hear with students and other people it's like oh you can overwork it you can it's like that's totally up to you like there's not some perfect painting that like you can miss or hit like it's like you have to throw this like Target like you make that thing you craft every bit of it and you can go back and craft it I mean if that's your aesthetic you really want like a one and done thing then like yeah that's a little different but for me I've found so much more joy in this process by just like doing what I like and and painting it to whatever I enjoy whether it's too detailed for some people or not colorful enough for some people it's like I don't care I don't have to care like I found people that want to buy it so that's cool like being more accepting of like my own Vision you know because I think that would allow me to be more more applying to that instead of getting confused by things and confused by those mixed inputs and especially if they aren't your mentors you know people you really love and admire their work then definitely listen to them but I was letting anybody critique my stuff and it would all hurt or you know steer you in some way so now yeah I would go back and kind of be like it's okay kid you know like yeah yeah and I gotta kind of tell it to myself now even that like five year ahead I got to be like all right Ken you know you're just here in The Dugout right now you got to keep painting and and that's that's I think it's hard for artists to be faithful in that because it is it is a scary world and it's hard to financially put your skin on the your neck on the line but the more authentic you are the more likely you're going to be successful if you're trying to copy somebody else or you're you know that's one of the things I did also took advice from a gallery guy who's you know don't don't emulate living painters and that's the thing I have with Instagram even is like trying to follow all these artists and seeing great art that these modern guys are making can be a little distracting so I find myself now you know looking through my library at the old dead guys and trying to trying to keep that aim really high and just be like this you know what's going to be in a museum someday what's that that level that you're talking about the humans whether they speak the same language or not can see and feel something like that's that's some cool art that's some powerful stuff and you don't get there by worrying about deadlines you don't get there by trying to be better than the guys in the magazines like you got to just like live to that high point and and yeah that's a mixed that's not just like one thing you do right that's a whole combination of Ways to Live that's uh what a what a perfect way to uh to end this podcast um I I gotta say it's been a massive pleasure it's just such an honor to talk to you and and share this studio time with you and thank you so much for uh for for showing us your paintings um Kenneth Yaris man thank you for being on the creative endeavor thank you for having me Andrew well I really hope you've enjoyed this episode of the creative Endeavor podcast it's so good to be back with you once again with a video podcast if you enjoyed this and make sure you hit that like button for me and leave me a comment down below what was a takeaway for you from this episode what are some of the things that got you thinking I'd love to hear from you now of course if you're not already following Kenneth on his website make sure you go to kennethyaris.com and also he can be found on Instagram at Kenneth Yaris huge shout out and thank you to Kenneth for joining me I can't wait to come to you next week I'm talking with Joe parquette but until then stay inspired and I'll see you in another episode of the creative endeavor

Channel: Andrew Tischler

Views: 16,386

Keywords: art, artist, professionalartist, professionalart, painting, sketching, drawing, paint, oilpainting, newzealand, podcast, podcasting, deepdive, talking, insights, compassion, beautiful, landscapes, portraits, grisaille, ai, aichat, aitalk, economy, economics, downturn, future, predictions, howto, howtoart, realistic, studioart, studio, gallery, galleries, paintings, americanwest, western, culture, cultured, cultures, expression, creativeendeavour, thecreativenedeavour

Id: Mf6CNGx3vw0

Length: 124min 18sec (7458 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 14 2023