44. Authenticity

From Season 3 of "art for all," the Sketchbook Skool podcast. Join artists/authors, Danny Gregory and John Muir Laws in rich discussions about the creative process. 

This week John and Danny talk about what authenticity means and its relevance to art. They discuss forgery,  influences, and offer advice on how you can find a style of your own. 

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Transcript

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Danny Gregory: [00:00:00] I'm Danny Gregory. I'm a writer and an artist and the founder of sketchbook school. And I'm joined by my friend, go ahead, John, introduce yourself. 

John Muir Laws: Hi there. I'm John Muir laws. I'm a scientist with a sketchbook. 

Danny Gregory:  I like that. I like that. You've come up with a different way of describing yourself each week. Yeah, scientists with a sketchbook. Cool. Good. Well, today's theme is authenticity and we are going to talk about all kinds of aspects of what authenticity means relevant to art. Um, we're going to talk about forgery. 

We're going to talk about style. We're going to talk about finding our voice. Uh, we're going to give you advice on, on how to use the influences that. Affecting your art. We're going to talk about what it is to be a beginning artists and what it is to be a mature artists. And we're going to talk about artists who we admire and [00:01:00] artists who have gone through creative changes, uh, either inspired by the people who influenced them or to step away from those influences and all the various other things. 

It should be an interesting conversation. Authenticity. Are you ready?  

John Muir Laws:I'm looking forward to it.  

All right, let's do it. 

John Muir Laws: It's really  good to see you too.  

Danny Gregory: Yeah, I'm really, I'm enjoying doing this and I'm finding that, uh, more and more people seem to be finding it, looking on YouTube. YouTube seems to be the place for this audio only experience for some strange reason, but okay.  

John Muir Laws: The, the audio only, only experience with visuals,  

Danny Gregory: right? Exactly.  

John Muir Laws: We make it so exciting by being here,  

Danny Gregory: sitting here with, well, people like to watch middle-aged men sit and stare at their computer screens. 

John Muir Laws: [00:02:00] I just, I just miss being around people so much that, um, I'm really hungry for, you know, opportunities to, for, for conversation opportunities to, um, Any even, even being with people virtually, um, I know it's not the same, but, um, I guess, you know, I'm, I'm a social primate. Um, I miss I miss being with the troop. 

Danny Gregory: Yup. Yup. We're all stuck in our various, our own monkey trees right now. We can't play in the  

John Muir Laws: that's right. We can't play in the vault, but fortunately we have this, these two tin cans and the long string between my tree and your tree. And so here we are, I think that gets a visual. Then we go to my little kind of note-taking here.[00:03:00]  

I'm going to have our two monkeys, um, in my sketch notes, um, uh, with their tin  

Danny Gregory: cans he's with tin cans. Yes. So. Um, one of the topic that we picked to talk about today is authenticity. Um, and we just kind of shared that word, but we haven't really talked about what it means. Uh, that that's what  

John Muir Laws: I thought would be kind of fun about this, that, that we have a topic, but probably my, uh, interpretation of what that is, is going to be authentically different than yours  

Danny Gregory: possibly, possibly to each his own. So, yes. So let's talk about why don't you start, cause I know what I think about it, so I don't know what you think about it. Why did you think authenticity was an interesting topic to talk about and what's it got to do with art? Are we talking about like an authentic Rembrandt or what are [00:04:00] we talking about? 

John Muir Laws: Well, I, I, I mean, th the thinking about forgeries is, is really interesting because people who can make a really good forward. Amazing amazing, amazing artists, artists. Um, I think that they're, what's, what's gone astray is that for me, story is really important and history and story, and the process of how something came about for me is, is a part of, of, of experiencing the thing. 

And so if there's a, there's a, let's say there's a piece of art that is claiming to be one thing, but really came about by another process. To me, that kind of misses the point. Um, you know, there, there was a, um, uh, a, a person who, who painted amazing forgeries, I think of Vermeers. [00:05:00] Um, and then. Sold those to the Nazis to help him survive during world war II and also to kind of satiate part of the, the Nazis, um, lust for getting their hands on, on, on all the great art, um, and was, uh, was so good at that, that sold, sold art too, I think. 

Uh Gehring um, so it was a  

Danny Gregory: Dutch guy wasn't it was a Dutch guy, I think  

John Muir Laws: that's right. I think that's right at first, you know, people saying like, you know, you were a collaborator, you were selling art to the Nazis, but then he proved that like, no, I was selling them forgeries to kind of get their eye off the ball. 

And so then becomes a national hero. Um, I think, I, I think that the story behind that is. [00:06:00] Personally, if I could have a piece in my collection, the one with that story rather than the Vermeer, I mean, that story is beautiful. The story of that forgery is amazing. Um, but, but what is, but I think what is sad though is, is when, um, like, as, as say, as a geologist goes out, they collect a rock, the rock, they have to keep track of where it was found. 

Like, what is the, what is the structure that you have brought this out of what layer in the earth? Because otherwise it's just a stone. Cause it's, if you remove it from its context, it's just, it's just a stone. But if you have it in context, then it's. If you sort of know that this was found here in this layer, um, you know, this far down, uh, next to these other sorts of things, you've got all your sort of [00:07:00] notes of, of how that, that looked that rock then becomes a really useful tool for helping understand the history of the earth. 

But otherwise it's just a stone.  

Danny Gregory: So it turns, yeah. So for you, for you, authenticity is not just judging a work of art on the surface, but understanding the context of the story that's yeah. That's  

John Muir Laws: one part of it. And then the sort of, you know, my artistic authenticity is a whole different discussion, which I think we're also going to get into, but first, just sort of thinking about like the piece of art itself, I love, like, I love looking at people's sketches. 

What are the sketches behind making a painting? Um, and when they do. Uh, I don't know if it's x-rays or some other process of looking into canvases to see what was, uh, [00:08:00] what, what were some of the sort of the false starts in making something like there's this, there's a story there and I love the story, right. 

And so I guess that the tragedy of the F the forgery is that you end up you, if it's done really, really well, you end up with a story that doesn't really connect to the past, uh, past of that piece of canvas or paper. It's  

Danny Gregory: a lie that when you dissect it falls apart.  

John Muir Laws: Yeah. And I'm not so much worried about being lied to,  

Danny Gregory: but I think you're distracted. 

And it was, you think you're learning. You think you're, you're, you're coming upon a story that then turns out to be a fiction and it's harder to learn from a fiction sometimes, unless it's got a universal truth to it, I guess. But, but I think if you look at something, if you look at a Vermeer and authentic from here, and that is within the context of what was [00:09:00] Vermeer doing at that time, what is Vermeer's role in our history? 

How did he affect other artists who followed him? What does this say about life in his day? Because he was obviously a documenter of everyday life, all these kinds of things. And then if it's a forgery, you say, well, none of those things that I figured out from that, looking at that work of art are actually useful because they're not true, then it's not,  

John Muir Laws: but, but there is, but then there's this other story there of this person who created the forgery and what, what went with that? 

What, what was going on. That's what I would want to find out that  

Danny Gregory: sense, the guy who you cite this D Dutchman is, you know, to some extent, I mean, I don't think that he was politically motivated. I think he was still a thief who was trying to get money. Right. So it seemed like, I mean, it'd be, be interesting if in fact, rather than post rationalizing it, it turned into that actually was what he was doing. 

He was like an art gorilla who [00:10:00] was going in and, uh, you know, sort of subverting the system and had this whole agenda for doing it. Might've that might've been interesting. That's probably not what he was doing, but still, um, yeah. Yeah.  

John Muir Laws: Interesting. But we w with, with, with history too, because it's, there's so much time and space and interpretation between sort of now and then, um, we will never know. 

Um, we'll probably never know, right.  

Danny Gregory: But let's talk about the more interesting to me, more interesting, at least aspect of authenticity, which is how authenticity affects 

pile. Yeah. So I was saying, um, authenticity is something that I think is a factor in all art and in, in learning about art and, um, you know, is, is sort of a different kettle of [00:11:00] fish than whether a particular work of arts history is authenticity. Whether it's provenance is authentic, that's, that's sort of interest  

John Muir Laws: makers. 
 

Yeah. Authenticity is that's where the rubber meets the  

Danny Gregory: road. Right. So what does that mean to you? That, that aspect of authenticity,  

John Muir Laws: the, 
 

I, uh, I think people talk about it in, in two, in several different ways. One is that a, um, I guess the idea that you have that there is something inside you that is, is an expression of your deepest self and that that's somehow going to come out on the paper and that if you are [00:12:00] following that fire, then what you do is, is, is authentic. 

Um, and if you get derailed from that by, by starting to, uh, To mimic somebody else or do it for a motivation other than the intrinsic drive, um, that this is somehow inauthentic, but I don't really see it that way. You know, I think that for at least from my personal experience, the artists that I am is a hodgepodge of all of these ideas that are coming in from all over the culture and from, from the [00:13:00] works of other people who inspire me. 

And I, I, I, I voraciously scavenged these ideas. I'm I have a little notebook and I'll jot down like any good idea that I hear, I will want to. Hang on to that to turn into something that I might then sort of repurpose and reuse. So a lot of my, a lot of my ideas are not ones that somehow organically originally sprung from some John Muir laws as well. 

But I feel like I am so, so rather than being a well, I feel like I am a stream moving along with all sorts of really useful tributaries coming into it, giving me all sorts of ideas and inspiration. So what is [00:14:00] authentic Oakley me, um, is that a picture of a. Done in the field while perhaps, but is that, you know, derivative of Tunnicliffe is that derivative of William D. 

Barry or anybody else who I've studied that inspires me? Um, yeah, probably. Um, but you know, when, when things come into you and then come out through a creative process, it goes through the filter. That is you. And so I am going to be able to create something that is different than these people who inspire me. 

But there is, there is a, there's a link and a connection, though, in all those things with those sources of inspiration. Did that make any sense?  

Danny Gregory: No, I've completely fallen [00:15:00] with you. Um, I think I have a slightly different point of view. I think in part, because I don't know that me is dif is completely separate, separate bubble. 

If that's a word from, from influences, like influences have helped make me know. I mean, I have exposed myself to other people's ideas for as long as I've been able to think whether it was my parents' ideas or books that I've read or teachers that I've had or all these things they all helped to create me. 

And so I don't feel like derivative is, is a really inappropriate word. Cause I feel like it's derived perhaps from all these things or it's influenced by them or it's affected by them. But I'm, uh, you know, I'm standing on the shoulders of giants to some extent, but also like everybody [00:16:00] I am, um, you know, I'm a creature of my time. 

And I wonder if it's different, if your goal as an artist is to explore yourself and to, you know, kind of dig deeper into who you are with the hopes that when you make something other people will find some aspect of themselves in it. Right. That's I think, I think that's what a lot of art tries to do is to say, say that again. 

So, okay. So I, if I make, if I make art, that is, um, somehow channeling how I feel about the world or how I see the world, um, or what I've experienced. And then you look at it and it resonates with you because you see either similarity or it throws into relief. Some feeling that you have, it makes you feel and think about yourself. 

You know, I think that that is to me, a large part, part of the point, you know, and it could just be as [00:17:00] simple as Cezanne looks at a bowl of fruit and sees it in a certain way. And I think, oh, like I haven't seen that way before, but I could see why that is how I could see that way. And in the future, when I look at a bowl of fruit or anything, I will be affected by what say Don knit to me, that's that to me is part of the process. 

So it's kind of like it's in me, I put it on paper, you look at it and it resonates with something inside of you so that it is a form of communication that is purely subjective. That's its purpose. That to me is different than perhaps what say scientific illustration is meant to accomplish which, which could be. 

That all that stuff gets in the way. It's kind of like if you're a detective, you know, or a journalist or a doctor or a scientist, you're not supposed to be subjective, you're supposed to be trustworthy because you're completely objective. And that the art you make, if you make a drawing of the bird, that's what that damn bird looked like. 

I [00:18:00] don't care who you looked at. I don't care that you looked at Audubon or whoever. I want to know that you are drawing the bird as it really is. This is not, this is not an opportunity for self-expression, but I don't know if that's is that EverTrue or else take a photo.  

John Muir Laws: L let me just sort of play with those, those ideas a little bit. 

Um, this is okay. We're getting fun here because, because I want it to pick up on, on both the idea that, um, you know, is somebody looking at that artwork that you made and then having their own sort of experience off of that is that. An essential part of the process of art, or if I just put it in my sketchbook and put that up on my shelf, and I had this experience of connection with the world while being out there in the field through making that sketch of the Curlew. 

Um, and then, then I closed the book and I never share it with anybody. [00:19:00] And, and it sits there on my, on my shelf. Um, there we've removed the whole part of it. That is for somebody else's consumption, if you will,  

Danny Gregory: unless no, but unless somebody else is future you.  

John Muir Laws: Ah, so, so what if I never look at it again, just, but the, the process of doing that forced me in that moment to. 

Uh, to be still to pay attention to deeper levels of, of beauty and wonder in the world. And then before I left the field, I was chased by the hippopotamus, edit, swallowed my sketchbook, the, uh, you know, that that artwork will never be seen again. I've had a sketchbook float down a river, um, that I didn't want to dive in after. 

Um, and, but the, the [00:20:00] experience of creating that is still intrinsically mine. Um, so I th I, I guess, I don't know if for the art process to be complete, if it has to be filtered through a viewer myself or another at another time that  

Danny Gregory: just was formative. And in either case yes, it's transformative, right? So it tracks the process of making this piece of art. 

Made you engage differently with the outside world. It transformed you. It changed you in some way. It's a story, right? That's your story, your story of change and growth. And so therefore that whether it's with present you, future you or somebody completely else, it's the same kind of thing, as opposed to if your goal was purely objective. 

Like, I want to make sure that I get this completely accurately, that this drawing completely accurately [00:21:00] reflects, uh, this bird. And I don't want anything inside of the fact that I had like a fight with my wife this morning, or the fact that this bird reminds me of a bird that, you know, pooped on my car three weeks ago. 

It doesn't make me think of it made me think about any of those things. It I'm just being a camera essentially. Yeah. And I think you could do that. Yeah, go ahead.  

John Muir Laws: Well, but I'm thinking even for the scientific. The scientific illustrator is so different than a camera, because even if I am trying to render something, as clearly as I can, I, the, what makes that, so like the, the, the camera with a, with a, you know, 500 megapixels or whatever it is, um, you know, each one of those is kind of opening up. 

I'm going to like, it's going to get it's it's, it's equally weighting all the information in front of you, but what the illustrator [00:22:00] does is looks at something and the illustrator is deciding, I want to communicate a specific thing. I want to communicate a specific thing here. And what is that? Maybe that thing is what is the plumage of this bird when it is in a relaxed. 

Maybe it is postures taken wall displaying, right? So there's a specific thing that you want to show and you're leaving stuff out and you're putting, and the, so the choices you're making all these choices of what you put in and what you leave out. And that's what makes for a effective illustration. If you put everything in with equal weight, then it's much more of a confusing image to look at one of the most famous, uh, sort of modern day bird illustrators is David Allen Sibley. 

And. [00:23:00] Sibley's stroke. Well, one of Silly's I think that that guy is, is a crazy genius, but one of the things that he did that was brilliant is in his drawings of birds for his field guide, they are rendered as you might see the bird from about 20 feet away. So all the, like it's got this little feather and this little feather and this little feather and this little feather in here, all this little detail that when you get at a distance, you don't see if you're putting all that information into the illustration as most illustrators do, because we're sitting there and there's a study skin of the dead bird on our table. 

And so we're drawing it at that distance, but then that becomes a little bit more abstracted as you're, as you back up from the thing, you know, Sibley's. All this information that he, he [00:24:00] absolutely has the ability to technically render all that stuff, but he's choosing not to. And that makes his illustrations much more useful for getting a sense of the gestalt of the bird, the sort of the general feeling of it. 

Danny Gregory: Um, yeah, but that brings us back to authenticity because you could say that the more technical illustrator who is rendering, all those details is in a way being in authentic, because they're making, they're creating a drawing that appears to be something that was done in the field, seeing a bird on a tree. 

But in fact, wasn't created that way. Right. Whereas what you're describing that simply is that he's, he's, he's making something that feels authentic in that it was maybe created in the same environment in which we're looking at the bird ourselves. Right. I'm making that like when you, when the way in which we make something, we hide that in order to make it seem like something else [00:25:00] that is a bit inauthentic. 

Well,  

John Muir Laws: I think it just depends on, but, but let me just sort of give another example of one of my kind of heroes of bird illustration. Um, uh, Tunnicliffe um, is a person who th their sketchbooks filled of sort of loose sketches of birds. But what Tunnicliffe also did is made what he called measure drawings, where he'd take a dead bird, put it on his, his, his easel, and just feather by fender feather render the bejesus out of this, and often in seven different angles with the wing spread. 

And the wings tucked in there are just these masterpieces of, and, and he's, he's using little calipers to make sure that every little part is the right length. And for the purposes of making this document of here is the plumage of this bird in all of its detail. It's a different goal. But I would say that it is [00:26:00] equally authentic. 

I, I guess I would challenge the idea of in authentic art.  

Danny Gregory: You  
 

John Muir Laws: mean the whole idea of it? The whole idea of inauthentic art. Um, cause I mean, boots are like, well, what if somebody is just doing something for commercial purposes? Well, that's what they're doing. And then people can make something that is commercial that is artistically masterful. 

Like I remember. When I, uh, when I was little, there was a, uh, an advertisement that came on television for apple computers and it had, uh, there was a giant room filled with people, sort of, you know, in some sort of, sort of [00:27:00] silent reverie, um, in a, in a huge hall with a, well, there was a, uh, picture of essentially big brother, um, projected on the wall in front of them. 

And a woman comes sprinting in with a giant hammer and throws the hammer through this. And, um, and, and that's what it was, how they introduced apple computers to X. And it is, it is it's, it's visually stunning and compelling, and it's done for a commercial purpose. But, um, I would say that, that was, that was, that was, you know, if, if it, if it was just done in a film festival, people would look at it and say like, oh, that was this. 

That was a wonderful scene that you created. But the fact that it's in a commercial and people go like, oh, no, well, that's, that's just that, that can't [00:28:00] be art. But I'd say even that I'm an account in my art book. And I'd say, it's  

Danny Gregory: that?  
 

John Muir Laws: What is, what, what is, what would be an example of something that is in authentic? 

Danny Gregory: Okay. Well, let me talk to that because I haven't really given you my explanation  

John Muir Laws: for monologuing. No, I  

Danny Gregory: mean, I think, look that commercial, which is called 1984 was the launch of the, um, the Macintosh, uh, is, you know, is it artistic or not? Uh, You know, I think that, I certainly think that there are pieces of commercial art. 

And in, in commercial art, you can include illustration because you can say, I'm not just talking about an ad, but I could be talking about an illustration for a magazine article or an illustration in a book. Those are also pieces of drawing or painting that were [00:29:00] made by an artist who is being paid to do it. 

And who is, who is being given, um, instructions, you know, to various degrees of detail about what was expected of him. So it wasn't like going to a drawing or most cases it's, you know, we need you to you to draw the, you know, 20, 20 Jeep Wrangler and we needed it to be on top of the mountain and it's back lit and we want you to make it yellow and all these various rules that will be applied to, um, to the, to the, the, the illustrator will be working with it. 

Does that make it authentic? Not really, but it doesn't make it an authentic piece of art  

in it. It's entirely the artists point of view. It is, it is a collaboration with, you know, whoever the client wants. I've made art like that. I mean, I've made, first of all, I [00:30:00] spent 30 years in advertising, so I I've made many, many commercials and I've made, um, and I've made commercials that were had varying degrees of authenticity. 

I've made commercials that were based on stories in my life. So I've taken a story of something that actually happened to me and I've made it into a Superbowl commercial. Let's say I've, I've done that kind of a thing. I've also made commercials that were completely made up and. In authentic, we're completely not real. 

The fact is that generally advertising that is authentic, that that ties to an actual human experience and actual human emotion tends to be more persuasive. So it's generally better advertising. It's often very difficult for that kind of message to make its way through the labyrinth of corporate approvals. 

So that's why you end up seeing a lot of advertising that isn't particularly authentic, that feels totally contrived. And you say, well, nobody ever would behave that way. [00:31:00] Nobody ever would look that way. Nobody would ever live that way. I can't really relate to it on that level, but good advertising has a kernel of truth in it. 

Just like good, you know, art of any kind does where you say, okay. Yeah. Like I totally relate to that part of it. And, and generally w you know, when I worked in advertising, that's what we wanted to do is we wanted you to say, like, I guess, I, I, I get what the story is. You're telling I relate to it. And therefore, when you give me a message of what you would like me to actually do, as a result of seeing this story, I'm willing to do it or to entertain it because I feel like I'm talking to somebody who gets it and understands me. 

That's not really what I was talking about with authenticity. I find that there, I struggle with authenticity in part, because I spent 30 years in advertising. So when you work in advertising, you know, the motivation for doing a lot of what you're doing is because somebody's paying you or because somebody told you to do it, you know, and there are rules that are set up and they are overseen by, you know, your [00:32:00] boss and your boss's boss and your client and all these other people, they're all intruding in this experience. 

And ultimately you're doing it to deliver something that meets everybody's expectations. So in general, that kind of way of creating is less what I would call authentic than an artist sitting down with a blank piece of paper. And pouring their heart out, you know? And I find like when I write things, there are times where that those muscles that I developed over those years of advertising, even though I haven't done it for a decade or so, they, they, they are atrophied, but they're not gone, you know? 

And I, and I write marketing materials for sketchbook school. You know, I write stuff to promote my books. There's, there's lots of opportunities that I have to sell stuff. And there are times when I can write. The gear that moves me into further and further, you know, authenticity where my goal is to [00:33:00] get you to do something. 

It's not just to communicate how I feel it's to get you to do something. And I can be varying degrees of heavy handedness in doing that. And I would say that to me is inauthentic. So if I created a piece of art, which is like propaganda of some kind was trying to get you to do something the degree to which I'm trying to force you to do it. 

And I will cajole you and use anything at my disposal to convince you that veers into ethanol author inauthenticity. If I honestly don't really care what you think that will be more authentic, you know, it's not, it's not that I don't want to engage with you, but, um, but I'm going to lay it out. This is the way I see it. 

And if you don't agree with me, I don't really care that. You know, that doesn't, that doesn't undo the reason that I'm doing it. So I find that what I wrestle with is can I be authentic or, or am I going to slide into, and I think things like social media make us inauthentic too, because we can say, what are the [00:34:00] pieces of art that I make and put on Instagram that are going to get likes? 

You know, uh, I think musicians wrestle with this. If you're a band that makes a certain kind of music, I was just reading an interview or a piece written by a musician. Who's a successful musician. Um, his name's Nick cave. And he wrote this piece about how they had created a new band, an album that he said, a lot of our fans are not going to like it, but this is the piece of music that we felt. 

This is the kind of music we felt we wanted to do right now. And if it's not for you totally get it. I understand you expected a certain thing from us now we're doing this other thing. If we had continued to do the other thing that you're used to, that you like. That wouldn't be authentic to us. That's not what we want to do as artists right now. 

If you respond to us as artists and you want us to do our thing, whatever form it is, and you're going to find some pleasure in it, then great. Then you'll like this new album, you know? So I think that that is, you know, that's [00:35:00] that anyway, that's what I'm thinking about right now. 

John Muir Laws: So for creating something, because we feel for whatever reason we should, whether we're being paid for that, or we feel that that is what our audience. Prefers you're saying that that is then a sort of a lower level of, of, of authenticity.  

Danny Gregory: I think, I mean, I think it's the contractual obligations album. 

It's the, you know, the musician who never varies what they do. I mean, I know a lot of illustrators who became well-known for doing a certain style of illustration and they never stopped doing it. Why? Because their agents basically said to them, look, you know, this is what people are hiring you to do using the structure. 

And some other things you're not going to be, they may or may not hire you. So if getting hired as your objective and being an illustrator, then be careful [00:36:00] that you don't suddenly start doing something completely else. And I don't think that's just true of illustrators. I mean, there've been examples of artists who have radically changed the direction of their art fine artists and, um, you know, suddenly. 

The tide turned against them. The critics turned against them. Yeah.  

John Muir Laws: The, uh, when Bob Dylan started playing electric guitar, his hands booed him. Exactly. Um, the, but if I am creating art and my goal is behind that is persuasion. Um, so I am trying to create this piece of art to move, um, move sort of, somebody's sort of internal decision-making, um, uh, [00:37:00] ticker a little bit towards it. 

Doesn't have to be towards buying something. It could be maybe more towards compassion, maybe more towards. Um, uh, excepting somebody who's different than they are. Um, but I'm, I'm, it could be something that, um, I feel is a, not just sort of a, an economic gain for me, but something that I, uh, but, but I'm, but I'm deliberately using my art. 

Be it music, be it visual, um, spoken word, whatever it is to, to influence people. Are, are you, are you saying that  

Danny Gregory: it's completely authentic? That's perfectly fine. I don't know. I think so. I think the, my point was just, let's say, I say, um, I [00:38:00] want to sell you a t-shirt and so I do a drawing of a flower because I know that flower. 

I have done well on t-shirt design, put a bird on it. Right. So, so I that's why I'm doing it. I don't really want to draw flowers. I don't really want us to draw birds. I want to sell you a t-shirt cause I want to make some money cause I want to buy myself another porch. And so what I'm thinking about is like, I'm going to do this. 

I'm going to act like I'm doing it because I liked drawing birds on flowers. However, my motivation and my feeling is that there's going to be something in that art that betrays what your real agenda is. But even more profoundly, I think you're going to feel crappy because you're not going to be getting the pleasure out of making this art that you're making, because you're doing it for some other reasons. 

So that, that could affect it. I mean, may not, you [00:39:00] may not enjoy doing it, but yeah.  

John Muir Laws: Okay. Um, then I guess what I. I think that perhaps my resistance is on sort of purely a semantic level. Um, the idea of authenticity authenticity versus in the authenticity. You know, I think that somebody who is doing something because they authentically want to be able to feed their family. 

Right. And so it's, it's a means to an end and, um, you know, but I would say that that person is just as authentic in what they're doing. So just if I change the word to authentic from authentic to what inspires you, what brings you alive? Um, versus not the, the, the, in his poem, sweet darkness, David White writes anything or anyone that does not bring you [00:40:00] alive is too small. 

Um, and that idea I think is kind of at the core of what we're, we're, we're talking about here. If you're doing something and it doesn't bring you alive. Yes. You're not going to, you are not going to grow from it in the same way you are not going to, um, to be able to that it's, it's a diminished experience. 

Sometimes we do these things because we want to put bread on the table. Um, and I think that are the things that motivate us. Um, I guess the idea that there are, um, you know, you'd say like th the motivation of making, making money. Is is inauthentic, but then no, no, no, no,  

Danny Gregory: no. [00:41:00] You're misunderstanding me. I'm not saying, I'm not saying that doing something to make money is necess necessarily gonna make, you know, authentic art. 

I don't mean that at all. I mean, if you have a feeling in your heart of what really matters to you, what you want to express, but you don't do it that way because it would, um, you know, in some way have impact your ability to make a living or similarly, if you decide I'm going to change the art I make, because this is what's popular. 

I don't particularly like it, it doesn't really resonate with me, but I can figure out how to do it. So I'm going to do that. That would be in authentic. I mean, it might make you successful. Um, but it isn't necessarily authentic. And I think people who value authenticity will see. You know, here's another, here's another take on this. 

Cause I think we've gotten into the weeds a little bit about this [00:42:00] that I do.  

John Muir Laws: I do like the, the, these weeds, but I think that we're, I think we are sort of fairly on the same page, but maybe it's just the term of authenticity. Um, but, but I like what you're saying about how, like, if you're not, if, if you're doing this thing and it really, it's not that the thing that brings you alive, it can be, it can be absolutely a, a trap, a creative trap where you're sort of the, the, the calories that you have for expanding in creative ventures, then just get squandered in this thing that does not bring you further  

Danny Gregory: alive. 
 

Yeah. It's like exactly. I mean, I think, I think if you, if making art that flows out of you and who you are and everything you've experienced. 

Brings us joy. Um, but if you say, you know, I really shouldn't be doing this, I should be doing some other thing that may not bring you the [00:43:00] same manner, joy. Um, you know, I was thinking about like Norman Rockwell from Rockwell, incredibly successful illustrator. You know, he was troubled by the fact that he was in a lot of ways out of sync with fine art of his time. 

Right. What was going on in the art world, in the fifties and sixties, when he was at his peak, couldn't have been more different than the kind of art that he made, you know? And I remember he did that one painting where there's, it's called, I think it's called the museum goer. And it's a guy looking quizzically at a Jackson Pollock, like a guy in a business suit. 

And he's kind of looking at it sort of upside down. Well, what's interesting that that is. Norman Rockwell painted a Jackson Pollock painting in that illustration, like the middle of it. You had to make it. And he actually really liked doing that, but he knew he couldn't do that. He couldn't send it become like an abstract expressionist. 

That'd be insane. But I think he wrestled [00:44:00] with am I allowed to be doing what I'm doing when it seems like I'm hopelessly square in my days, you know, to be doing this thing. And there's obviously still an audience for that and you continue to make a go of it. But, but, you know, I think he, he did wrestle with that idea with, am I supposed to be doing this? 

Is it okay to be doing this? You know, and I think, I mean, there, there are actors, for instance, who may take a certain role because they get paid a lot more money to be in a, some commercial film, you know, and then they are successful at it. So then they keep getting offered roles to play these commercial characters and they say, yeah, and eventually it just becomes habit. 

Like, okay, I'm always going to be in romantic comedies or an action films. Whereas I, it's not really what I want to be doing, but, you know, I guess I'll make enough money so I can afford to go and do off, off, off Broadway shows now. And then, um, you know, so I think, I think that that is something that people wrestle with, but I want to dial [00:45:00] it back to when we're first learning to make art. 

And I think when we first learning to make art, we do study much more carefully and deliberately what other people do. Right. Cause we say, what does this person do? It says, aren't, I should be doing something like this. Right. So, so you look at it and you go, okay, Um, I should, for instance, be able to draw and really realistically, I should be able to depict reality in all its near photographic terms. 

So let me study people who do that. Let me try and do that. Do I actually want to do that or do I think that that's what drawing is? You know, that's something I have to come to terms with, but also I think over time we, you know, we, we absorb these different influences. They become part of who we are like we were talking about earlier. 

And then you start to say, well, where am I in this? And also what is my style? I have people write to me all the time. How do you get to have a style? How did you get your style? [00:46:00] And I think, okay, that's like asking me, like, how do I dress this way? Why did I, why do I cut my hair this way? Why do I with, you know, how do I, why do I put my stuff in my house this way? 

You know, it's because this is who I am. This is what I like. This is the, this, these are the things that I've cherry picked from out. Other people do. And I've, you know, made them my own in some way. Um, you know, I'm, I'm influenced by Ronald Searle. I'm influenced by David Hockney and I'm influenced by Robert crumb. 

Those are like the main people. They don't really necessarily have very much to do with each other, but those people have kind of blended into me and who I am. And I'm not really like any one of them, but they helped be to find out who I am. Like now when I do a drawing, it just looks like my drawing. You know, it just looks like that's the way. 

Um, and you know, when I use procreate, it looks a bit [00:47:00] different. And if I spend three hours on a drawing, it looks a bit different, but at its heart, it's all me, but it's not because I tried to do that. You know, I just find that that's how I draw. And I'm sure that you feel the same way that that's how you draw. 

And you could perhaps do imitations of other people and draw like somebody else. But ultimately what happens is as you draw and as you practice drawing over time, you become less self-conscious and more. Um, fluid and confident, and I would say authentic more authentically you, and you're less, you're less the influences that you wear on your sleeve. 

And you're more just this weird amalgam of stuff that is effected by everything that's happened to you in your life. And that's, that is the most interesting thing, but it's not something you didn't necessarily set out to accomplish. It's just kind of where you get to. And I think of it like jazz musicians, you know, when you're first starting out as a jazz [00:48:00] musician, you know, you have to learn the basics of playing the instrument and then you have to learn the basics of how improvisation works. 

And then you get influenced by all the people who you admire and the people you play with. And then eventually you just have a style. And when you blow into that trumpet, everybody knows. You know, um, but years earlier you may not have sounded like that.  

John Muir Laws: Right? So part of what we do though, by, by studying all these influences is we're building up that toolkit. 

You're building up that toolkit so that the mechanics of doing it are more out of the way where you're then able to make choices of what you do as you play that trumpet. And so that allows  

Danny Gregory: you to you can't see the connective tissue it's seamless, it's all blended together. It's fluid and it's you.  

John Muir Laws: Yeah. 
 

And, and that, that, that ability to, to, to play [00:49:00] that trumpet with that style that came from that person put in a bunch of scales and that person. Studied it. And that person struggled with these things and that person had influences and copied them and then had influences and copied them and liked the way that, that sounded tried to do that. 

And, but because you just keep at it and you keep at it, your brain then changes its shape. It wraps around this new skill. And yeah, that, that the style then is not a decision. It's something that, that happens to you as a result of the influences of all of these different, um, factors in the work and the scales and the time that you put in. 

So I'd say that worrying about your style is probably, is not a good place to expend calories. Um, [00:50:00] because if you just keep going the way you're going, you're going to arrive. And, but, and, and don't worry that studying, you know, being inspired by somebody and kind of trying to kind of like, I, I want to get, you know, what are you doing with to make those, those, those, those, those, those rich colors over there, and you can take classes and these sort of things, it doesn't turn you into a clone of your teacher. 

It's just putting more things in your quiver. And then you down the line, you're deciding to express some of those and deciding not to express others. And that style happens. Um,  

Danny Gregory: I think it's, I mean, I would call it adolescent. You know, it's like when you're a teenager, every teenager does this. They're like, who's the cool kid in school. 

And you want to buy a pair of shoes like him and you have an older brother and, [00:51:00] you know, he uses certain words. And so you start to use those and then you see like a movie actor and you were like, want to wear a jacket like James or whatever it is, right. There are these things. And when you're a teenager, you're trying on identities. 

And then as you become an adult, it's not that you stopped doing that, but you, all those things kind of blend into who you are. And you've just more and more comfortable in your skin. Teenagers are constantly doubting themselves and feeling insecure and you know, their fraud, the frauds to some extent, right? 

Because they're always wearing a mask they're always putting on these identities and then eventually they are comfortable in their skin. And then they don't feel vulnerable in that same way. They don't have to be defensive because they are who they are. You know? And I think when we learn any skill, we're starting from scratch. 

Again, we're starting to learn to walk and we watch what our parents do. And then we start to get more influences and then more influences. And eventually we walk away from it. But then we might also say, you know what? I, I continue to honor [00:52:00] my influences and I continue to look for new influences. You know, you continue as an adult, you continue to grow and to read books and to observe what other people do and be willing to change. 

But it's less identifying. I sort of defining your identity and therefore your style, right? Because your style can change. But at its core, it's.  

John Muir Laws: And that gives you then permission to be a lifelong learner, right? Where you're, you're not also say, if you have this idea of like, you know, I've got this style, then that can become a trap. 

You're talking about Norman Rockwell. Can I break out of this bubble? Will people not like it? If I do, if I start playing, if I move from country to rock, um, people will not like me anymore. Um, but if you are kind of taking the perspective of this is if you're, if you're doing this for yourself and you're pulled in a different direction, then that's exactly where you should be going.[00:53:00]  

Um, and also like what you said about kind of honoring the influences that you have, that you know, that if you've got a. Techniques or inspirations that you've derived from other people. If you, especially as a teacher, if you share those with other people, like I got this from this person, I got this from this person. 

And I love the way that this person does this, then that, um, also allows your students to say like, oh, you're also kind of you're scavenging. What you find useful from all of these different people. And you're building that into your, not like, you know, I, there's lots of elements in my drawings, um, that I've learned by just copying the drawings of William D. 

Berry. And when I am in my classes, I'll often sort of point out a number of those strategies and it doesn't make me a bill Barry clone. It makes me I'm still [00:54:00] me, but I want to honor that lineage of where these ideas came from to also help me remember. That this is something that just did this, this evolves, it develops by just being exposed, being expired, inspired to trying new things and continuously learning and changing throughout my life. 

Danny Gregory: Yeah. The fact that you have footnotes doesn't mean your ideas in any good.  

John Muir Laws: Oh, um, I have to, I'm going to pause for a second cause I have to write that down. Cause that's a, that's a great, is, is  

Danny Gregory: that original show you attributed to me? Yes, that's  

John Muir Laws: right.  
 

Danny Gregory: Yeah, because I think, I think when you're a teenager, you attempted to be a plagiarist. 

Right? You take somebody else's ideas and claim that they're yours, but you know, it's perfectly legitimate to say I have a bibliography. I am standing on the shoulders of giants. [00:55:00] I am, you know, but I'm just moving the ball ahead a little bit. That's my contribution. And that doesn't make it inauthentic. Um, so you know, that that's, that's part of the process. 

You know, I was also thinking about, there are artists who, um, have gone through radical change at various points. You know, I mean, I think we mentioned Bob Dylan, um, miles Davis also made that transition to electric and that was, you know, completely shocking. But then I also think about like Charlie Parker, who, you know, when he was younger, he was like an accomplished, but sort of not distinctive sax player. 

He kind of went away and came back. He left the scene, came back after like six months and was suddenly a genius. Like he had gone and nobody was entirely clear on what he had done, but basically he had gone away and he had assimilated and. Gone beyond his influences very deliberately. And then he resurfaced [00:56:00] as the next level up Robert Johnson, blues guitarists, same thing. 

You know, the, the myth with Robert Johnson was that he had made a deal with the devil at the crossroads because his, his playing went from undistinguished to, you know, impossible to understand how you could even make that kind of sound with a guitar. Um, you know, and then he takes some like Phillip Gustin who was a relatively ordinary abstract expressionists, I guess you'd say. 

And then he said he came back and he was doing, you know, work. That was seem to be based on strange. Surreal comic books or something like that. He created a completely different style. So he was there, you know, right in the middle of the pack of abstract expressionists, you went away and he came back and he was transformed. 

So a lot of times artists I think will go away and do that because they're not succeeding. But I think ultimately what they're really doing is they're really trying to find their voice. And they're [00:57:00] trying to find a voice that stands out and that, that really shows their singularity. What makes you different? 

It makes you different from everybody else. How can you express that so that people can see and feel it, and that takes some refinement, take some, take some concerted effort, you know? Um, but it isn't something that comes out of nothing. You know, it that's, the soup has to boil down all the ingredients and then suddenly it has an incredible new taste. 

Yeah.  

John Muir Laws: So. Then the, the, the approach is not to, from the start sort of walk out there and say, I have to find my style, but to study broadly, to study widely, to look for different inspirations, to let, to, to, to, to take the, on those on and to play with them. And, um, [00:58:00] and then as you are in that soup to start to pay attention to what really does sort of inspire you and move you. 

But if you're trying to figure out what your style is in your first year of art school, that's probably the wrong place to do.  

Danny Gregory: I mean, it's interesting to look at the art that artists made in their first year. Like look at David Hockney stuff from, at the first couple of years of his, when he was in art school, it's pretty radically different from where he ended up, so that my son too. 

But here's another thing I would say as a caveat to what you just said. Cause I think you summarize what we've been saying, but there are artists who are distinctive right off the bat, you know, like, you know, you can take a grandma Moses or you could take Basquiat or, you know, there are people who they have just a thing that right off the bat, like nobody else does what they do. 

And it isn't necessarily because it's distilled. Sometimes it can just be that you just came [00:59:00] to art and you're like this. And I think that those are people who are distinctive anyway, as people they're distinctive. Right? So you're a distinctive person. You start making art, it wouldn't occur to you to me to be derivative, you know, but also you don't feel like I have to learn to do art the way other people learn to do art. 

And then I can do my own thing. I think those people are, you know, very rare and few and far between. Um, and they often don't study the fundamentals at all. You know, they just start doing or, or they come at it from somewhere completely else. Basquiat came at it from street art, grandma, Moses. I don't know where she came at it from, but she was like, when she started, you know, so, so I think you can come in from, you know, and that's, what's so fascinating about outsider art, right? 

Outsider art is just so intriguing because you look at it, you go, how the hell did this person ever come up with this idea of this is the way to make art totally works. But wow, like they are, they have ignored the [01:00:00] whole history of art. They've ignored everything that everybody else is doing. And they're just doing this thing and you go, wow. 

Now, if you came upon that and he said, and you seen this people try and imitate Basquiat and you go, we can't imitate POS. You can't, as soon as you do it, it looks like you're imitating Basquiat only. He had those set of influences that made him do this. If you try to influence and, you know, try and make a grandma Moses painting immediately, the bells would go off. 

Everybody's saying, well, I don't know. So then you would be a forger. So that's, that's the thing is like those people who are super distinctive with their styles, super authentic, that's just an incredibly rare gift. Um, and, uh, I think that they have to be outsiders to.  

John Muir Laws: And should you be one of those people and you're listening to this podcast. 

Danny Gregory: So, so for, for  

John Muir Laws: the, for that little fraction, I think that there also would be another potential danger in that, [01:01:00] you know, especially if you kind of get early recognition for what you do, then people identify you with that. That makes the idea of changing people then want to see grandma Moses make another grandma Moses painting. 

And if she said like, you know what I'd really like to do, right. Everybody says, that's not a grandma Moses. Right. We need you to make more grandma Moses pay attention to  

Danny Gregory: yeah. She would  

John Muir Laws: quite likely. Um, but what is it that brings you, you alive and for all of us, wherever we are in our process, um, be willing to, um, Be willing to go back to that. 

Beginner's mind to go back to things like if you've really developed something really well, like you are the go-to person on watercolor. Um, but you are, you're thinking like, you know, I go in into oils [01:02:00] would be a change. It would be a vulnerability, but in that vulnerability is also a wonderful opportunity for growth. 

Danny Gregory: Absolutely. Yeah. I think if something is something, if something is speaking to you and sounds like that would be an interesting thing to do, even though you've never done it, even though you probably won't be very good at it right away. Um, there's a strong reason to do that, to try that, to try this thing because, and to, and to, while you're doing it, be aware of the fact that something inside of you is calling you to do this. 

It may turn out to be. Uh, it may take you to a whole new place. You've never been able to go to consciously. I think those are the coolest things when suddenly you're going, wow. I just found my medium at this point. I never, it never occurred to me to do this kind of a thing, but boy, this feels really right. 

This is what I've been looking for. It's like, you know, having a complete epiphany that transformed your life. I think it's really a cool [01:03:00] opportunity. So. All right. Good. Well, we have run out of the hour. Is there something else you wanted to add before we wrap it up?  

John Muir Laws: I'd love to bring us out with a poem X that I think ties into what we've been. 

Some of the themes that we've been playing with here. Awesome. Uh, it's the poem poetry by Pablo and the Raider. Um, and it goes, he writes and it was at that age. Poetry arrived in search of. I don't know. I don't know where it came from from winter or a river. I don't know how, or when no, they were not voices. 

They were not words nor silence, but from a street, I was summoned from the branches of night abruptly from the others among violent fires or returning alone there I was without a [01:04:00] face and it touched me. I did not know what to say. My mouth had no way with names. My eyes were blind and something started in my soul. 

Fever or forgotten wings. And I made my own way deciphering that fire. And I wrote the first faint line faint without substance pure nonsense, pure wisdom of someone who knows nothing. And suddenly I saw the heavens unfastened and open planets, palpitating plantations, shadowed perforated riddled with arrows, fire and flowers, the winding night, the universe, and I infant testimo being drunk with the great story. 

Void likeness image of mystery [01:05:00] felt myself, a pure part of the abyss. I wheeled with the stars. My heart broke loose on the wind.  

Danny Gregory: So many beautiful visual images. Yeah. It's also about somehow like finding your place in the universe. It's like, you're the jigsaw puzzle piece that fits you found the pole that you fit into. 

That's what authenticity is about, right. That you're, that are authenticity is part of like the universe's plan somehow that like we have to fit in. And if we're inauthentic, we haven't found our place. Yeah.  

John Muir Laws: And to give your permission to fall into that space.  

Danny Gregory: Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful. Well, thank you. 

Thanks for sharing that poem. I love love when you do read as a poem. Thank you. All right. Good. Well, I think we are at the, uh, age of, um, ex overstaying, our welcome wrap. Let's [01:06:00] wrap, wrap it up. I hope that this has been useful to you and, um, it was fun talking to you again, Jack. So see you next week. I will  

John Muir Laws: see you next week, Danny, once  

Danny Gregory: again. 
 

Bye. Bye.