The Painting Has No Clothes

Timoteo: This isn't the story
keith: and
Timoteo: about the girl who only ate chicken McNuggets and turned green.
keith: No, what is that? This is Gina Beavers.
Timoteo: And this is Timothy Hall.
keith: And welcome to Unstretched. Yay. We're back. I forg
Timoteo: Yeah. Here we are, we're back. Summer edition.
keith: forgot to tell you. where is it? I was gonna shake my little Did where did I put it? I'm not feeling so well. yeah, no.
Timoteo: I have a little bell just to you know shake it.
keith: I woke up kind of not feeling good. And Keith has been sick, so I think maybe I got something from him.
Timoteo: Well you seem fine, you seem great. Why?
keith: But you know why? Why do I seem okay, Tim? Because somebody told me the minute you start to feel sick, start taking Sycam every two hours.
Timoteo: Must have been a Socratic philosopher.
keith: It was, it was some holistic healer that knew. So I've been taking I think I'm on my third or fourth pill of the morning and
Timoteo: Yeah.
keith: I'm like, I don't know if it's just like a psychological thing, but I'm feeling like better. Yeah. Yes.
Timoteo: Yes, note to listener, Zycam really is a miracle little homeopathic drug for anything the sniffles. And what I've learned is that you have to start taking it literally the minute you start feeling sick. If you, you
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: know, when you have the slightest little inkling of getting sick, you've got to take that Zycam because if you wait really any longer, it's not as effective. But for me, I
keith: That works.
Timoteo: would say probably. 90% of the time if I start taking Zycam right away, like the minute, then I'm I'm actually totally fine and it never really turns into anything. I think it was me who told you that. No, I know.
keith: Yeah. That's a Yes, that's why I'm saying it. Yes, because I was like gonna text you like I'm not feeling very well. But then I was like I Tim is gonna ask me if I took Sycam and I went like hunting in the in my cabinet, like looking for it and I have a whole bunch of it. So yeah. Yeah.
Timoteo: I yeah, I always try to keep it on hand if especially as the winter starts coming up. I never really seem to get summer colds, but man, they can really be the worst. Cause you want to be on time.
keith: Yeah. Totally. And I'm like yeah, I'm going, Thursday I'm flying to Ohio for this for Zachary Armstrong's show and a talk. so yeah.
Timoteo: at the Weston Art Gallery there? What is that all about? Like I feel like I've seen some people having shows there. I follow them.
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: It's inter what what is the Weston? Is it a commercial gallery,
keith: Well
Timoteo: a nonprofit?
keith: I think it's a non profit Cincinnati Arts Council, I think. It's like a you know, something based like in the city, like a more public space, I think. Yeah, that's
Timoteo: Yeah.
keith: my understanding of it. So yeah. I was just thinking though, like going sick and then flying, like I don't wanna do Yeah, th so I'm trying not to be sick.
Timoteo: That's rough. I've been to Cincinnati a lot because I have in-laws who live there. Corey's sister
keith: yeah yeah.
Timoteo: there. And so we go pretty regularly and but I've never I've been to the museum there, but I for some reason I've only just recently heard about the Weston Art Gallery. So next time I'm in Cincy, I gotta go check it out. You're gonna have to have Skyline Chili when you're there.
keith: Yeah, totally. that's right. That's
Timoteo: That's like the food phenom is it's very weird. They have like chili parlors and it's not
keith: Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: chili in the way that like anyone in the northeast would be used to chili. It's like
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: more sort of paprika oriented with the tomato sauce over spaghetti. So it's like a weird Italian mix
keith: Hmm. Hmm.
Timoteo: with some kind of weird German spice. It's a it's a real cultural mashup of that region. I don't particularly like it, I have to admit. Don't come at me.
keith: Mm. That sounds really interesting. Okay. No, I was wondering
Timoteo: But
keith: if it's celiac safe. No. probably not. Yeah.
Timoteo: Probably not. It's not safe for anybody really.
keith: my gosh. So funny.
Timoteo: But you might have to just try l you can try the chili itself, maybe not the spaghetti.
keith: Yeah, just the right, right, right. Yeah.
Timoteo: Or maybe they have chili with risotto, like when you and I went out for dinner the other night
keith: Yes.
Timoteo: to that risotto what was it? Rosotteria, like a little risotto joint
keith: Resoteria. Yeah.
Timoteo: in the East Village. So Jean and I had like private time.
keith: We did. We had well, even though I had enough wine that it became I feel like the entire restaurant could hear me laughing and being loud and talking about it was pretty.
Timoteo: Yeah, I was pretty public.
keith: Yeah. But I I was also when we were getting ready to go, I was telling Keith we're going to have risotto because we watched so much Gordon Ramsay. Do you ever watch any like Gordon Ramsay?
Timoteo: No.
keith: He only says risotto. So risotto Ria. No, but risotto.
Timoteo: Risotto, you have to have more of the open. Wait, is he British? That's why he says it that way.
keith: Duh. Yeah. Yeah. He says it. Yeah. So but it would that was really fun. Yeah, that was was good. And if anyone's like gluten free or like celiac, that place in East Village is all safe.
Timoteo: Yeah. Well I re you know, it was good to do that because I realized we talk so much, but we really only talk on this podcast. So we don't re we don't really ever have much time to actually talk about like other things like
keith: Yeah. Yeah.
Timoteo: incidentals in our life or more private stuff. So that was kind of fun to do that. But
keith: Yeah. Yeah, that was super fun. And I got to see your studio and your apartment in the city, which was really great.
Timoteo: Exactly. Yeah, that was fun. I got a little impromptu studio visit with Gina, which made me feel really good.
keith: Which it was wonderful. All of the these amazing works on paper and just so much work and so you know, so many different interesting things going on. It was really exciting to see and
Timoteo: Yeah, I get really down to work in that space.
keith: yeah. Really, really awesome. So excited to see yeah.
Timoteo: So here we are at the end of summer, sort of coming off the heat
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: waves and how you feeling in general?
keith: Yeah, I'm how am I I'm I'm pretty good. Yeah. I have I'm getting ready to go in a couple of weeks to this residency. yeah, so I'm trying to figure that out. I have a s studio visit coming up, so I'm trying to like prep for that and yeah, but
Timoteo: Are you like pre planning what you think you're going to do at this residency or are you just bringing a bunch of shit and then just letting it like land like just like sort of following inspiration when you're there?
keith: Yeah, I think I mean I kind of have to pre plan I I'm just gonna continue with kind of what I've been working on, which is like making a lot of like drawings and like studies for these larger pieces for my grant. and I like but I'm also trying to tap into like what might be I don't know, different about working there. So thinking about Bay Area artists that I might be able to see their work, like, thinking about like my god I'm I have like a fuzzy cold brain but you know like they are like
Timoteo: Like Mary Lovelace O'Neill.
keith: I love her work yeah I was thinking of Jay DeFeo I was thinking
Timoteo: right.
keith: just like artists who use the really thick the other one would be my god no there's just like a flat line there where I try to go to find the name of The artist who did all the cakes. Wendy Bo Jesus.
Timoteo: yeah, Wayne Tebow.
keith: Yes. So I was thinking like materially of some of those Bay Area artists whose work I might be able to see more, you know, get more exposure to at the museums and
Timoteo: You're not gonna be here, I don't think, but in New York at Boski at Mary and Boski Gallery, they're doing a big Mary Lovelace O'Neill show.
keith: yeah, that's gonna be really cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Timoteo: That's like the sort of October and November show, and they got all this. She recently passed away and her state
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: shipped all this amazing work. I saw a little preview of it, and it is like mind blowing stuff. And I
keith: Wow.
Timoteo: think that it's gonna really blow the lid off what people think she does. Yeah.
keith: That's awesome. Yeah. That sounds really good. Yeah. So I don't know, I mean yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Timoteo: So I've got some cool news to tell you, which I'm very happy to say. So just this week I finally, after twenty years, paid off my student loans.
keith: yes. Yes. Amazing. Bravo.
Timoteo: Ha ha ha.
keith: Bravo. And you paid them off. They didn't get forgiven. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Timoteo: Nope, they didn't get washed away. Like I actually paid them off over 20 years, piece by piece, little by little, month by month. Never took a break during the pandemic, kept paying. I mean,
keith: Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: to be honest, there there were probably 15 of those 20 years that I did the income based repayment plan. And
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: so I was paying like really a bare minimum. I probably ended up paying an interest double what I what the loan was, which is sort of the loan shark aspect of student loans that's really fucked up. But
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: I I just was like just paying it off, just you know, little by little. And finally I got to the end. I couldn't believe it. I was like, this it felt like, you know, 20 years paying something off that's practically like a mortgage. It was like this albatross around
keith: Yeah. You th it's never gonna
Timoteo: my neck all the time. And and I Kept thinking, well, this was my investment in my graduate degree, which, you know, helps me,
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: help me become a college professor, helped get me into shows, helped get me into a community, helped me
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: meet amazing artists and mentors. So I don't regret at all the huge student loan I had to take out to do graduate school. I don't regret it at all. But
keith: Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: I do, I mean, I am ki it's just sort of amazing that it took 20 years to
keith: To actually, yeah.
Timoteo: To finally pay that off.
keith: Well, I was I I also had student loan news, which was that mine got forgiven. I'm sorry.
Timoteo: I hate I mean I love you but
keith: I'm sorry, I didn't want to because I'm so happy for you and I didn't want to say anything like, I just got but in the last month or six weeks or something, I got a notification. I had applied it, you know. The date of the forgiveness was actually Biden's last day in office because he signed that big thing.
Timoteo: Yeah. Did you get that because you were a public school teacher for so long? Well that makes sense. That's fair.
keith: Yeah. Yeah. And to be honest, like, yeah, yeah. And it was twenty six year I mean, I had those from nineteen ninety-nine. Like that and when you looked at the totals, it was like I paid like seventy-five thousand dollars for like a thirty-six thousand dollar loan. Like you got your p you got your pound of flesh, I'm pretty sure. Like,
Timoteo: That's the state I was in, yeah. Yeah.
keith: you know, the interesting thing though is that like since it went through in January, but I've still been paying for the last two years. I get that money back eventually. They're gonna they're gonna give yeah, so I've just been paying paying on that for two years.
Timoteo: wow, that's amazing. Go buy yourself something awesome. You should use that money to literally buy the stupidest, most indulgent thing you can think of. That seems only fair. Don't use it for something practical. Use it to but like, I don't know what that would be for you, but think about it. Exactly. Wouldn't that I mean that's just poetic justice right there.
keith: Yeah. Botox and a six hundred dollar purse or something. You know, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. But I think it's just it's time for both of us. Like and you yours are paid off you're younger than me. Like mine,
Timoteo: Yeah.
keith: you know, I I was just like, this is never I still think I had like eight thousand dollars or something left on them, but
Timoteo: Yeah. I mean, I knew a bunch of people recently
keith: So
Timoteo: who got theirs forgiven as well for the same
keith: Yeah, yeah.
Timoteo: kind of public service forgiveness,
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: which I think is such a great I'm so glad that they had that kind of program. I probably could have done that because I've taught in the public college system for so long, but
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: as an adjunct, they there was so much confusion over how adjunct hours added up to like full-time hours and
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: There was a lot of fuzzy math and a lot of confusion around it and I was so close to sort of paying it off that I was like, Well, I'm not what's you know, I don't wanna get
keith: Well yeah.
Timoteo: involved in the bullshit of having to figure it out. So I was like, I'll just pay the damn thing off. Fuck it.
keith: Yeah, totally, totally. Yeah. Yeah, it's no, it's good. I saw like a couple other artists who got theirs forgiven. And it it's been a couple of years, I guess, just the backlog and making the this go through.
Timoteo: Yeah, that mis yeah.
keith: So, but yeah. So I'm just thank you, Joe Biden. Just say that. Just give the credit where it's due because
Timoteo: Yeah.
keith: you know, the other sh yeah, should stain.
Timoteo: Or thank you for pulling your bootstraps up. That's what I did. Yeah.
keith: Thank you. Also, just like public employees and people who, you know, like that's a cool thing that encourages people to get involved and their communities. Whatever. I'll get off my soapbox. Yeah.
Timoteo: Yeah. Well, my idea now is to use whatever that extra money is. I'll just invest into like my studio rent in the city and other
keith: Yeah. Yeah.
Timoteo: supplies. And so I'm just, you know, it's it's
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: I'm always just refilling my own coffers for my own work, really. It just all sort of goes
keith: Yeah, yeah.
Timoteo: back into keeping my practice afloat.
keith: Totally, totally. That's that's a big deal. Yeah. so we were saying very sad loss in the art world. Mary Heilman, who is like, Yeah, there have been like so
Timoteo: So many high.
keith: many. But I mean, I think, you know, her her loss just as it plays out on social media, you see how many people I don't think there's been someone who had that many like posts and people who knew her and remembrances and it was just so beautiful. was really I mean
Timoteo: Yeah, Mary Hyman's death definitely hit the art world in a big way. I mean, she was definitely
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: very old. I think she was eighty-five or eighty-six or something. But that being said, she'd been around a long time. She knew a lot of people, had a lot of shows, made had a big influence, was a real
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: pioneer in her own
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: funky, colorful way.
keith: Yeah, like a painter's painter. But also it seemed from a lot of the remembrances that she was really connected with people and never you know, she she encouraged people she had. She was sort of a mentor figure to people and I just thought that was really cool to have that many people and younger people too know you and know of you. I don't know. That's like a really proud legacy in addition to all of her work and I remember her show at yeah.
Timoteo: You know it's yeah. Okay, no, go ahead.
keith: No, no, no. I was gonna say the two thousand eight show at the new museum. Like, yeah, that really
Timoteo: Yeah, that was a watershed.
keith: influen yeah, influenced me a lot. And like I've never looked at the side of paintings the same way after like reading I think it was is a late night movie, her book. and then seeing that show and she's just really great. But sorry, what were you gonna say?
Timoteo: I was gonna say that my sort of knee-jerk reaction when she died was, I didn't really like her paintings all that much. or they didn't have a big influence on me. Like I just didn't have a big resonance right away. I
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: never knew her as a person. Like I wasn't, you know, touched by her personally. But then when I started to actually look back at her work, because I was like, let me sort of look back. more at her work. And I saw the New Museum show and and I so I s started looking back in in Google and like looking at images and I was like, whoa, wait. I was really influenced by her. Like I remember that show. And I remember, like you said, like looking at the sides of paintings. I remember being inspired by her installations. I remember being inspired by the seats, the chairs that she made in the space. I thought that was really generous and interesting. and she did some cool paintings of like roadways at night, like a black canvas with these yellow
keith: Mm. Yes, yes.
Timoteo: lines that go back into a vanishing point. And
keith: Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: I remember thinking that that was such a great painting because it was the economy of means in that is so stripped down. It is the most simple,
keith: Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: like binary painting, but it uses depth of field and the Painterly space so beautifully that it's kind of mesmerizing. Like you could look at those paintings
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: for a long time. And so that's when it hit me that, wow, no, this woman was a master. Like she really had
keith: Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: a a a grip on painterly space. And so when I gave her my own reprisal, I was like, no, like she's actually really fucking cool.
keith: Mhm. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I really love to yeah. Go ahead.
Timoteo: And then on No, go ahead.
keith: No no no. No. No, you.
Timoteo: I I was gonna say on on Instagram, Caitlin McBride posted an R twenty one clip of Mary Heiman. And Caitlin was saying that she had seen that R twenty one in it gave her so much inspiration to like want to live the artist's life. Like, you know, working in the studio. No, it was it was Mary Heilman.
keith: We was it Mary Heilman or was it Elizabeth Murray? it was. Originally. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Timoteo: No, I'll get I'll get I'll get back to Elizabeth Murray in a minute because they're they do sort of go in tandem. But no, she had posted this this video of Mary Hyman in her studio and and she was saying how inspired she was by the artist's lifestyle and that that
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: really when she was younger made her feel like wow I that's a lifestyle I want to have. And
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: I so I went back and I watched that Mary Hyman R21 video and I was like, yeah, this is badass. Like she's got a cool house
keith: yeah. that's awesome.
Timoteo: with a swimming pool and you know, gardens and it's not fancy. Like it's absolutely not like some kind of like glam shit. It's very practical and and life
keith: Yeah. the swimming pool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Timoteo: size. But just the just her kind of like California meets East Coast, cool, laid back aesthetic was just it is it's really cool. It's really inspiring.
keith: It's really I remember reading, I think it was in late night movie that she used to be a ceramicist or she was kind of involved in ceramics in California in the beginning and she found it to be just like too macho, like the whole ceramics world was like too macho for her, which do you know to me I was like, What? But like, yeah, apparently it was like, you know, a lot of this posturing and all this shit and she was like, Fuck this and it's partly why she ended up more in painting and which I mean Yeah.
Timoteo: That is interesting because I I would automatically think that the world of ceramics is more feminine. But I
keith: yeah.
Timoteo: but I but if you dial it back to like the sixties and seventies, there I
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: I there was a sort of craft
keith: Yes.
Timoteo: portion of ceramics that was very masculine. And so I I definitely feel like that probably what she was referring
keith: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that that's
Timoteo: to.
keith: well one I mean, be you were saying that about well, we were gonna talk about Elizabeth Murray. I mean, one thing that, you know, after seeing all these videos of Mary Heilman, I started to get all of these videos of female artists. The algorithm was like, you like videos of female artists, which is like, duh, you know. So I started started to really populate. Like so Elizabeth Murray, all these different videos were coming across, which I was like, this is really great. And it reminded me, you know, back to what Caitlin was saying when I was like, I guess I was an undergrad or just finished undergrad and I had done a show downtown. So I must have been like 21. I'd done a show in Charlottesville downtown, and I used a camcorder, you know, with a little we used to have those giant camcorders with like a little tape inside of a big camera. inside of a big VHS Dave. Do you remember this at all? Anyway, I recorded my show and I did like a 30 minute sort of tour of my show talking about the work, talking about and I was playing it back. I had it all set up on my TV and VCR at home, like in my apartment, playing it back and like left the room to like go to the bathroom or something and came back in and I just all I could hear was this female voice, young female voice talking about her work. And I was like, who the hell is that? Like literally Like in my entire world of like voices talking about art, I did not have one young female voice that I could be like, that, you know, this is this artist or that artist. As it was me, but I didn't even, you know, it was like a really jarring moment where I was like, Yeah, just yeah. And I didn't
Timoteo: You didn't even recognize your own voice.
keith: recognize the concept of a young female voice talking about her work. Like there I didn't
Timoteo: Right.
keith: have a lot of other, you know, my program was really small. Yeah, or talking about it kind of authoritatively, you know, like I didn't really have any other person in mind that could that could be, which is like insane. But yeah.
Timoteo: I totally stumbled upon Elizabeth Murray's R twenty one just this week actually
keith: Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: in a very vulnerable studio moment because I had had this experience where I'd been working on a painting for like five months and I had created this whole sort of thick imposto passage that I was not totally convinced of. I didn't think something wasn't quite right about it, but I wasn't sure. I was hoping I was wrong. And but I had that gut feeling. And
keith: Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: Corey, my husband, came into the studio, which he doesn't do very often, but he did, and he took one look at this painting and he said, Nope, not working. This painting is not working. Of course, my heart sunk into my stomach and I was like, shit, he's confirming what I already knew, but having someone else say that, then you know that it's true.
keith: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: And so I started to think, like, well, how am I gonna get myself out of this? I've been working in this painting for five months, four or five months. Like, how am I gonna weasel my way into or wrestle my way into this painting working? And so I started to make some moves and take off some of the imposto that was still kind of wet, but I ended up fucking like the whole thing up. Like it just got totally away from me. And I just felt Unbelievably defeated, and I left the studio that night thinking, why the fuck am I doing this? Like, this is insane.
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: Like the like this, like, what am I even good at doing this? Like, how where do I get off doing this? Like, what kind of fool am I to be doing this like sisyfician task of painting and trying to be an artist? This is this is just totally insane. And I was so down. And really thinking, like, okay, that's it. I give up. I just give up. Like, you know, this is ridiculous. And it was dark. Like I, you know, just felt like I had reached the end. And I thought, I need I can't be this way. I need a little inspiration. So I was like, well, I liked watching that R twenty one of Mary Heilman. Maybe there's like another good R21. And I was going through the list and I saw Elizabeth Murray. And I was like, she seems cool. Like, I like her. Like, let me watch that. And I watched her document her little video. And it totally made me feel so much better because at one point she's talking about that crippling doubt of being an artist and the deep questioning of why the hell are you doing this? Like, this is insane. This
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: is such a crazy life's work. And and
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: And she talks about how, you know, she will make it. She had the reverse problem. Like she that I was describing, she would work on a painting all day and leave the studio thinking, that's the greatest painting I've ever done. Wow, feels amazing. And then
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: she'd come in the next morning and look at it and be like, What? This is the worst painting I've ever done. This looks
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: like shit. And then she'd go through the day feeling like she was worthless and couldn't do it. But then she was saying how you just, you know, you just Come back the next day feeling as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as you can, and you keep going. And just thinking of that and looking at the arc of her life and that she struggled, she had the same kind of struggles, just made me feel like, all right, I'm gonna strike a match, start anew. So I came back into my studio the next day, stretched, gessoed a new canvas, and by the end of the day, started working on it and was like, you know what? It just life goes on.
keith: That's awesome. That's
Timoteo: This is great.
keith: yeah, that's inspiring. That's well, and starting something new, like just starting, I think didn't did Picasso start something new every day? Is that a myth? I don't know. But just that energy of always Yeah, just
Timoteo: I mean he probably did in some capacity, yeah.
keith: that energy of always 'cause like even that you've been working on something for so long can really you just can't get lost in the weeds, like just by virtue of it, you know. dragging on for so long. But I I think I texted you back that it's that like emperor, the emperor has no clothes feeling. That's kind of how I feel when that happens to me, where it's like, cause if you say you even take a break from the studio for a while and you come back and you're just like, where was I even mentally with all of this? Like what what kind of crazy what was I smoke? Like where how did I get here? It's sort of like a You're living in this almost like dream fantasy world while you're working. And then if you take too long of a break from it, the rest of the world is like, What the fuck is this? It's like the emperor has no clothes. Like what you know, so it's kind of for me sometimes about just I have to be in there at least a little bit every day to just like connect to the fantasy, connect to that like that bubble that I was in. Otherwise, yeah. It li it if you take too many steps back, it looks like insanity or like a waste of time.
Timoteo: Yeah, but but conversely though, sometimes I will be working on a painting like all week. And maybe
keith: Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: by like Friday, I'm like, maybe this isn't working. I don't really like this. And if I take a couple of days off and then I come
keith: Yeah. Yeah.
Timoteo: back on like a Monday or Tuesday with sort of new fresh eyes, then I'm
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: like, that actually does look pretty good. Like that, like I I'm on to something here. Like so sometimes.
keith: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Sometimes you could be too hard on your s yeah, it's
Timoteo: You need to take a break from it. Yeah.
keith: true too. Yeah, or you could be too too hard on yourself or yeah.
Timoteo: I also will hide paintings like it, like a painting that I've been working and working and working on. And I'm just like, I can't fucking figure this like last passage out. And it's like dogging me and I'll look at it and look at it and look at it. Finally I'll
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: be like, you know what? I'm putting you away. You're being hidden. And maybe
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: like a month later, six months later, I'll take it out and be like, there's the answer, like right in front of me.
keith: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, totally. I think putting things away. Although sometimes also not having access to things has messed me up. Like if I made things and they went to a show or something and they weren't in my studio, I didn't have enough time to like really look at them or think about them. that can also mess me up. I mean there are
Timoteo: Yeah. Well, I know some artists, and I've done this too, make a copy of a painting they love so they can continue to look at it and continue to own it.
keith: Whoa. Cheese. Like actually paint another one? Or they just like whoa.
Timoteo: Yeah, I think Jasper Johns is a famous person who does that. And Matt Sarletti once told me he my favorite painting of his, which is this white shirt on a dark gray field with a black hand pointing up. It's like based on a Da Vinci. He I remember he told me he made a second one of those for himself.
keith: cool. That's really cool. Yeah. Totally.
Timoteo: So sometimes you just got but sometimes I make like the same kind of painting multiple times because I keep wanting to tweak it. Like I'm like, this is a good painting. I like
keith: Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: how this looks. That one isn't quite right, but I don't want to destroy it. I'm gonna kind of redo it, but tweak a little some
keith: With the new.
Timoteo: of the areas that maybe I now realize I could make better. Cause
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: I feel like I'm I mean, part of the artist journey, I think, for me. Is I'm always trying to make a better painting than whatever I had done before. Not just different, but but better, like somehow
keith: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: in the and I'm so I'm chasing like the this like platonic ideal I have in my head
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: of what I imagine to be the perfect painting. Like I know what it looks like and feels like. And so I
keith: Mm. Mm. Mm.
Timoteo: keep making paintings to get to that sort of. platonic ideal I have in my mind's eye of what the perfect painting for me is gonna look like.
keith: Hmm, that's really cool. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I
Timoteo: May never happen.
keith: don't know why I I think I'm always chasing like consistency or something. Like, is this is this it? Is this the essence of who you are? Is this really getting to like who you are, Gina? Like, is this the sum total of everything you're interested in? You know, it's like no. And then move on to another one. Maybe this is it. Is this the
Timoteo: Yeah.
keith: you know, it's always like a question, like what yeah, I don't know.
Timoteo: I'm also always chasing the high of nailing the painting. You know, like I feel like as terrible and deep and dark and awful as you can feel when the painting totally doesn't work and it's like a failure of a type. That is tempered by sometimes feeling the extreme, ultimate high of feeling like, wow, I've nailed that painting. Like it is good, it is perfect, you know? And then you just
keith: that's cool. that's cool. Yeah.
Timoteo: feel like, I'm an artist. I can do anything. This is great. This is the greatest job in the world. Everyone's gonna love it. And you know, chances are six months later you look at it and you're like, Yeah, it's okay. But
keith: I don't know. Yeah, I know. I don't think I ever had that feeling. Like I nailed that. It's just like, okay, it's either going some No.
Timoteo: Really? Come on.
keith: No, it's just done. I I a lot a lot of my practice is about distracting myself enough in the process of working that I don't know what, that I'm not too conscious of what I'm doing. Like I have to, I'm
Timoteo: Okay.
keith: sort of on another planet and it's all happening almost like I'm drunk. And it's all happening and I'm not there. That's the best place, is like I'm not even so I can't really check in. And this actually brings us kind of to a question that somebody was asking about like your relationship to your work. Like, like I've had works where I couldn't even look at them like hanging in the gallery because I'm just like, what the hell is that? Like I don't even I don't even know, but also like what is that its relationship to me? Because so Some people
Timoteo: Yeah.
keith: will be like, What's your favorite work in the show? What's your favorite and I I always think like it's not like having like a relationship with a person. It's not like, you know, you refinished a table in your mom's house and it or you pick something up at an antique fair. It's like, what is your relationship to your like a specific work? What is that? Because it's sometimes it's like contentious. It's it's just like unlike anything else. in the world, your relationship to like an artwork your own artwork, right? It's not really analogous to anything else. I don't know. Sometimes it's like you hate yeah.
Timoteo: Yeah. I don't see my artwork as my children though. There's like people who say, like, well, all my artwork is like my children. I don't I mean, I get this sort of metaphor of you've birthed them
keith: Yes, people who say yeah, yeah. Some people feel that. Yeah.
Timoteo: and then you like create them kind of thing, but I never
keith: Right, right.
Timoteo: I I'm I can be quite dispassionate about them. Like once I've finished them and they're out in the world,
keith: Yeah Yeah.
Timoteo: I'm like, All right, well, go out into the world and make a living. Like, don't come back. I'm like the parent who's like,
keith: Yes. Yes, I remember you said that.
Timoteo: Go you go to college, go go get
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: a job, go buy a house, don't come back.
keith: Right, you're eighteen now, you can support yourself. Yeah. I think
Timoteo: Yeah.
keith: you had said that. and the person I'm just trying to find the person who'd asked us, like, 'cause he was saying that he had this conversation with his partner who's also an artist, and they have totally different ways of looking at their work when it's left the stud like if it goes to a collector, say, you know, one feels kind of sad and like misses it and then he has like no feeling about it. Yeah. I mean I definitely have zero feeling. I'd rather they go to collectors. I don't wanna store them. although
Timoteo: Sure. But sometimes I can look at an old painting and I remember what I felt and what music I had been listening to when I made that. And that's sort of a trip. Like you'll see a painting from
keith: Mm. Yes, yes, that's so true. Yes.
Timoteo: like you know 10 years ago or something, and you're like, whoa,
keith: Yes.
Timoteo: I made that in my Greenpoint studio while listening to Cocteau Twins Four Calendar Cafe over and over and over again. And all
keith: Yes.
Timoteo: of a sudden, like that all kind of comes back. And that That's a beautiful thing 'cause it's like this is your life.
keith: my God, that's a totally totally that is a really cool thing. That is really th this was John Karstens, one of our listeners who had asked us, like, is it dead to you or do you feel some sort of romantic? I mean, it's not dead. Like I l I like to see it again in some other context,
Timoteo: Yeah.
keith: but it's like, yeah, I don't I don't like pine. I don't pine for works that that leave.
Timoteo: I had maybe been flipped when I answered him and said it's dead to me. I don't remember what I I think I responded to it. But it's not dead, but it's not dead to me. But it is always depressing when they come back. Like when you have a big show and certain
keith: It's dead to me. Get the fuck out of here. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Timoteo: pieces come back and you're like, Well, why are you the little orphan? Like why why are you the one that nobody wanted? And often it's
keith: Yeah, yeah. Right. Right.
Timoteo: the one that I actually thought was like the best one. So that's always
keith: Yeah, yeah.
Timoteo: like a a weird disconnect between like, what I think is good and what like a collector thinks is good is like
keith: Right. What other that always messes me up. Yeah.
Timoteo: Zoop.
keith: Totally, totally. I think too, I I recently had this experience where something older sold and I remember like I'm looking at it again and I'm like, no, you actually are really good. But I remember I judged it at the time. Like, you must you know, just which is a terrible way to be. Like you shouldn't judge your artwork for not selling, right? That's just like giving. We're just giving into some kind of
Timoteo: I know. I it's hard to to walk that line.
keith: I know, but 'cause I was sort of like, Well, this must have been crap and I was looking back at it, I was like, it's a good piece. Like but it wait took someone else appreciating that for me to appreciate that. I don't know. Sad.
Timoteo: I often think sometimes the best pieces are the ones that are actually the most misunderstood or misrepresented or even
keith: Yeah, it's true too.
Timoteo: ig ignored in a way because they're maybe too ahead of their time or too weird.
keith: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: Sometimes they're the anomaly of the group and people sort of dismiss
keith: Yeah, yeah.
Timoteo: it.
keith: what do you think about this quote? Okay, I've bungled this so many times, maybe even with you, but I've told Keith this, I've told a couple friends this. I saw an interview with Robert Nava and he was saying somebody had told him the amateur artist is always trying to make something good, and the professional artist is always trying to make something not bad.
Timoteo: Mm-hmm.
keith: What do you think about 'Cause that has gotten very stuck in my head. Like, yeah, I don't know. But 'cause I I don't know.
Timoteo: That's it. I mean, that's an interesting. I mean, it's sort of a semantic argument in a way. I
keith: Yeah, yeah.
Timoteo: because I I think that I'm always trying to make something good, but I'm
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: also trying to make something, of course, not bad. But but it's hard to know
keith: Not bad. You're kinda doing both, yeah, at the same time.
Timoteo: because what's what's good and what's bad is is so subjective that that it's
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: even hard to sort of point to what That could really mean to you as you're working. I would say that
keith: Right. I guess yeah.
Timoteo: I I mean, I feel like the amateur art, I mean, I would even boil it down to the amateur artist is someone who's making their work yet sets no store by it. Whereas
keith: Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: the professional artist makes work with expectations. You know, and they're
keith: Yeah, that's interesting. Or I could the yeah. Yeah.
Timoteo: There's sometimes I admire the amateur artist who's like, I'm purely just doing this for fun or for hobby. I don't care if it gets shown. I don't care if it gets sold. I don't care if anyone likes it.
keith: Right, right. Right. Right. Right.
Timoteo: so they're not setting any store by it. You know, they're not like anticipating
keith: Right.
Timoteo: what it's gonna do or be. Whereas I feel like the professional artist is making work with the idea that it's gonna do or be something. It's gonna go out in the world, people are gonna see it, they're gonna react, they're gonna
keith: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: buy it or not buy it or write about it or not write about it. So to me,
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: that's kind of I mean, I go into this in in class a lot with with my students saying like, well what, you know, if anyone can be an artist, then what's the difference between like a professional artist and amateur artist? And so we sort
keith: Right. Right.
Timoteo: of go through like, you know, there's ri different registers of that. So
keith: Right, for sure. I think I when you were talking, I was thinking maybe an amateur artist is still trying to find their voice or a voice that is identifiably them in some way, and then a professional
Timoteo: But that's also a quote very specific to Robert Nava because he's sort of a terrible artist. Like that's what he kind of traffics in. You know. But you know what I mean? Like, yeah, like I feel like Yeah, quote, bad painting aesthetic,
keith: Uh-huh. yeah. You mean like a bad painting? Like a bad painting aesthetic or yeah. Yeah.
Timoteo: you know. And so I don't I I think that if if Robert Nava went
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: into a painting thinking he's gonna make a really good one, that is an impediment to the way in which he works. You know.
keith: Uh-huh. To the way he actually. Yeah. No, well, I I was thinking, so an amateur artist is trying to find their voice, right? Whatever that voice will be in a good, like visible, successful way, right? And then a professional artist has a certain standard of what people know them for, whether it's a certain style or a certain expectation, whatever it is, and can't allow things to go below that standard. That that's
Timoteo: Yeah.
keith: sort of what I started to think like 'cause you wanna experiment and stuff, but you don't want to create something that is so I don't know, like not you or not you
Timoteo: Right. But that's also that's also the mousetrap of professional artist is often they don't necessarily grow or experiment because they're holding themselves to a very specific standard of how things have to look or how they have to be.
keith: Yeah. Right. Right.
Timoteo: And so like, well, I can't all of a sudden, you know, splatter on this painting because that's not what I do. That's not what people expect. And I feel like that can be horse blind.
keith: Right. Right, right. But maybe that's true. So it's like holding yourself to a standard of your career narrative kind of like of your the the narrative of your work. Anyway. Am I working things out as I say this? Maybe. I don't know. the other question we had, 'cause I I went to Greater New York, which was really fun. And Really loved that. But I I ran into a listener who was at Marie Walsh Sharp that they're in their final week. or they were in their final week la a couple weeks ago, and that seemed like a great cohort of people at Marie Walsh. and if anybody doesn't know that residency program, you should look it up and you should apply because it's really great. The studios are great and it seems like a great, like collegiate kind of or Yeah, atmosphere. But anyway, she asked Well maybe I shouldn't say that she asked this. Is this giving too much? Well, I'll I'll just say she asked a question. We'll get it. I'll cut her her name out specifically. But anyway. She asked, Do you leave a gallery or not? If you're really unhappy. That was the question. Yeah. Well, what if she
Timoteo: Wait, why do you have to cut her name out? That's not a weird question.
keith: shows at the gallery and her gallery hears this? Like, is she thinking of leaving?
Timoteo: well maybe check to see if she's like represented by
keith: Okay. Yeah. Or maybe she was speaking on behalf I think she said she was speaking on behalf of a friend. I don't know.
Timoteo: Yeah, I think that that's a pretty that that's a question that intrigues me and also annoys the fuck out of me. Because
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: as someone right now who's not represented by a gallery, I'm like, I'd love to be represented by a gallery. Bring it on,
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: you know? But I also understand sometimes you are represented by a gallery and it just isn't doing anything for you and causing a lot of pain and frustration and consternation.
keith: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Timoteo: You know, we've all kind of been there before, I'm sure. I mean, I've definitely
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: felt that sometimes in the past. But I don't know.
keith: Yeah. I
Timoteo: Sometimes it's like leaving a job. Like I I've told people, like, stay in your job, just start applying for new ones because there's nothing because then you're not good, you're not working from a you're not searching from a place of desperation.
keith: Yes.
Timoteo: Whereas if you like leave that that gallery,
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: Then all of a sudden you're like, well, I gotta find a new one now. Now I'm kind of desperate to find
keith: Yeah. Yeah.
Timoteo: a new one. But but it's also a tricky thing to be with a gallery and then be shopping yourself around to other ones, which you
keith: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: really can't do unless you're kind of already a hot item. Yeah.
keith: Discreet. Yeah. Or you can invite people. I think you're a hundred percent right, but your entire comment is totally right, which is because you don't have a gallery right now, you can understand. Like, don't basically don't ever leave a gallery. I would say don't ever leave a gallery unless they're really abusive and like, you know, being financially abusive or abusive, abusive, or whatever. Then you should absolutely leave. I do sometimes think that.
Timoteo: Sure, and then you should absolutely leave them, totally. But don't just leave them 'cause you think they're not doing enough or they're not working hard and not, you
keith: They're not doing enough because even on their
Timoteo: know.
keith: even on their worst day, they might, you know, show your work to a collector or they showed your work to a collector six months ago and that collector call or they put you, you know, they have like an art fair booth and they put a work in an art fair booth or you know, you just never know what could come up, even in the smallest little sliver, and that you should absolutely go find like you said. with a job, find another or invite other gallery people, you know, galleries that you do like to your studio. Try to get a conversation going.
Timoteo: Yeah.
keith: And just you can be frank with them. Like I'm just not as happy or I feel like I need to grow or whatever it is. But they understand not to be hugely public about it, you know. And I I also think like a gap I having been in the situation where a gallery closed and I was unrepresented for several years, like y you know, yeah, that's a harder thing to deal with is like to just be a free agent out there. Unless you think that you can sell your work and represent your work better. If you're a real like hustler and you you know yeah, yeah. Then you should definitely
Timoteo: Yeah. Right. Well, that's also a good question. If you're a real hustler like that and you wanna be independent, then go find one of those artist agents or something and work more independently. I mean it's certainly a case by case basis, I I guess. But definitely if it's a yeah, but if it's an
keith: Yeah, who knows? Or maybe you sell yourself, you know you know, you sell yeah, but in general I think you're right. I
Timoteo: abusive relationship and it's like
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: harming you mentally or emotionally or financially in a very serious way, then maybe
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: you're just not
keith: It's not worth it. And and sometimes like I know people who are in that situation with a gallery and then the gallery's on its way out. Like that's sometimes those are the death throws of, you know, a gallery that's not gonna be around in six months in any way, you know. So but you think about when galleries
Timoteo: But one of
keith: yeah, sorry.
Timoteo: Well one of the most one of the things that annoys me the most is when someone is with a good gallery, like they're represented by a pretty good, solid
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: gallery, and they do nothing but complain about it because
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: they think the gallery isn't doing enough, or they're not selling enough, or they're
keith: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: not promoting it enough. And I to me I always just hear this big like ego of like, well,
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: I should be always at the top and always selling and always being promoted and
keith: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: I feel like, you know, cool your jets for a minute. Like, you know, you should be lucky, first of all, that you're
keith: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: one of the, you know, point one percent who's represented by like major type gallery. And, you know, get a little fucking perspective.
keith: Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: and then and then like you said, talk, you know, talk to them maybe, be advocate for yourself more or find
keith: Mm, yeah.
Timoteo: other projects for yourself that don't conflict but help raise your profile.
keith: I mean you can show with another gallery. I mean I mean you can.
Timoteo: Or that negotiated.
keith: You can, especially if they're not doing very much for you. Why can't you do a show at another you don't have to be represented by another gallery, but if you have relationships with other galleries or you know, you can yeah. I don't know. But yeah.
Timoteo: Well and that also happens too. There's a lot of artists who show with bigger galleries, but they're not really being promoted or or working a lot with that gallery. So they end up doing
keith: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Timoteo: a show with a smaller gallery that, you know, isn't isn't
keith: Mm. Right.
Timoteo: competing in the same collect competing with the same collector base.
keith: Yeah, and for a little bit of energy too, sometimes 'cause like the bigger
Timoteo: Yeah.
keith: galleries sometimes people feel like they get a little stodgy or they don't get a show for a few years because that's just the way that it works. And then it's like, but I want to keep this like more youthful energy up or experimentation or, you know. So that could be I think the I think those are all the listener questions that we had.
Timoteo: Mm-hmm.
keith: But that was so nice. If anyone else has questions, definitely pop into our
Timoteo: Yeah, it's fun to
keith: DMs and yeah. So yeah.
Timoteo: Be able to kick around the can of that stuff.
keith: I r so I really loved Greater New York. I have to say, like I've been in a great Greater New York show in two thousand fifteen and like something about and I've had a show at PS One and I think PS one is my like alma mater. Like it's the it's the like affiliation beyond any of my grad school or college. That's the affiliation that I feel like the closest to or like just feel like I vibe there. I feel like I fit in there. I don't know. I'm I l I love them and I love that show.
Timoteo: So do you judge the Greater New York with like a harsher magnifying glass be Or do you think it's amazing
keith: No, no, I feel like I get it in a way.
Timoteo: like you're like you accept it totally?
keith: I just thought it I just thought it was amazing both having had that I just I really respect the institution. I know the great curators they have there and and I love how New York that show was. Like I love that as an organizing principle. Like the videos, the Kenneth Tam video of the taxi drivers performing. I couldn't get that out of my head. Like why is that striking me? like so powerfully, you know, as a and part of it is as a New Yorker, it's the tragedy of it, but it's also, you know, these taxi drivers performing this like interpretive dance, which is just such a striking, you know, because we we tend to sort of one dimensionalize everybody in the, you know, we are all like, you know, it's kind of the YMCA of like of I a firefighter, you know, a cop. A taxi driver, you know, we're all these like one dimensional characters, but then you see them in this other light and kind of in our world, more in an artistic world. I don't know. It was just so, so powerful. And then the also love that one, the Fields Harrington, the ride share the delivery bike. Did you see that piece where he has the
Timoteo: Mm-hmm.
keith: he pays for the delivery bike to be there for a few hours a day so that the driver's getting hours off? You know, those kinds of things that are so New York. this kind of labor that's a little bit not invisible to people, but like bringing I don't know. I I did find that sometimes the show was like breaking my heart in those ways too. Like so many things that, you know, Rachel Hanlon's photos, she's on this she's an artist with Down syndrome who's on this mission to connect with every Down syndrome. person with Down syndrome who's graduated from college and that there's like twenty six people that she's come across, you know, things like that. There were things that were just like, like, you know, heartbreaking, but like really poignant, beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. I just really loved it. I love the painting. Cause two of the artists that were in the Whitney Biennial are also the two of the painters, Akira Ikazo and Tanya Cruz. I love her painting. She was in both yeah I just really I don't know I I really love it I loved it
Timoteo: Like the Julia Wacto painting.
keith: yes I love Julia Wachtel I think that that was really great that she was in it too there were just there was just a lot of good work that Dean Millen those the foil rats did you remember that did you see that that piece yeah And that reminded me of one of my like foundational works, which is in the Museum of American Art in DC, The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nation's Millennium General Assembly. Have you ever seen that by James Hampton? It's a foil. It's like a
Timoteo: what is that?
keith: foil altar. It's like a foil altar. It's like a vision he's like a visionary artist, like an outsider artist. Made this massive and they found it in a garage in Washington. Or not, they he worked on it for like a decade. in his garage in Washington DC and they you know they pulled it out of there and put it it's like a permanent installation at the Museum of American Art but it's all made out of foil. Anyway, I'll post it in our that's yeah, so they're
Timoteo: I never no never heard of
keith: yeah. It's kind of an amazing piece. Okay, anyway. I loved it. I I thought
Timoteo: Cool. Yeah, I can hear ya.
keith: I love the New Yorkness of it all. I love the focus of that. I love the
Timoteo: You know, my when I loved Greater New York too, but when I think about it, when I think back, I saw it now like a month and a half ago. My biggest critique was it was so cloistered into the gallery spaces. And I remember previous Greater New Yorks where the show kind of spilled out into the hallways, into the bathrooms, into the stairwell. And I just remember being really inspired by how. boisterous and fun the Greater New York was. And this didn't have
keith: Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: that same kind of fun overflowing, using the whole space kind of feeling, which I kind of miss that. That was that's really my only,
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: that's the only notes I have.
keith: Yeah, but do you think that's also a cultural like I just miss fun, period. Like I just miss the I think in general
Timoteo: Yeah.
keith: though, the the world that we're f reflecting on you know, or we're seeing a fuller picture of the world, which is less fun, maybe, then it's we had a more narrow vision of it, maybe. And now we're seeing, you know, we're getting access to stories
Timoteo: Yeah, it definitely feels
keith: and Yeah.
Timoteo: Yeah, it felt more emotional and cerebral than past Greater New Yorks, I think, and maybe
keith: Mm. Mm.
Timoteo: that is reflective of mean it certainly was more it felt more political and politically charged than the Whitney Biennial did or the New Museum Triennial.
keith: Mm. Yeah. I just I really yeah, I was yeah.
Timoteo: Well, something I saw recently that was cool is I went up to Livingston Manor to visit the artist Ellen Brooks, who lives up there. And she took us to the Catskill Art Space, which is this really cool contemporary art center in Livingston Manor. And Ellen has a semi-permanent installation there, as well as James Terrell and Sol Lewitt and Frances Cape. That's all on the second floor, but on their first floor is a Dyke Blair show. Cause on their first floor, they
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: have like rotating contemporary art exhibitions. And that was a really great experience because I hadn't been in Livingston Manor in a very long time up in Sullivan County. And it's a cute little downtown. This arts, Catskill Artspace, is like right in the center. And when we got there, we met with Lizzie Wright, who's an artist from New York that both you and I have known. And she works there now. And she showed us around a little bit and took us upstairs to the James Terrell room that they have, which is a total trip because it's a pitch black room. I mean, like you walk in there and you cannot see anything. It's like being in a colored dark room. and you have to sit there on a bench that you can't find. You have to like grope around in the dark for this bench, and you have to sit there for about 10 minutes. And your eyes begin to adjust to the pitch black room, and you see a weird floating screen in the space. But you don't know how far away it is, you don't know how close it is, you don't know how big it
keith: Hmm.
Timoteo: is. It's totally environmentally disorienting. But of course, like any James Strell piece, very poetic, very mysterious, very sort of ethereal feeling. And that's pretty amazing that they have this like. I guess ostensibly permanent James Terrell installation there. Very different from the one that's at PS1, which is the room with the open sky, which is
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: also like an a square aperture that
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: flattens space and makes you feel really weird.
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: I didn't particularly like this black room. It made me feel a little nauseous and a little anxious because it's so pitch black. I mean, you can't even
keith: no. Yeah. Yeah.
Timoteo: see. And it it's neg I've never been in a room that's that dark, other than maybe a color dark room. But even there, you maybe there's like a tinge of light, but
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: but but actually eventually it feels a little enveloping. It's sort of like one of those sensory deprivation chambers where
keith: Hm.
Timoteo: you're like, How where's my body? How where am I? What kind of space am
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: I in? That's sort of a trip.
keith: Yeah, that's that's cool.
Timoteo: Yeah.
keith: Yeah, Livingston Manor. Where what is the town? Is that the town? okay. Sullivan. Okay.
Timoteo: Yeah, that's the town. It's up in Sullivan County off off Route seventeen. So from me here in Warwick is about an hour north. Northwest. Yeah. Yeah, there's lots of artists who live up there. Ellen Brooks has lived
keith: Okay, okay, cool. Yeah. Fun. Hmm.
Timoteo: up there for a long time. And the piece that she has on display there are these long film strips that are like, you know, twenty
keith: Hm.
Timoteo: feet of like all these different hanging film strips of different negative like negatives that she's Taken over the years. She's a very interesting artist. I definitely recommend looking in.
keith: Yeah. Yeah, cool. sorry.
Timoteo: So that's what I've been doing, not wasting any time. You know,
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: these last weeks before school, school begins next week.
keith: I know, I know, I know. god.
Timoteo: My my fall semester starts. So what I've also been doing is, of course, going over all my syllabi, updating.
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: I always try to think of a few new projects to put in. So like all summer
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: I've been thinking about what kind of like how can I sort of shift the syllabi a little bit? How can I throw in something? new. I have all these books on like experimental drawing or I have that old paper monument book on like on like art project ideas. Yeah, like artist yeah the art of the art assignment.
keith: the art of the assignment. Yeah, yeah. Art of the assignment.
Timoteo: So sometimes I dip back into there and I'm like, that sounds cool.
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: so I'm always trying to kind of refresh the pedagogy. So I've been thinking about that and you know uploading materials onto the class, the course website shells and Doing that kind of administrative work, but but I'm looking forward to getting back into the studio. I've also been doing
keith: Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: my own learning. I started taking a class on Hamlet at Harvard through their online program. And I've
keith: yeah, that's so cool. Yeah.
Timoteo: been doing that with some friends, and we
keith: Hm.
Timoteo: we're taking this like online course that's self-guided, and then we all meet up for an hour and discuss all the things we've done.
keith: my god, cool.
Timoteo: It's really cool. I do it with Danielle Henderson and Millie DeCierico who do the Our Fucking House podcast. And
keith: fun. Yes. my God.
Timoteo: and it's cool because Harvard offers these online classes that you can take. And this is on the ghost in Hamlet. And so it's all about the the incidents of the ghost, the way the ghost is portrayed, the way the ghost would have been received by Elizabethan audiences. So I've just for the past two weeks I've Totally immersed myself into the play of Hamlet, the language, the imagery, the productions. I've been listening to interviews. I've been reading the play. It's been so cool. Like I've always loved Hamlet, but I never dove into it in a really deep way. And so this has been super fun, like kind of end of summer. Before I go and start having to teach, I'm taking a class and it's been pretty cool.
keith: Very cool. Have you have you been to Copenhagen to
Timoteo: No.
keith: because you know they have well, they call it Hamlet's Castle, but it's the castle that they think that Shakespeare was thinking about for Hamlet. I think it's called Cro no, not called Cro Rosenberg, Cronenberg. No, Crown, not Cronenberg. I'll find a Yeah. It's supposed to be the Danish. Yeah. Right. Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: Well, I mean, it's possible because Hamlet is, you know, Shakespeare didn't invent Hamlet. It was already a play that was a Danish play called Hamlet. And he
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: just sort of reconfigured it in a new sort of sort of way of talking about human consciousness and interiority and different
keith: Hm.
Timoteo: levels of theatricality of the play within a play, within a play. And so, you
keith: Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: know, Hamlet is really one of the greatest works of art in the Western canon. Absolutely.
keith: Yeah. it's Kronberg. stronghold
Timoteo: Yeah.
keith: in the town of Helsing Helsinger. Helsingor. Immortalized as Elsinore in Hamlet. But it's a fun, it's only like Yeah, I know. I know. No, I know, for sure.
Timoteo: Right. But Hamlet really is a divinely fictional character who's a human artist.
keith: And they have a lot of it's just a fun place to go because they have a lot of like touristy stuff that's like Hamlety. I'm sorry. Yes. That does that stuff
Timoteo: It's like in Verona, they have Juliet's balcony. And I'm like, Juliet is a fictional character. There's not like there was no real Juliet in Verona with a Juliet balcony. It's a little
keith: I know, I know, no, no. I'm just like so embarrassingly American sometimes, like that I can't not think of things like outside of this kind of pop cultural, you know, or like contextualize them in that way.
Timoteo: You wanna think that they're like a real thing, you can go visit it.
keith: Yeah, yeah. And like what stupid stuff can I buy? And yeah. I don't know. I was just I don't know why this reminded me, but I was just at Best Buy 'cause I was trying to buy this thing for our podcast, this piece of tech. And bet
Timoteo: I still exist.
keith: exactly. This Best Buy I was telling Keith it's like the end of like a You know, like a zombie movie or like an apocalyptic movie where they have the quarantine area and the military is taking all the regular people and putting them in these tents, sort of. That's what that's what Best Buy feels like.
Timoteo: Is that what Best Buy is like now?
keith: But I was saying I feel kinda I felt so sad. And I'm like, Gina, why do you feel sad about a big box store? Like really, this is your consumerism is so tied into these, like your identity is so tied to these big box stores that you feel sad, like some great iconic thing is like but then maybe it's like the old block b we remember blockbuster used to be you know, there there
Timoteo: What?
keith: are certain spaces that you like you do feel kind of weirdly connected to and you're like, your era is over. I'm so sorry. Like
Timoteo: I feel profoundly sad when I go into like a dead shopping mall because I'm like, one time this was a commercial center with cool funky eighties kids going to video arcades and you
keith: Yeah. This was bustling. Yes. Yes.
Timoteo: know, and now they're just like sad shells of themselves and
keith: I know. You know what's crazy? I was I watched a video with David Byrne where he was doing a tour of a mall back in the like early eighties, like this is a shopping mall. This is the center of and this is the new thing that's happening now or whatever. And I was thinking, is that gonna be social like social media and the internet? Like it seems impossible to like when we were steeped in mall culture, we never thought it could go anywhere. You know? It was this
Timoteo: No. It's the same with a video store. When you would go to, you know, your h
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: your local video store every Friday night to look for a video, you never would have imagined, one day this will be long gone.
keith: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. This will be long gone. But that idea of a social sphere just being completely absent or just not a part of
Timoteo: Right.
keith: it. And I was thinking maybe that means that this entire, you know, life that we live online and the social that in ten or twenty who fifty years will become obsolete and there'll just be a couple of us hanging out in the like dead stores of the internet. I don't know. I just it the way that
Timoteo: We're either gonna go way we're either gonna go way back and we'll go back
keith: Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: to sort of real life things like shopping malls, or
keith: Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: we're gonna go so far forward where we're the internet is just basically AI and we're just talking to the internet and it's nothing li you know, you like Yeah, it's like this that what they call the new singularity where we're all living in the same exact like artificial reality. I
keith: Mm. Mm hmm. It's just a chip in our brain or something or it's completely fused. Yeah. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Timoteo: don't know.
keith: I mean it would be cool if we
Timoteo: The I the idea the new singularity gives me creeps me out, but it I think it's gonna wipe out everything we know as it is.
keith: I I wish that we would live in some kind of similar reality. I'm like panicking about how we all don't we all have different versions of reality. Like doesn't seem like we're gonna be able to keep our
Timoteo: Right, like when we all s watched Michael Jackson's black or white video at the same time.
keith: Yeah. Yeah, or even just like politically like to to have some space where we're all on the same same reality. I don't know.
Timoteo: Yeah. Well, we're getting that way actually. I I just was reading that the AI debate is actually one of the only things that unifies many people on the right and the left.
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: That like a distaste for AI, a distaste for data centers. Those are now things that unite people who are both on the right right and the left.
keith: Mm. Yeah. Yeah, but people are still really using it.
Timoteo: So maybe that will maybe AI in a weird way will actually unite us in a in a way we're not even aware of now.
keith: Yeah, maybe. I don't have any faith that we'll ever be united. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Timoteo: I'm trying to think positively about it because the alternative is that we're all gonna die. which, you know, if we're all dead, then it doesn't matter. But I'd like I'd like to think that, you
keith: Yeah, I I d
Timoteo: know, there are there will be or there are some positive aspects to AI if we can all agree about certain elements of it that we want to either slow down or change or not accept, but
keith: But I think all of that depends on political will. And we don't have any of that in a unified way. We're so divided politically that we can't I mean what, we want to regulate AI with who? What who's out there like protesting in the streets about regulating AI and like are they organized and like are i it might, it might, but
Timoteo: That might change. I I think that that might change. Yeah.
keith: I I we can't just like, you know, just talk about it. Like we We actually have to try to get people to anyway, what is this what is this now? Are we like
Timoteo: But there are limits to the human imagination because when you look at a a movie like The Terminator, which we've talked about, which is like about this extreme future,
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: and you know, the the AI robot turns into like liquid metal. I mean, really fantastical wild stuff. Yet they're also still using payphones. So it's
keith: Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: like sometimes humans can have these great imaginations for things, but sometimes they can't even think past the technology that they have. So
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: I'm not I I don't I don't know. I it all remains to be seen, but I'm gonna try to keep a little as much as I can
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: optimistic about it.
keith: Yeah, I mean I think for me it's just the it's the humans that I'm the most freaked out about and the humans and our potential for, you know, t doing terrible things. And that combined
Timoteo: Yeah.
keith: with the AI is what scares me. So we have avenues, we have paths to restrain the humans. We have regulation, we have different things that we could do, but we just lack any kind of cohesive will to do that. You know, so
Timoteo: Yeah. That reminds me of an article in the New Yorker from last week on Hannah Arendt. It was talking
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: about how Hannah Arendt moved to New York and you started to really try to get to the bottom of how a a nation, a culture could turn against humanity so greatly as they did
keith: Mm. Mm.
Timoteo: in Nazi Germany. You know, and she wrote that book, The Banality of Evil. And there's something I think kind of relevant to where we could be heading with AI, the c sort of
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: like inhuman humanism of AI that
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: could be and you know even is very problematic. But anyway, I think we've waded into enough of the
keith: Mm. Yeah. I know. I think I'm a little too of like a cold brain to actually too. I have too much Zycam in my system, Tim. Thanks a lot. What about TV? Is there any good T any good TV? What have you been yeah? Yes, I love it. Yeah.
Timoteo: No. Do you get ooh Yes, I've been watching The Shards lately, the Brett Eastern Ellis book, which is fantastic book that's now turned into a TV
keith: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: series and it is so glamorous and sexy and the cars in that make me so
keith: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: bonkers.
keith: Yeah. Yeah. It's it's pretty it's really yeah,
Timoteo: You've been watching it, right?
keith: it's really great. I was I was saying my only objection is like, is it too glamorous? Because part of what it part
Timoteo: yeah,
keith: of the charm of the eighties for me is the dorkiness of it all. And I miss that a little bit. Like I wish there was just like some straight up dorks. Like okay, yeah.
Timoteo: But it's the anecdote to stranger things, right? Like Stranger Things were like the eighties dorks, and that's what I loved about that. But the Shards
keith: Yes, yes, that's true.
Timoteo: is like like almost like eighties Beverly Hills, you know, it's like so dripping
keith: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Timoteo: with glamour and beauty and sex and murder
keith: Yes. Yes.
Timoteo: and a serial killer on the loose and Malibu Hills.
keith: Yeah. Totally. And you do have to pinch yourself and be like, these are supposed to be high school students. You're like, these
Timoteo: Yeah.
keith: are not high school students as I've ever known them. But I do love it. I do also love it.
Timoteo: Gina, I just saw something very disconcerting out my window.
keith: no, a bear.
Timoteo: I just saw worse. I saw a limping raccoon. Which, if you see a limping raccoon during the day, that means it is rabid. And that's a big problem for me. Yeah. Because raccoons do not go out during the day almost as a rule.
keith: really? my god, my god. my god.
Timoteo: And if they're limping, it's usually because they're like having some
keith: Yeah. no, no. What do you do about that? What do you do?
Timoteo: Problem and that's only babies. So I probably am gonna call the Warwick Humane Society, but I'm also not
keith: yeah.
Timoteo: gonna let my dog out basically for the rest of the day, except on a leash, and I'm gonna bring a stick with
keith: Yeah. Yeah. Mhm.
Timoteo: me.
keith: Yeah. That's smart. My gosh.
Timoteo: I've had this before. This is this is not I've I've experienced this before. It's not uncommon but
keith: Before okay, but that's I mean, that's scary. Like yeah,
Timoteo: That's living in the country, baby.
keith: seriously. I wanted to say also I I binge to the show on it's I think it's on Prime, but it's a BBC show called What It Feels Like for a Girl. And it's the story of Paris Lees, who in the UK is a writer kind of known as a trans activist, but it's their story, her story coming up like growing up in like northern England and the actor who plays like the young her plays Byron is this actor named Ellis Howard who's like unbelievable, like so good. Anyway, recommend what it feels like for a girl and
Timoteo: This isn't the story about the girl who only ate chicken McNuggets and turned green.
keith: No, what is that? What is that?
Timoteo: I just some British story about some girl that I remember hearing about who would only eat chicken big nuggets and then she died at like twenty years old because she had poisoned herself.
keith: my God. my God. Can you imagine watching six episodes of that? That would be. Or this is like
Timoteo: Ha ha ha.
keith: six or eight episodes. No, this is Byron's life growing up in this working class town and like very difficult. Some of it is very dark and sad and some of, you know, like way more sexually adventurous than like his best friend who's like, I have a crush on a boy. Meanwhile, he's like fully like turning tricks, like, you know, like it's it's very tough, but it's also like just well done and like So it's it's not, you know, it's not all feel good for sure, but I just like binged it. So I vo definitely recommend it.
Timoteo: Do you binge at night? Do you binge in the morning? Do you binge while you're working in the studio? When do you binge on the
keith: I binge usually after Keith goes to bed, I'll stay up for an hour and watch. I watch also Vladimir, which is this Rachel Weiss show on Netflix, which is like it's fine. It's not that good. But yeah, I'll I have a very low sometimes I binge like the Dateline twenty four seven. It's just a channel that plays Dateline twenty four seven. And I'll just have
Timoteo: That sounds dystopian.
keith: it's really dark. You have to be in the right mood. Yeah, just different things. Sometimes I'm more or less tuned in and you know, and and then other times not, but
Timoteo: I like shows these days that you have to wait the week for them to come out. Like with the Shards right now, you have to wait like the week for it to come out, or Project Runway, you have to wait the week to come out. Like
keith: Really? Yeah. You have to wait. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Timoteo: I like those shows because I like the anticipation during the week of what's gonna happen. I can't wait to watch it because I
keith: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Timoteo: don't like to to binge. It's not I I'm not good at it. Like I I
keith: Yeah. Yeah.
Timoteo: I can't watch for more than like two hours before I'm like googly-eyed.
keith: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Timoteo: so I still like it when they kick it back to old times and they sort of drips and drabs they come out. Yeah.
keith: They drip it. Yeah. Yeah. I do hate how Project Runway though is not telling you until the next episode. That is really diabolical. Yeah. It is. I know. It's really so
Timoteo: guess who wins or who goes. That's really mean and a nasty and I hear Yeah. In fact I'm gonna write to Heidi Cloom, I have her email address.
keith: I have a I have a problem, Heidi. Anyway. Well,
Timoteo: Yeah. She'll listen.
keith: yeah.
Timoteo: Well, also probably around the next time we're gonna record will be sort of the fall season in New York of all the shows. So
keith: Of shows and stuff. Yeah, for sure.
Timoteo: hopefully we can get together before you go to the Headlands residency and maybe we can hit up some openings and then record right after it or something like that.
keith: Yeah, we'll record before the headlines and then Yeah, for sure. Right. Dora Geridi has a show at Mariamboski opening September tenth, I think. She's a really great painter and great
Timoteo: She does, yeah, storage reading.
keith: person. so definitely look out for that. Yeah, we'll definitely record probably before that, then a c a week after I get to Headlands and then maybe we'll start going back every week.
Timoteo: I haven't I haven't gotten a ton of emails about like what whose fall shows are coming up. I can only think of
keith: Yeah.
Timoteo: Michael Asif at Post Times. I'm looking
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: forward to that. Story Gallery is having their inaugural group show. I'm looking forward to that.
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: I think Klaus Gallery is having Mark McKnight show, like a big solo show of his work. But outside of that I can't off the top of my head I've I d I've not gotten a lot of emails from galleries. I don't remember
keith: Mm, from different there's a new gallery, March Gallery. He's opening a new space, I think. I don't know if you know him. Yeah. I don't know where the new space is, but I know that's a p yeah. I know. Right on f s Avenue A. it was first Avenue? Yeah. Yeah. So that's cool. That'll be really Yeah. Totally. Yeah,
Timoteo: I love March Gallery. What what are what's the show, do you know? It's in Tribeca. He moved he used to be right around the corner from me in the East Village and I loved that that space in First Avenue. Avenue A, yeah. It was on Avenue, it was an Avenue A. So it's sad that he moved, but you know, got him moved to Tribeca, I guess is part of that.
keith: yeah. so that that'll be really cool. What was I gonna say? I forget. My brain is like
Timoteo: Well also send us if you're on Instagram, send you know, people send listeners, send us shows you think we should see like in the fall season. Like I would love
keith: Totally. And any c
Timoteo: to know.
keith: totally. Any questions? Cause that was kind of fun to try to like answer questions,
Timoteo: Yeah.
keith: even though d you know, did we give any insight? I don't know. I don't know. yeah. yeah. yeah. Yeah, totally.
Timoteo: Also help promote us on Instagram. Like if you like our if you like our podcast, like make a little post about it. Like we'll repost it. We really appreciate it. And you know, like or rate us on whatever it's, you know, iTunes or Spotify.
keith: Whatever the different Yeah, I wanted to say this painting behind me is Denise Kuperschmidt. I don't know if she's a l a listener, but I know you from Halsey McKay.
Timoteo: Ugh, one of the greats, one of the true greats. Yeah.
keith: so yeah, I might put my own art up there sometimes just to mix it up a little
Timoteo: Do it.
keith: bit. But also I love this piece and I love I love how it makes me think about the city and my former life.
Timoteo: Denise Kupfer Schmidt. Denise Kupfer Schmidt is so inspiring to me. She's been inspiring to me since I saw her first little show at Zach Foyer's window space. And
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: it was on like Eighth Avenue and like 24th or 25th. And she had like a weird installation of like bizarre figures and vase shapes and things. And I was like, who is this person? I need to know them, and I'm gonna.
keith: Mm.
Timoteo: become their friend right now. And she's been a big inspiration of mine for a long time. I love her.
keith: She's really amazing. Me too. I had like similar experiences like that. Like, holy shit, let me meet this person. She's so fucking cool. So she is really cool. In all of her
Timoteo: Yeah.
keith: different capacities. She has a radio show. She is a big music person. So she has I can I'll post about like where you can hear her. I think it's on Sound SoundCloud.
Timoteo: And she DJs.
keith: She DJs. Yeah.
Timoteo: Works at the Whitney.
keith: works at the w as like primo art. like handler, like high level at the Whitney. yeah. All right. So see you in a couple weeks, if not sooner. Good luck with all of your prep for classes and
Timoteo: She's a pro. All right, Gina, so I'll see ya soon. Yeah. Same to you.
keith: stuff. Okay. Bye.
Timoteo: Fine.