When a Painting Begins to Breathe | A Conversation with Jordan Wolfson

In this fascinating conversation, I sit down with painter, teacher, and author Jordan Wolfson to explore painting as a practice of awareness. Jordan describes how, over the years, his sense of self has become more porous and less fixed, allowing him to respond more openly to both life and the creative process.

We discuss why some paintings feel profoundly alive while others, though technically accomplished, do not. Jordan shares insights drawn from artists like Cézanne, Monet, and especially Berthe Morisot, whose expressive mark-making helped shape modern painting in ways that history has often overlooked.

Along the way, we explore nondual awareness, presence, emotional energy, and why truly meaningful art often emerges when we stop trying to force it. I also share how my own doodling practice, along with a simple moment making toast alone in Santa Fe, taught me that everyday acts can become gateways to presence.

Although Jordan and I often use different language, we discovered we were pointing toward much the same experience: creativity not as something we manufacture, but as something we participate in.

If you've ever sensed that painting is about more than paint, this conversation is for you.

To purchase Jordan’s book:

https://www.lulu.com/shop/jordan-wolfson/power-and-presence/paperback/product-q6wm9wr.html?q=&page=1&pageSize=4

For more information, visit his website https://jordanwolfson.com/

Jordan Wolfson received his MFA from the Yale School of Art in 1991. An internationally exhibited painter, his work explores the relationship between perception, mark-making, and consciousness, viewing painting as both a creative practice and a path to deeper understanding. His work is included in collections around the world, and he has received numerous honors, including grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the Ingram Merrill Foundation.

"Painting isn't about making a picture; painting is about exploring life."

Want to learn more about CJ Miller? Check out his Spiritual Artist Retreats, 1:1 Personal Coaching, and Speaking Engagements at www.spiritualartisttoday.com. His retreats are designed to help you reconnect with your Creative Intelligence and express your true artistic voice. You can also find his upcoming schedule there, and his book, The Spiritual Artist, is available on Amazon.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Everything is part of what is when I'm painting. It's like um that is available in a more viscous, intense way. Um I get to be there more and in a way that's different than say a sitting meditation, right? Okay, I have a sitting meditation, you know, I'm sitting and I'm being. But with painting, I get to be and do. I get to mark and make and be at the same time. My marking and my being. Uh if I'm not being while I'm marking, the mark isn't gonna carry.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Well, wow. That's great. Welcome to the Spiritual Artist Podcast. This is Chris Miller. I invite you to join me as I interview artists from a variety of disciplines. We'll share powerful stories and lessons learned while making their art. Good day, listeners. This is the Spiritual Artist Podcast. This is CJ Miller, your host. It is a toasty hot day here in Dallas, but we got some good conversation with someone up in uh Colorado. So maybe it'll cool it down a little bit, maybe not. Um, I would love, I'm so excited about this guest. He reached out to me because of the commonality that we share, but he has a whole different path, and I'm I'm really interested to unpack this. So let me introduce Jordan Wolfson. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, and he graduated with an MFA from Yale School of Art in 1991. He fell in love with painting as a young man when he realized that it wasn't about making a picture, painting is about exploring life. What is the fundamental truth of this activity, painting, and how does it serve, not only in his personal life, but in a larger culture and time and what it means to be human? And boy, listeners, that sounds like someone, right? That sounds like me. So um, in his reoccurring explorations of form, space, and light, he has been investigating the relationships between perception, mark, and consciousness. This has led to his experience of painting as a life practice and a means for fundamental understanding. He's exhibited both nationally and internationally. His work is represented in permanent collections worldwide, including the Albright Knox Art Gallery, the James T. Dyke Collection, and the Ballingen Museum of Contemporary Art. I hope I said that right. Balling, yeah. Good night. Ballingen, thank you. So good day, uh Jordan. How are you doing today? All right, how are you? I'm good, I'm good. I love seeing, you know, usually or often when I do these interviews, I'm uncomfortable because I have a really messy studio behind me. I'm so glad that you have a messy. No, it's not messy, it's actually clean, but it's that you have a studio behind you. It it it's it's affirming. So um, I'm excited to talk to you to to share you with the listeners and and have you talk about your book. Um, I'm gonna hold it up for people that are seeing this on YouTube, but it's called Power and Presence, a handbook for painting in our time. And there's so many, so much overlap here with with some of my principles. And I can't wait to to let you just unwrap them and share them, right? So um thank you. Yeah, yeah. So you talk, let's go back to this. I love this word because it's so core to me in your bio there. And you said the relationships between perception, mark, and consciousness. So let's talk about consciousness and art making and tell me where you discovered that this is actually part of the process for you, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 4:09

Well, thank you. Uh should I say CJ? Are you going to CJ? CJ, thank you. Okay, CJ. And thank you for you know being open to this conversation and having hosting all of this. I I very much appreciate it. Oh um, so consciousness. I don't know if I would put it in those terms if I was just painting. So what I mean is uh a lot of my path has been you know encountering different kinds of spiritual teachers, uh non-dual teachers, and so I started to understand experiences that I've had in the studio as a painter, understanding, oh, that's that's consciousness. And so I was able to reframe, I think, experiences that lots of painters have, and I think all uh probably most aesthetic makers, musicians, poets, right? Something happens, and it's like I'm wow, how did that happen? And here it is, and I was I didn't, you know, I was awake, I was here, but it just somehow appeared, and I'm listening to it and I'm following it. So over time, my sense of identity, I guess, has been um shifting, and so I'm still me, Jordan, personality, Jordan, and yet over time that identity structure has become more porous, I guess is a way, or translucent, or less solid. Um and I've over time come to understand my engagement as a painter in its most essential nature, truth consciousness experiencing itself through sense perception. I I you know, I I write about it in the book.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

I it's it's harder to say, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 6:44

It's a little tricky just talking, you know. It's you know, going through the day, and it's like, oh wow, yeah, right. But uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Well let's let's unpack what you said there. Uh there's a couple things there's a couple things you said that were really cool. Um the translucentness of your personality. So I I I wanted to talk about that with the listeners. So you mean maybe stepping back a little bit from me, the the personality, Jordan, the guy that was born in a certain place of the world that has certain belief systems, and actually coming from a different place?

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Well, yeah, there's There are the particulars of my experience that come and go that change.

SPEAKER_03 7:44

And then there's that which doesn't change. Awareness, consciousness, being is always here always the same as everything else keeps changing and um So as that I don't know how to say it. Position, recognition becomes more available in an ongoing way. It's not that I'm I don't have my stuff, my neuroses, my patterns, my whatever, but they become less solid as me. I'm feeling it all for sure, but it's not um it's not as heavy, it's not as um demanding, it's not as the volume isn't as overwhelming. What am I gonna do? How am I gonna get out of this or whatever? You know.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Well, I I love this because it's your your your understanding is very it's it's just the same place that I am at. And so and so let's I want to try to put it this in words that someone listening to this can understand, maybe. Um say Jordan is very exacting and he's learned that he has to paint the sides of every canvas that he does. Is this about stepping back and saying, hey, what if I didn't? What if I didn't paint the sides? Or what if I just let myself have sloppy edges?

SPEAKER_03 9:50

I'm I'm not following what the question is.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Is that maybe what it's like to to watch your personality become more translucent to step back from your patterns and say, I can choose these patterns. I can say, Yeah, sure. Jordan was raised to always use, you know, to pre-mix on the palette before he puts it on the canvas. But what if what if I just throw the paint on the canvas and go from there?

SPEAKER_03 10:15

Well, yeah, there's more options for sure. Um preferences don't leave me. I have my preferences, but the situation is more more open. Uh I don't I don't need to have things be a certain way. I'm actually I'm actually the opposite. I never painted the sides of my kittens. But there's a gallery that I show at, and they said, you know, things sell a little better if the sides were cleaner. And so I, you know, like, okay, I'll do that. I mean, is my pre it's not my preference, but I can sure, why not? Whatever. So it's just things are it's just a more flexible situation. So there's an ability to um respond more skillfully to just what what is not just the like what is the whole system calling for, including me, right? It's a it's uh I'm part of this, whatever this is. And so how what what are the needs of all of this and how do I respond in a way that works? I I guess that am I answering that?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Yeah, yeah, you are. You know, it's interesting. Uh, it reminds me of a story um years ago when I started selling some paintings at a gallery. Um, I did not like to paint the sides. I I I love the history, right? The ink, the paint dripping down the sides, showing all the work that little, I call it little CJ went through, you know, the levels that he went through to get to that painting to where it was. And the gallery was the gallery guy was like, You have to paint the sides. I'm like, What what do you mean? And it it it triggered me, right? It was it was definitely a trigger. I ended up doing it, but not with a smile.

SPEAKER_03 12:13

Yeah, you know, I do think I would think when I was younger it was the same. No way, man. I'm not doing that. Although, although there was a time when I did frame the work, I wanted to frame them because they look good, you know, in a frame, and then it's just a lot of output financially. It's like, wow, that's you know, to do it now, and because I don't have standard sizes, so it wasn't I couldn't just like you know drop them into a frame. So that came and went the framing. But yeah, I hear you.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

But what's really interesting is what I've realized by watching is my idea of the right frame is my perception, and that other people, you know. I in fact, I just had a person reach out and buy a painting from me and I said, Do you want me to frame it? I in my mind's eye, I know how that thing should be framed. And she's like, No, I'll frame it. And and and I'm going, Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 13:15

But of course, give recommendations how would suggest it be framed. I'm sorry. Do you give recommendations?

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Oh, I do. I do. I actually use uh uh one of those uh online apps and I'll show it with a frame and what I think it should be. But you know, I don't know if you've had that experience, but you have to I let go, I let go. Sure. So um I want to pull a word out and have you explain it for the listeners as well, because it's a wonderful word. When you talk about you said it in your first sentence there, dualism, dualistic thinking. Did I say that? Yeah, I'm listening. You said that when you went through training, you said you did a lot of training. I don't know if you studied Buddhism.

SPEAKER_03 13:58

Non-dual, yes. Yeah, some non-dual teachers, yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

And so what would they what were they emphasizing with you, that non-dual well something isn't changing.

SPEAKER_03 14:13

Everything changes except our awareness. Uh-huh. So the awareness I had as a five-year-old, as a fifteen-year-old, as a thirty-five-year-old, I mean the awareness has been the same. While everything else has continued to change. So what is that? What is that experience? And I d you know, we tend to think of um awarenesses inside my head. I'm you know, I'm in here, the world's out there, uh, you know, as I walk through life, and if I pay close attention to my experience, I don't experience anything outside of awareness. So whoa, wait a minute. What? Like, I might think my awareness is in my head, but that's an idea. That's a map. Might be a helpful map, but it's a map. My actual experience is not that. My actual experience is that everything occurs within awareness. So how does that work? What does that mean? And uh can I be there as I experience my life? Can I recognize my self as that which is aware as I go through the particulars of my life? I'm not a monk, you know, I have kids, have relationships with people, have to pay bills. You know, can I recognize all of that occurring within awareness? Even my stuff, you know, I get anxious or whatever. Well, that's occurring within awareness, and it comes and it goes. So somehow everything is generated out of that. Somehow, everything is some form of awareness. So that's the non-dual. There isn't awareness and non-awareness. That's an idea, but that's not what I experience. I've never experienced anything outside of awareness. I don't know if you can experience anything outside of awareness. How does that work, right? Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

So do you think do you think awareness is the same as presence or is it a little different?

SPEAKER_03 17:37

I think presence is kind of like the experience of awareness, like the energetic vibe. It's subtle. Well, more subtle, let's say, than sense perception, right? Sense perception is like, oh, I'm seeing the things, you know, I'm looking at things, I'm hearing things, but then there's a sense of a vibration and energy. So it's subtle, but it's an experience because I don't always, you know, my experience of presence comes and goes. I'm looking at a great painting, I'm getting a hit of great presence, you know, and then I'm you know looking at some newspaper. No, that's different, but uh but I think it is uh a kind of some kind of subtle um manifestation, a kind of a gathering of awareness. It's a thickening in a certain way, the way all of this is, you know, every you know, I mean, right Einstein, you know, energy and matter, there's a relationship there. Um, so it's some it's some aspect of manifestation, but it's you know, we sense it and it's and it comes from strong. I mean, uh how I understand what's happening, um, this is my sense of it, is when we are deeply engaged in our making, as painters, as any kind of aesthetic making that we're really involved in, our life force somehow gets, you know, into the material, into the form, and there's a vibe. And that vibe we experience as presence, as a resonance. And uh, so when I'm you know, let's say I lose myself, I'm not really gone, I'm just really involved, I'm in it. There is my life force charges the material, charges the paint, charges the decisions I make as I make marks in different parts of the painting, charges the whole enterprise, and that thing starts to have a vibration.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

So, did that experience come early when you were painting, or is this or from the very beginning, or is it something you recognized in later years?

SPEAKER_03 20:22

I recognized it in those terms in later years. I was already teaching, I was a younger teacher, but it did occur to me like uh there's a uh I was teaching abroad, I was teaching some young adults, and um, you know, I told them, you know, you you need to go to Europe to see real painting if you want to know, you know, what's painting? You know, pictures aren't gonna do it in reproductions. They didn't have any money, they thought I was nuts, you know, like, yeah, thank you. But uh there was uh an exhibition that came to town of all these old masters from Vienna, and they were all you know impressive. And then there was this one Velasquez that was just this knockout, and we all stood there, it was like a little field trip, and we were speechless. And after a few moments, I started talking about presence, and that I think that was the first time I spoke about it, and it's like, hmm, what is that? How does that even work? And over time, you know, so mulling that over, like, well, what how does that happen? You know, and we know that, you know, it's pretty clear, you know, you go to a concert, you know, uh when when the musicians are really showing up, it's pretty spectacular. And when they're phoning it in, it's like, well, oh well, let's go home. We'll go get some pizza or something.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

I love what you said there. So I I want to ask you do you think that it's that feeling that you? Get from a piece of work, you know, because we all know it, right? You walk up to one painting on a wall and you're kind of like, uh right. And it's it's very well executed. It can be executed to the perfect brush strokes. And then we can see something that's maybe kind of messy or half finished. And yet we have that feeling. So I would think that presence uh is not necessarily equatable to uh dexterity or skill set, it's something else.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

Yes. I mean, dexterity and skill set for most of us is helpful because it integrates our system. So when I have skills, I've worked to integrate my hand and eye, materials, right? All of that, my analytic and my intuitive, they all get integrated, which is great because then I can go. But that has to happen. That doesn't mean that I necessarily have to paint real fast and gesturally. I can paint real slow, but I have to be very in it, committed, engaged, risking in a certain way that it's meaningful, this matters. I'm invested. Then something alchemical in a way happens. The material starts to wake up, and that's sort of the difference between that and say academic art, which is what I'm understanding you describing. Like that could be realism, it could be abstract, but it's kind of known already. There's no real risk, there's no real edge for the painting to be alive. I I have to be on an edge.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Yeah, I agree. I um I think it's interesting how I, as many years as I've painted, I'll have an experience where that aliveness just happens. Sometimes very quick. And then another time I'll be just slaving away on a phone. I'm right, I speak from today's experience, slaving away on a piece and just trying to force it into like I'm trying to whip it into submission. And you can't.

SPEAKER_03 24:20

You can't. No. No. Although, although sometimes you know that effort is just part of the process, but at a certain point, there has to be a letting go, you know, uh a following in some way.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

You know, when I paint, uh I like I was forcing this back into a composition that I felt worked, but then I think for me, suddenly there was an emotional, there was an emotional like suddenly I just felt these quick marks happen, and those quick marks somehow just made it all sing. Right.

SPEAKER_03 24:59

Yes, you trusted that emotional energy, and that energy is is your life force, and that you know, letting that happen gets that energetic from the emotional energy, get gets it into the work, and there it is in that mark for sure.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Yeah, so so you I remember reading that story about you telling them they had to go see the actual painting in your book, and um, and is that that's when it first clicked with you that you started going, oh, this isn't just like a a technical, I'm not just doing a technical thing here. I'm not like you know building a house or or making a meal.

SPEAKER_03 25:38

There's an emotional content here, a presence, uh an energetic content, and I I was aware of it, but I never thought of it in those terms. I never used that word until then, early 90s, I guess. And but you know, as a kid, I remember seeing this painting of these old leather shoes. It was in this, I must have been 10, and there was this uh exhibition of Van Gogh at the Lachma at the LA County Museum of Art. And I didn't know anything about Van Gogh. I just remember like, whoa, that's intense. It's like those are some serious shoes, you know.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

I think I saw that, Vinny. Yeah, but don't you think that we're all different? Don't you think that some of us might respond to those shoes and someone else might respond to sunflowers in a field? Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 26:31

I think I think you know, temperamentally we're all different, and that's why we make different things and we respond to different things. Some people really respond to you know, different music, Miles Davis, you know, or some people would prefer the Rolling Stones. I'd prefer the Beatles, you know. It's like okay, right? We're all we're different in that way, and um, but I think that that sense of impact that aesthetic engagement can give us, that's similar, even though the source, the the content may be different, and all for every everybody's got a different inclination. But that hit is like that's that's a that's that sense of recognition in a certain way, or that sense of letting go or opening, or in that moment, I think that that's a kind of a like a moment of porousness, like, oh wow, and we're kind of like put together again, realigned.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

Oh, I love that. Yeah, it's very interesting. A moment of porousness. I I think that's a wonderful way of framing it. Or um so can you practice this like when as a painter, as an artist, how do you ensure or or can you ensure that that happens when you paint?

SPEAKER_03 28:00

Yeah, I think you can practice it. Uh I think there are different ways of doing that. I mean, you know, depending on just where you're at, in terms of your own again, temperament, engagement, journey as a painter. I would say probably the simplest would be looking at something and letting your eye move along the contour, let your hand follow your eye, you know, like uh what is it, the Zen of seeing, right? Was it in Frederick Frank? I think, you know, back in the 70s, there was that beautiful book. And it was, you know, it was a it was a mindfulness practice, right? And so he's just dropping into his visual perception, very simple, formal means a pencil, a line. He's not concerned with getting it right, depicting someone's gonna like it, I'm gonna put it on my fridge. No, no, no, no, no. It's the practice of just looking and marking, and then we can build on that. Or um, you know, what you were saying in terms of your experience today with letting that emotional energy open, enter, you know, a lot a lot of the time we oh, I'm I'm too anxious to paint, or I'm too frustrated to paint, or I'm too sad to paint, or whatever. It's like, well, what if I just include that, start with that, use that? Why, you know, and so then the situation opens and it becomes more spacious, and then something can happen. So that you know, all allows for an opening. I'm not, I don't need to be in control. Of course, there's a part of me that wants it to be strong, a good piece of whatever, right? Okay, but then I could recognize that, and I don't have to, you know, do anything with it. I can just keep going and just keep being open and know that not knowing is part of the deal, frustration is part of the deal, confusion is part of the deal. It's you know, you read the biographies of all these great painters, and it's like, oh Matisse was an insomniac, oh right? It's like, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Yeah, they're all human, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:29

Oh boy, and that and and and they and that all went into the work, you know. They you know, as part of the work, as part of the deal.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

So you know, I've noticed with myself, if the minute I think I swear, the minute I think this is really good, I say shut up. I just I'm just like shut up, just keep going, stop, get out of the judge, get out of the jury, you know, just do it. Because the minute I start thinking this is good, the line just you know, the line just doesn't go. You know, I love that you talked about the line. I'll tell you, you know what's interesting is you're you're um we're so much alike, and yet there's obviously differences, and your training is in drawing something, you know.

SPEAKER_03 31:16

I look I work from observation, yes.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

And I'm I don't have that. I I I I mine is all from emotion, from what's within. It's very different for me. Um, so I love that the zen of seeing. I think that's a great way. One thing I've been playing with, um, I learned this kind of randomly about a year ago. I interviewed a friend, about an artist, and he does doodles, doodling, right? And and he taught me what he does, and I started teaching it to some of my students. And suddenly I'm like, I'm fascinated. Um, oh, this is really an amazing process. And when I doodle, I lose myself. I lose myself. And what I've really learned to do is just like you said, you get into that, the line, you know, the line. And so now what I do, uh, Jordan, is in the morning, I'll sit down and I'll just feel, I'll let myself feel whatever I'm feeling. And then I do one big line, one continuous line, stop, and then I adorn it. Whatever that paint it, draw it in, like connect things, draw circles, and I just sit there for 30 minutes reflecting while I draw it. And it is so meditative, you know, and it's very different from my background with abstract. Very different.

SPEAKER_03 32:37

Because it's not generated emotionally?

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Well, because it's so line driven, you know, it's it, yeah. Um, my abstracts are more with shape, you know, like Yahweh or with shape. So, so when you um what did you when you you know, you obviously had uh wanted to write this book. Um are you trying to help people understand this this revelation that you had? And the and the or what what was your or what did you get from the book yourself? What did you learn from writing the book?

SPEAKER_03 33:11

But I could do it. Um writing a book is no small thing.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

It's not.

SPEAKER_03 33:18

Um I was motivated Well, I'm I'm very concerned about the times we're in and the way it seems that our civilization is unraveling, and uh all the changes, all the transition, it seems huge. And I'm concerned about what's happening next, what's coming next. And I want to somehow present or um send a letter to the next generation and the generation after what is painting, and you know, this is something we've been doing for well, by last count, 45,000 years. So we're gonna continue to do it. And how do we how do we make stuff that matters? How how does that happen? That it's not just from some ideas we have, but somehow from our life, from our life force. How does that happen? So I wanted to put down stuff black and white, right, write it out. It doesn't get lost. Because already I think when I see young, I mean, you know, young people and they're you know, some of them want to be artists, some of them want to be painters, and they're different in our world today. Uh what what entails an artist is it can be quite different than what and what what does it mean to be a painter? And uh I don't think uh the painting education is as whole as it used to be. I think it's fairly split. So you get people that are really interested in skill, and it goes more into let's say an atelier kind of context, and they can really render everything like to the you know all the whatever details, all the pieces, details, yes, light, shadow, everything. All of it. It looks like wow, looks like a photograph. So, or they they want to be more, let's say, contemporary, and they want to be part of uh, you know, what is happening, and it's more conceptually based, and it's all whole other criteria of how to go about than then paint is being used more like to um express an idea, some thoughts, maybe it's identity issues, all kinds of possibilities. And that's neither are bad, but they're split. And a lot of the education, or a lot of the meaning, I think, that comes out of modernism from the end of the 19th through let's say three-quarters of the 20th century, was exploring meaning in the paint. You know, you look at how Cezanne was working, or Matisse or Picasso, or the Kooning, or Joan Mitchell, or I mean, this, and there's there's meaning in the way the paint is being put together, so that all of that is coming together, and um, I think it's very rare now to find, let's say I'm a young person and I want to learn about that in some art department. It's gonna be hard to find that.

SPEAKER_00 36:54

The the technical aspect of it?

SPEAKER_03 36:57

It's it's how let's you could call it the technical. How do I wield paint? How do I make a composition? How do I write? What does it mean all those pieces? Yes, but how does all of that embody meaning? That is meaningful, it's not a separate thing, it's not a conceptual thing that I'm illustrating in the painting. It is the making of the painting is meaningful. So, how does that work? What's the cooning doing? So already from my perspective, there is a a deep loss in our education of painting. What it what does it mean to paint?

SPEAKER_00 37:48

That's fascinating. I think I I definitely think that that's your you know, you're you're stronger, definitely strong on that than I am, because I came from a you know, I'm a self-taught. Um I actually had a traumatic experience when I was young with art and a teacher, and uh yeah. And I was talking I'm sorry. Oh yeah, I had a really bad experience with art. I um I went to uh Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh as a child, and when I was 10, and and in a huge lecture hall, the teacher kicked me out. So seriously, yeah, yeah. Oh, it was horrible. His Fitzgerald, Mr. Fitzgerald, and and and he was I I tell this story, I used to tell the story a lot more than I have recently, but my dad would drive my brother and I into the city, they had this big auditorium, you know, a Carnegie building. It's three-tiered high with uh balconies, and we were on the bottom floor. They gave you a piece of chipboard and gray construction paper and a pack of crayons, and the teacher would sit up there and he'd show you, we're going to draw a flower. And then everybody in the room would imitate him. Uh-huh. And I started, I was talking to this girl behind me, was poking me on the back, and I kept turning around to talk to her. And Mr. Fitzgerald goes, You have the audacity to speak while I'm teaching? Get out. So I had to pick up that tray, go past my brother. Just hid. He slid down and hid. He was my big brother. And I had to walk out of that auditorium while three tiers, you know, like tiered balcony, were watching me. Oh. And um, then I had to stand in the lobby when they left and they all walked past me. That's the one, that's the one. Oh. So I got in the my father came to pick us up. I got in the car, I threw my stuff in the back. I said, I'm not an artist, I will never be an artist. And I stopped painting for 20 years. Wow. Stopped doing anything creative for 20 years. So that was part of my journey back, you know, and which is why I don't have the technical aspect, although I am I'm learning it now, you know. And uh I have an assistant that uh teaches with me on these retreats, and she's more traditionally trained, and I'm learning from her, and she's learning the spiritual languaging from me. It's kind of interesting. I love it. Yeah. So it's really fascinating. So so you wrote the book, and when you were writing it, did it um did it give you clarity on how you felt?

SPEAKER_03 40:22

A lot of the what I wrote in the book had already become clear to me in my teaching. You know, through dialogue with students. Um, so that part wasn't particularly hard. It's like, okay, now let's go into this section. Okay, now let's go into this section. And I'd been mulling over a lot of the thoughts for a lot of years. And then there were other aspects as I was uh as I was developing writing the book, I thought, oh, I need to bring that piece in that was not so much just from my own understanding, but more from what I had read from other writers that I found very challenging. How to synthesize their ideas and not have too much of it. Just got, you know, it's like, you know, just the essential part, you know. And I would have friends read it and say, yeah, that's a lot. I think we can do with less of that part, you know, and really trying to figure out how to just not have too right, how to get it all into a clear delivery. So that part I wasn't used to. Um, and that section, I don't know if you remember that chapter with the neuro neuroscience with Ian McGillchrist and the brain hemispheres, and that was interesting for me trying to figure out how to bring that into the book.

unknown 42:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:10

Yeah. Um, oh, there was one part in here that I definitely had a little folded page on. Um you did bring in a lot of famous artists and explain how they how they um affirmed your beliefs, you know. Um, and it was really, really quite fascinating. Um I folded it here on the consciousness part. And so I'm gonna read this one little paragraph out because I think oh, there was a woman in here that you talked about too that had a really good one.

SPEAKER_03 42:46

Maybe that is that the one that you that you uh That's really interesting what happened, you know, in art historically, because at the time when she was alive, she was like top-tier impressionist with the whole group. And then when she dies, the art critics step in and make her second tier. She's not as important. Of course, the art critics were men, and it took a good part of a century for that to shift back and realize no, that is, you know, she was right up there in all of the exhibitions. In fact, you know, Manet was learning from the way she was marking, Monet was deeply impacted by the way she was marking, you know. It's like, oh.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? How people get buried. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they're they're the society, you know, and they and twisted too. Yes, you know. Um, so this is the one paragraph you said about consciousness. You said consciousness through us as us extends itself into painting as painting and then comes. To recognize itself. This is painting as a path of essential recognition, a path of essential awakening. This is not new. This is the essential truth of painting since the beginning. It is the essential driver of why we paint. Now, when I read that, I thought, oh, come on, what kind of spiritual training has this man had? Because this is core. Because this is a lot of coorness that comes from New Thought, New Thought and Emerson and Thoreau.

SPEAKER_03 44:32

Oh, uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

Yeah. New thought spirituality, which is that we are an individualized expression of God.

SPEAKER_02 44:39

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

And that God, when we create, it's God creating through us, as us. They even say through us as us. It's a it's a phrase that I was trained on. Oh, beautiful. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 44:52

Yeah. So when earlier, when I was talking, you asked me about consciousness, and I was trying to non-dual and I was trying to say something. I mean, another descriptor for consciousness is God.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

I agree.

SPEAKER_03 45:10

So okay.

SPEAKER_00 45:12

So and you didn't have you don't, or you do, you don't have a uh a challenge with that with with considering God as just another name. Because names are just names, right?

SPEAKER_03 45:24

I mean names are names. And what is is, you know, I there was a time I I was religious, so I've had that in my life as well. And um, I'm not you know, I don't have all of the ritual like I had in the past, but I yes, yes, okay, Catholic? Uh Jewish. Jewish. Oh, interesting. For about 12 years, I lived an an Orthodox lifestyle. Were you born Jewish? Uh yeah, yeah. I was born Jewish, but I certainly wasn't brought up religious. That came later in my life, and I decided like you know, like born again in a way, and uh I was like, oh, this is profound. I want to I want this in my I want to live with this, and so I did that, and it was profound, it was huge. Uh, there were other aspects of it that felt at a certain point it felt too constricting, too restricting, and I'm I missed a wider life, and so I opened things back up for my life, but yeah, it was gorgeous in a lot of ways for sure.

SPEAKER_00 46:39

That's interesting that you say that because I was I was already going to my next question. So um during COVID, I worked at a at a Jewish um independent living facility, and I befriended the rabbi on staff, wonderful man, and I loved he shared a lot of books with me. And I even have a podcast about six months ago where I interview interview a rabbi who's just wonderful. And the the Jewish faith really does um honor creativity, I think, more than almost any other faith that I've encountered, you know. They really do honor the creative aspect, the artist. There's there's some really lovely things about the Jewish faith, but there's also there's still there's still a lot of restrictions, you know. There's still a lot of, oh, not this and not that. And, you know, oh, you can't have this on this day. And and and I think that's kind of I'll share this personally. That's why I'm not I consider myself inner faith. I am willing to look at all the different faiths and gather what is truth in each of them, because they all have some truth, but I don't want to get tied down to the dogma of any particular faith. You know, because then suddenly there's these rules, you know, the these rules of how do you fit into our community, not just the Jewish community by any because Catholics have rules. Everybody got rules. Everyone has a community, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So do you find that your spirituality is sort of an independent spirituality at this point in your life?

SPEAKER_03 48:15

I I guess you could say that. I mean, I certainly identify in terms of like my personality limited Jordan person entity thing as Jewish, you know, I'm I'm Jewish. Uh in terms of my spiritual experience, I I don't even I don't tend to even think of it as spiritual, but we have language, and so we need to use words, but it just seems like it is what it is. Like I'm interested in like, well, I'm I'm a I'm I'm experiencing awareness or I'm experiencing presence, or I'm well, what is that? How does that work? And so I it doesn't feel separate from being alive, just being here in a body. So I don't think of spirituality somehow separate up out from the material reality we live in in our bodies. Um and uh yeah, that doesn't I don't think of that in the context of Judaism that I can find how I if I go into texts and I go into ritual and I go into you know like you know the Sabbath and the Jewish Sabbath, you know, it's like oh yeah, I get that. It's sort of being just being, you know, it's pretty far out, you know.

SPEAKER_00 49:59

Um day of rest.

SPEAKER_03 50:01

Yeah, that's a allowing us just to get in touch with being presence, yeah, presence, exactly. You know, it's pretty great.

SPEAKER_00 50:09

Anyway, yeah. It's interesting because you you you uh are obviously you've written the book and you're very uh attracted to this the the experience of painting. I I I'm trying not to use the word spiritual if that's not okay. No, it's okay.

SPEAKER_03 50:28

Yeah, no, use it. That's fine.

SPEAKER_00 50:29

I'm you know, I don't and yet you with your personage, with you, your your the Jordan being, you you don't really go there. Or it's uh it feels like you're like you don't even consider that. It's like you want to talk about you want to talk about the the ex the experience of presence when you paint. What about the experience of Jordan going to the grocery store?

SPEAKER_03 50:56

Well, I think it is available, you know. If I'm if I remember as I walk down the aisles looking at the different cereals or whatever, I mean I was like, I can recognize that I'm aware. As I look at, you know, honey nut Cheerios, I am aware of the box of honey nut Cheerios. And just recognizing that I don't know how to say it, it's like I'm still in the aisle looking at honey nut Cheerios, but the whole situation becomes more well, porous, less solid, less it's it's like in a way it's sort of like being underwater, and that, you know, there's things and there's rocks and there's seaweed and there's fish and everything, but it's we're in this substance. So there I am in the aisle of you know, what do we got? We got King Supers out here in Colorado. You're looking at honey neutrios, but somehow all of this is occurring within awareness, within consciousness, within God. Uh and um doesn't change the fact that I, you know, I probably you know should pick up that box of cereal that I want, but it's less isolated, it's less everything is woven, everything is part of what is when I'm painting. It's like um that is available in a more viscous, intense way. Um I get to be there more and in a way that's different than say a sitting meditation, right? Okay, I have a sitting meditation, you know, I'm sitting and I'm being. But with painting, I get to be and do. I get to mark and make and be at the same time. My marking and my being. Uh uh, if I'm not being while I'm marking, the mark isn't gonna carry.

SPEAKER_00 53:48

Well, wow, that's great. No, it's very well said. It's a it's it's it's very fascinating, huh? Yeah. Yeah, but you can't wait. Go ahead. Yeah, you can still do it with your honey nut Cheerios.

unknown 54:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:06

Oh yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. You know, I'm you know, uh, yes, I'm sure at you know, some great retreat. People are sitting in silence eating their honey nut Cheerios and being with that mouthful be full. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 54:23

Uh well, I love that. I have to pause, I have to think about that a little bit. You know, I'm I've I in my life, I I'm such a go-getter that I've been trying to isolate or um subtract uh doingness a little bit and and and and increase beingness. So I love that you said when you're painting, you put them together.

SPEAKER_03 54:48

Well, it sounds like when you released emotionally and you'd made that mark. Yeah, that's that. I mean, that's what I'm but you know, it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 54:59

I talk and in my book, I talk about um I would go take these retreats in Santa Fe and go alone. And and I'm gonna say that again to the listeners that going somewhere alone is wonderful, it's really good for you, you know. And we as a society are taught to always go with someone, but go alone. And I remember one morning getting up, and I was in my sw in this studio in Santa Fe, and the light was coming in and it was hitting the floor, and I was making a piece of toast, and the act of making that toast in presence with a bird outside the window, with the toast, the smell of the toast, and then I took some butter and put a little bit of butter on. It was so being and doing, and it was so present, so the oneness. Yeah, making toast, yeah, yes, yes, yes. So it is it's a it's an amazing uh experience. And then I started trying to do it when I'm washing dishes. Okay, okay. What if I what if I instead of racing through the washing the dishes, what if I caress that plate, just caress it with the towel and wash it, you know. What if just wow, right? Totally. But there are lots. I want to go back to all the way back to the beginning of the conversation because you know, when I wrote my book, Jordan, I I wrote the spiritual artist, and I thought, I thought every artist was spiritual. Every artist was practicing practicing presence, and they're not. There's there's actually a lot of them that aren't, you know. Right. So how do you do how do you deal with that? Do you think are you able to reach those students that come in that aren't truly present when they work?

SPEAKER_03 56:48

Oh, well, I'm certainly not leading with mindfulness practice or any kind of spiritual context. I'm just teaching them nuts and bolts. Okay, you know, we have a still life. I mean, I also teach abstract. I had a I I learned how to, I had a great, that's another question. Okay, that's another direction. But I had a great teacher and it was a fabulous exploration of abstraction. Anyway, but for beginners, um, you know, I've got a still life and they come and they're learning how to draw what they see as a way of grounding, integrating their system. And it just comes through the doing. It's like, well, you know, that's what you think you're seeing. Let's let's measure that again, let's take a look. And they slow down and they realize, oh, that's not what it looks like at all. Oh, and so the whole process of trying to understand and be there necessarily slows them down into a mindfulness practice because there's no other way to see, really. And it's like, oh, you mean the bottom of the vase curves as it goes back on the tip? Oh, wow. Are you wait a minute? You mean that white cup is darker than that blue cloth next to it? How can that be? You know, all kinds of is they just start to see. And so just through that process, it begins to, and then it moves into other kinds of things like the emotional energies or compositional concerns. How do you receive a painting? How do you fine-tune and bring it to wholeness? What does that mean? How do you how do you align in order to get that?

SPEAKER_00 58:44

Well, I think it's I I totally agree with you that the process of learning something with that kind of discipline can bring you into mindfulness. The question is, when does the click happen? Because for some people, it doesn't. It seems like that click.

SPEAKER_03 58:58

Well, it can, yes, perhaps. And they're not, you know, not everyone is open to being open. Okay, yeah, not everyone, you know, a lot of people, you know, what is it, drink and draw or whatever it is, sip and paint or yeah, exactly. It's like golf or what okay, fine. Not everyone wants to paint as a way of exploring what it means to be alive. Uh okay, clearly. I mean, look at the world. I mean, okay, right, and so the folks that stick around, yeah, they want something that's more meaningful and and deeper. And the other folks is like, well, okay, it's all right.

SPEAKER_00 59:45

All right. Well, this has been a great conversation. I and obviously your book is for the folks that really want to to to go to a deeper level with with their activity of painting, their creativity. Um, so I highly recommend it. It's on Amazon, is that correct?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:00

Not yet. Oh, not yet. Get it up there. I know they so it's it's it's it's uh print on demand through Lulu.com. You go to the bookstore, look at my name, you'll find the book. But the the last time they said, Oh, the barcode needs to be on white, and on yours, it's that yellow color. So you gotta redo it. And so I have to. My designer sent me a new cover design with white, and I have to just upload it, and it'll it'll be there. Well, they'll have some other excuse, but it'll be there soon.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:42

Uh the good thing is Amazon has such a reach, you're gonna like that, you know. Yes, it does have a lot of reach. I'm I'm actually releasing a a companion book to my spiritual parable, it's a coloring book. Oh, far. I reached out to all these artists that were on my podcast and they did an illustration for each story. It's going July 15th, it'll be on the market. But that's the nice thing about Amazon. You don't make any money, but no, no, but you get exposure. Big and it's like you said, you do it for another reason, it's not about the money.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:12

Oh no. No, this is not a way to the book, isn't gonna be the big lift.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:18

No, it's not. So, is there anything else you want to share that I didn't cover about that you really loved that the book of this conversation that we've left hanging? Did I surprise you?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:29

No, it's been wonderful. Uh, it's been a very enjoyable conversation. I've very much enjoyed just knocking it back and forth with you. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:38

Yeah, there would be that yeah, I could see that would be this is you'd be a great person to sit out and have a glass of wine or a beer and watch the sunset and debate the uh benefits benefits of creativity, you know. So um, I I I this has been great having you on here. I'm so glad you reached out, and and it is it's fascinating, it's just fascinating. Um, the people that have reached out to me and when they do like you, and there's that click. It is it's really interesting. So I really appreciate you being on the show. So I appreciate being here. All right, all right. Listeners, thanks for listening to the Spiritual Artist Podcast. Please go up there and follow this channel or share it with your friends. And like I said earlier, my book, The Spiritual Parable Companion Coloring Book, is coming out, and I'd love for you to get the copy. It's mindfulness. You read the story, you think about the message, whatever message you want to get from it, while you color in someone's custom illustration. Pretty cool. On July 15th, it's on Amazon. So thanks again for being a spiritual artist. Go out there and be creative. Thank you. Thanks again for listening to the Spiritual Artist Podcast. Whether you're watching this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or iHeartRadio, make sure you choose the subscribe button so that you will receive updates when new segments are released. Most importantly, be still, listen, and know that you are a spiritual artist.