X-TRA’s Artists and Rights is a conversation series exploring what art can do, at the intersection of Los Angeles’s most urgent issues and artistic practice. Each session brings four artists together around a table.

Episode 2:
Superpowers and Guiding Principles: Defining What You Want to Sustain
with Nao Bustamante, Todd Gray, Gelare Khoshgozaran, and Jennifer Moon.
Moderated by Mario Ontiveros

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In this episode, the artists pick up their conversation from last week. They discuss strategies for protecting the time needed to make work. They get into the economic and pedagogical challenges of working with emerging artists in MFA programs. Jennifer Moon asks: “How do we ethically teach sustainability when those same students we are teaching are taking on debt and sustaining us?”

They highlight the importance of thinking through and writing down short- and long-term goals. Todd Gray tells us, “It is so important to really define what it is we want to sustain. That is an individual question. And it is really pivotal.”

This session was recorded back in December 2019. But you’ll hear how the pandemic, the protests, and the failures of the government have only shed more light on the intersection of inequity, racism, and injustice that compels the work of these artists.

Conceptually we all can understand how these systems of oppression work, but how it sits in the body—being unable to shake that feeling of unworthiness, or feeling fraudulent—is really difficult.”
—Jennifer Moon.

Learn about the Artists
Nao Bustamante, Todd Gray, Gelare Khoshgozaran, and Jennifer Moon

Keywords
Art community, studio practice, self-care, gratitude, reflection, long-term goals, fear, process, experimental, art gallery ecology, political landscape, economic landscape, social landscape, sustainability, teaching, debt

Reference Links
navel.la is a non-profit, multipurpose community space that convenes assemblies and public programs in downtown Los Angeles
Whitney Museum of American Art and the controversy surrounding the Whitney Biennial 2019
The Turner Prize  and Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship
Learn more about Carrie Mae Weems, Theaster Gates, and Mark Bradford

**Scroll down for full transcript**

Clockwise: Moderator Mario Ontiveros (with scarf) with artists Todd Gray, Nao Bustamante, Gelare Khoshgozaran, and Jennifer Moon.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Executive Producers: Shana Lutker and Mario Ontiveros.
Recorded at Catasonic Studios in Echo Park by Mark Wheaton.
Production and editorial assistance from Sara Ellen Fowler and Kara Hart.

This series was made possible by generous support from California Arts Council Art and Public Media Grant, the Michael Asher Foundation, and KCET’s Artbound.

Thanks to all who contributed to the development of this series, including Ellen Birrell, Andrea Bowers, Ian Chillag, Neha Choksi, Poppy Coles, Justin Cram, Gilda Davidian, Juan Devis, Sara Ellen Fowler, Harry Gamboa Jr., Kara Hart, Carren Jao, Anuradha Vikram, Brica Wilcox, Matty Wilder, and Lindsay Preston Zappas.

TRANSCRIPT

(Session Recorded on 12/17/2019)

Jennifer Moon: The questions that I have are basically stuff that we’ve talked about, or that we’ve had brought up, like: how do we ethically teach sustainability within Fine Arts specifically, when those same students who have debt, like, sustain us? And you know, just like how to tout, like, what are we teaching, I guess or like, how do we talk about sustainability with students? The second one was like, you know, like, how do we how can we offer alternatives to the predetermined outcomes of art? And my last one is who wants to pull off the greatest con ever: Operation Scrooge?

Nao Bustamante: I think I would maybe add to Jennifer’s question around sustainability, which is just sort of the idea of how can we talk about sustainability in the framework of these programs in debt and institution, while at the same time maintaining a kind of bubble around our own practice and helping our students maintain that bubble? And it’s interesting because the, you know, within, you have to be able to do multiple things, obviously, to sustain yourself as an artist, but that idea of seeing what’s happening, being open to what’s happening, but also containing the framework in which you work seems to be really crucial to me. So like, you know, setting the stage or the mise en scene or whatever you want to call it, that space, the studio, your own mind, you know, the frameworks by which you can accomplish things or get things done. And I don’t even mean production. I just mean like: you don’t feel static. Right. Yeah. You know. So I guess it’s just kind of that the second part of your question, which is sort of: how can we talk about sustainability in these things with our students and as well maintaining our own kind of status, our own way of working?

JM: So good. I love that. 

TG: I think it’s so important to really define what it is we want to sustain. And that’s an individual question. And so that’s really pivotable… pivotal.

NB: That goes back to sort of the prioritizing

TG: I found for my, what’s helped me, and what I’ve passed along to my students is to do a plan and imagine where do you want to be in 10 years? Where do you want the work to be in 10 years? And then where do you want to be in five years? Where do you want the work to be in five years? To really get a clear impression of that—to the point where you can see where you can sense it, and you can describe it. And, and then once you have that kind of clarity, then you need to write it down. Because I found out to have long term goals, puts you in a direction and it allows you to separate the wheat from the chaff. So because the level of distraction is so intense in this culture, one really must be clear about what you’re doing. What you want. However, once you’ve established what you’re doing, what you want, you’ve got to ask the most important question: why?

JM: Yeah, that was the guiding principles, that’s what I feel like is most important for me to like write down what my core values are, like my guiding principles that will inform every decision that I make.

TG: And then it’s really because then the why you have to I had to ask myself so many questions to realize is that the impression that I have from my parents is that what’s motivating me is that the feedback and the encouragement I’m getting from culture is to do this is that, quote unquote, my idea of what success is you have to ask, there’s so many layers of onions, you have to peel back to get to the core Why. And then when you find what that Why is, or those Why’s are, I should say, the multiple reasons for that, to motivate you and push you. Is that really what I want? Is that really who I am? Does that reflect my definition of self and then you have to peel that onion? How do I define myself? And where does… it’s an ongoing process of questioning.

NB: Exhausting.

JM: And that’s where the trauma comes in too.

TG: For me, it’s been really, really critical. And it doesn’t stop. It’s, it’s ongoing, because I don’t want to find out five years later when I look back. That’s not what I wanted how the hell did I get here. What did I put my energy there? Yeah. And it’s, it’s a system of navigation, because then you ask those questions along the way. And give yourself permission to change course. Because you’ve changed the situation, the situation’s changed, right? Because I’m not, you know, 18 anymore, and those desires aren’t the same and applicable.

JM: What are your core values? Do you have like five principles? I do this assignment with my kids about, like, five, the four or five principles, guiding principles are like your superpowers, are what you need to be present in a situation for you to feel like you can show yourself.

TG: I need to be true to myself, and understand if I am not why I’m compromising something and be really clear, and that I’m not being self delusional. I need to help people. I mean, I really need because I’m so privileged, it would be, I would have a very poor idea of my core definition if I’m not helping people. So that means I need to participate in a community in some way, shape, or form. And that’s pretty, pretty much where I’m, where I’m coming from. And so I think about Theaster Gates, I think of Mark Bradford and others that until I’m saying, Hey, you know what, if I do get mega mega, then there’s a huge responsibility of me to share that mega mega and help. So the whole idea, especially being a black person, once you get to a certain point I’ve been taught, once you get to a certain point, you reach back and you help the next person. And that’s the core belief of my upbringing. So that’s never compromised, because that’s hardwired in my head. So having said that, I think residencies are really good. And students or young people, all of us as artists should participate. I mean, it’s the benefit of residences are just mind blowing, not to be distracted, to have a constant community and feedback of what you’re doing. And those that don’t get a residency, start your own, start your own by blocking out time, have a core group of people that come by where you can give each other feedback. There’s so many models that you can actually invent on your own on a micro level, if you haven’t gotten to the point that you are participating on those really larger ones that exist today outside of Los Angeles, outside of the country, and so forth.

NB: That’s a great idea. And a real, like, truth, which is just like, you know, the do it yourself. Do it for others, you know, do it together. This, you know, I think that’s wonderful. It’s a great idea.

TG: And now, I’m gonna give up the mic after I say this, this Oprah Winfrey moment. I’ve always wanted to be in the Whitney Biennial, I’ve always wanted to have representation. There’s been a laundry list. I’ve always wanted a Guggenheim, all these things I’ve just by clarifying that it they sort of came about on their own and they keep surprising me. Of course it took 40 years. I would have preferred to have it in my thirties but it happened in my sixties so, to keep making… But to be clear, so that I think I didn’t get to this point by chance. I think I got to this point because I was clear about it in my head. And what is this point? This point is just here we are in a room right now. That’s the only point there is.

JM: Can I say something about, like earlier on you’re saying like how in the beginning of your like, graduating and then being picked up by galleries and stuff and then like kind of like being like, Oh, I don’t know this but then coming back to it. I feel like do you feel like I mean, it’s for everyone that like that still? What? You know, like art students are expecting…

TG: Oh, they want to be stars. 

JM: I wanted, I had a similar thing where like I went to school in the ’90s right after you graduated and that was still like galleries were still looking at like the undergrads and the graduates and like pulling the students in to have shows and then that’s what I wanted. And then like I was disolutioned by that and the drugs.

TG: I’m very, very sober right now, in as much as I know, this is a moment for Black art. It’s a moment for African art, diasporic art, and in history, history just shows these tides of interest by curators institutions, collectors, move and change. So I don’t know if this moment will be sustained or not. And so I’m very sober in saying and keeping my concentration on the making the work, you know, feeding back and knowing that the bounty that I have can easily go which means I cannot put my ultimate value on the institution, the outcomes from the work. You know that this this it’s been collected to children and this institution that ultimately I keep reminding myself, it’s what I do in the studio, and the feedback is the work singing. And so that, that has to sustain me. And that’s so that’s a core value, that I don’t misplace what is valuable about the work until A, it’s connecting to me, and then B, it’s connecting to others. And then the others, all the rest of this stuff. It’s just providing a platform to get it out there.

GK: Yeah, I mean, it’s very helpful to hear all of this in this room because I think my dilemma sometimes is what to do in those 40 years, two years, six months of anxiety when you know that it goes up and down. Depending on your movement. It’s just this. It has this wave that it goes up and down, but it… When you’re really low, how do you sustain yourself? Like mentally? Like, how do you tell yourself, it’s almost like the earth moving, you don’t feel it, you know, it’s moving, but you need the index of it. So in those moments, to me, it’s when there’s a void and when I don’t have a community or a group of people to talk to that gets really difficult. But the way to sustain it’s almost like you have this bouncy thing on the floor, you fall back, and it like, pushes you up a little bit, and you keep moving.

JM: We’ve had moments like that together. But I’d help talking to you.

GK: Exactly, exactly. And had we talked before that moment, it could have had a different result. Yes. As history has shown, but yeah, I think that’s that’s why, you know, a lot of I think the things that are really toxic in the art world these days is the amount of secrecy. The myth but also truth of scarcity that you need, it’s your game, you got to do it no matter at what cost. So that’s why for me, it’s really important to ask at what cost and the thing that’s benefiting me, who was it harming? If anyone and where do I choose where to keep move for moving forward? And where to take a step back or pause? 

JM: Or will you to the… Yeah, cuz you read it, we’re talking about like a specific award that we were both like up for. And you reached out to all the people who were the finalists and like, started a text exchange. And I thought that was like so like, that was like a move that I see on your part to like, initiate that potential to change the way in which like us five were maybe relating to that specific award. Were you thinking about that when you’re like reaching out? 

GK: Well, when I saw the Pulitzer Prize, I thought that was a Pulitzer the last one. The the one that they split the grant. Almost a Pulitzer Prize was London.

All: Turner Turner Turner.

GK: Yeah, yeah, I mean, that was a refreshing moment, I think. I mean, at the end of the day, yes, there’s still competition, these people got nominated the way that they got to where they are, you know, they had a lot of social capital and the galleries were behind them or whoever supported them, but, but still, that moment was really beautiful and inspiring to me that, you know, like, you thought about this thing, and you did reach out. And even if the result was that no, someone decided not to share the grant or, you know, still that I think, yeah, like those texts, right? Like it was so also heartwarming to me to read that, like Lawrence or one of them was saying that we had a WhatsApp group called “the finalists” or something. And like, there were a lot of exchanges on that, like, I’ve had those moments like not in that scale, much smaller, but those were moments were really fun.

JM: Yeah, and we were talking about that we were talking about splitting it, you know, like in that it was like whoever won we would split it, you know. 

GK: Just didn’t push through.

JM: Yeah, but yeah.

GK: Yeah, it was also a different context, different scale amount, all of that. But the—

JM: But the shift is like, yeah, but you’re talking about like, yeah, or in a really effective, you know…

GK: And to have that WhatsApp group or like group of people where you’re like, when you’re really low, you also talk to another person and you’re like, you know, it’s not just me like we’re all going through this. And it’s hard to keep reminding yourself that again, like the projected image of someone outside is not exactly the whole truth. It’s just a part of it. 

TG: Amen. 

GK: And you just need to keep going and not get distracted for years and years and like be true to your principles. 

NB: Yeah. What are your principles or core values, Jennifer?

JM: It’s honesty. Honesty, adventure.

GK: Is pleasure somewhere in there? 

JM: Well, adventure could be part of it. I haven’t written the honesty adventure. And then I think connection and like creation or something, I don’t know, I, it’s just like, it has to go in that order. Like, it’s just like a way for me to like to open up. And it had I figured this out because I had a fight with my friend who I was like, resisting to like, because I was like, that person’s wrong, you’re wrong. And so I had to, like really be honest with my part in it, then I have to approach like situations that are difficult or maybe, like, with a spirit of adventure, so that I can like, you know, make connections. And then together like, we like create some some other kind of different way of relating to each other.

MO: How do you test those? What’s true to you? Oh, yeah, I mean, how do you know what’s true? Like, what is it? You said? You talk Do you said something about a question ongoing questioning?

TG: How do I know what’s true? by sitting with it, actually just formulating the question helps, because you know how it feels. And if you shy away from it, if there’s an element of fear, if it evokes insecurity, uncertainty, there are physical, nervous system, biofeedback systems that let you engage how true something is or not. So

NB: I think at one point, you’d also said that you question whether it was just an ideal passed down to you from your parents or something. So that idea of, you know, even if you’re having this kind of response, a visceral response to something, it’s sort of like, why am I having this? Continuing that question? 

TG: Yeah, its okay. I’m gonna just go brass tacks, let’s hear. You know, I’ve shown years and years and years and never sold crap. And it’s only in the last four years, I started selling the first three sales out of my first shows like wow, wow. I mean, some Actually, you know, I mean euphoria, euphoria, then each subsequent sale, the euphoria diminishes, diminishes, diminishes. And my studio practice basically is the same. You know what I mean? And Yes, I can put some things in the bank, but it really it’s, it’s an abstraction now. And it’s really weird because it does not motivate me. Whereas before I thought the sales was really significant. I totally drank the Kool Aid, totally, totally drank the Kool Aid. And now, it’s just a thing that happens with the work once it goes out at this place. And it doesn’t sell. It doesn’t sell, I’m still going to pay the rent, this is still going to happen. But it made me question. Well, then why why was there all this year for you at the beginning for this sale? Where What was that about? If it’s really true, why hasn’t it sustained itself? And that’s when I realized, Oh, this is a this is just what I have inherited from the culture that when you sell a piece of artwork, you’re supposed to feel fantastic and great, but the payoff isn’t the sale. The payoff isn’t the one person show once again, I understand the payoff is me recognizing the quality of work in on the wall in the studio. 

JM: Yeah, and you’re talking about like, a relationship to feelings, like being it, you know, like, learning that relationship and like being able to sit with the feelings. And like the feelings leading often will lead at least for me to a belief that kind of like created the feeling in the first place through like a collision of like my belief system and what’s hap, what is happening at the moment, and then it has like an emotional reaction. And then the longer I am able to, like, sit with feelings and stuff then I like, I can decipher at least like if it’s coming from trauma. Is it like this something that feels like connective. Is it this other thing? You know.

TG: For me on a psycho-analytical level, I am deeply embarrassed when people compliment me about Hey, Todd, this is happening. You’re having such a great year, blah, blah, blah, I lower my head involuntarily, I lower my gaze. And I say thank you, thank you. But I don’t encourage this conversation. And now I’m really examining what’s why and I owning it, not, you know, puffing up my chest, but just keeping my head straight ahead and meeting eye contact and just owning it, because that’s the reality. And there’s a bit of guilt. There’s a bit of shame.

JM: Yeah, shame.

NB: That’s a great realization. Well, you know, it’s always good to practice taking in, you know, when someone gives you credit or compliment, just to say, thank you. I’m going to take that, I’m going to take it in because I think sometimes all I have is acknowledgment from my peers. So, talk about sustaining, you know, what can you… What can you live off of what can you… What can you chew on? You know, so sometimes that’s all I have, so I have to really stretch those out. Yeah. So and so said they really liked the work!

JM: Gratitude, you know, like honest, sincere gratitude, or like, you know, even being in someone’s, you know, the periphery or something, you know, I guess that’s not water. But to go back to kind of what you’re saying, I’m really interested in like delving into your feelings of like self-worth.

TG: It goes to that and I think it goes somewhere about mental colonialism, and it goes about blackness. Does that person think because of this moment that really the work isn’t as valuable culturally and it’s because it is about blackness and blackness is a moment at this point.

NB: Oh, “F” that person whoever thinks that.

JM: Yeah, to honor like, you know, to listen to it, you know, to be able to disentangle it like for me it is like it is like like these kind of larger systems I mean all different kinds of systems but also familial for me, you know, and like how being able to like see like, which threads they’re coming from, and like it and they’re, but they’re like friends, you know, even though they don’t seem like friends, because they like hurt and they feel bad, but like befriending that is like also a way of like disentangling from it being through your body. And then your body becoming a vehicle to like, perpetuates those colonial.

TG: Yes, yes. Yes. That those internalized narratives, that I’m still dealing with those internalized narratives.

NB: And that and they are just internalized narratives. They’re not necessarily who you are, you know, unless you decide that they are who you are. I think so often we have to just remember, or this is something that I tried to give to my students, which is, no one can take your power away from you, you know, you have your own power, you have your own expression, you’re own person. And even if you know somebody is ranking higher than you or has more perceived power in the world, they still can’t take what you have. And I think that that’s really important to go through the world with that idea. Because, you know, so many people get power by taking it from others. And so the more we can hang on to that aspect of ourselves, you know, that we have our own power, I think it can be, you know, the more that we can have our voice also, and I think that that can, you know, continue to translate into our making. I hope.

TG: I think I know I’ve said and I’ve been on record that the highest high is recognizing the work when it sings on the wall. I’ve got to say that the second highest or equal is when another viewer comes up to me and expresses how they connected to the work. Because then I said I did my job. That’s a success.

All: Truly.

MO: I like, now your comment about remembering that. But each of you at the beginning all talked about, I think the word fraudulent came up almost every person echoed that. Wow. And right. Yeah. And so. So in coming back to that, I feel that that’s that’s the flip side is that that internalization of that, it can be really daunting, because I don’t know how to overcome that if I mean, but each of you had expressed that in some way.

TG: I gotta say, just last week in the kitchen, I said, I’m finally a real artist now. I swear to God. I’m in the kitchen, in the middle of the night, because I’ve compared myself to some painters who hit it seven days a week and Natasha can come by and go in the studio. I’m not that kind of artist. I mean, I don’t hit it seven days a week, 24 hours a day. And then I thought, you know, Todd, I think you can actually say you are an artist. I mean, and I just thought, motherfucker.

JM: Yeah, I mean, that’s like this insidious part of all like, these systems that we’re in is like, you’re talking about the colonization of mind. It’s like the body. Conceptually, like we all can, like understand how these systems were of oppression work and stuff like that, but the how it sits in the body, and like being unable to shake that feeling of like, unworthiness or being fraudulent is like, really difficult.

GK: But I think that’s why we need more of talking about the different ways that we’re artists so that it’s not that just because my studio doesn’t look a certain way, or if I don’t clock in and clock out. I’m not officially an artist, you know. I’ve written about this much Our practice is sometimes when I’m sitting on the bus bus staring out the window, that’s where like I’m thinking and I’m processing, I may go in the studio and do nothing, just listen to music and walk out. So I don’t need the contained space to practice. And that’s why I think I actually need jobs or I need to be out there, even though my practice is not social in any way, shape, or form. ButI think when I’m in relation to other people. And that’s why I think teaching is feeding my art practice because I have encounters with people, and those, like a very diverse group of people and some younger, some older, more experienced and less experienced, you know, with different life experiences and like languages and you know, cultures and whatever. So, that is a part of my studio day, maybe this conversation that I had with this administrative person at this institution, but then that kind of like leads into thinking about something differently and then I go on Like, I go down like a rabbit hole about that. And then the next day it means something else in the studio. So that’s why I don’t believe in these myths or definitions of like, this is how you behave as an artist. This is what makes you a real artist. But it’s really hard to get to keep a pretty clear head about that.

JM: I wonder if it’s a focus on social media to like you brought it up because I read that post that you wrote, and I was like, Oh, I felt because I don’t have a studio studio. Like I have a studio but it’s like a prop for a studio. Like I set it up for that award because I’m like they wanted me see me in a studio. So I set up like this whole prop that I never ever like go into. But when I read your posts about that, I was like, Oh, right, but studio doesn’t have to be an actual plays. And so maybe like social media like is like really helpful sometimes connecting and talking about the stuff that you’re talking about.

MO: But you also organize. I mean, I was just wondering, because that makes me think about: you put into practice that extending that conversation by organizing a sort of convenings.

GK: Yeah, certainly. And those are the moments like those other moments that it feels really fulfilling that I’m doing something with others. And it’s a lot of work and I often regret it the next day, but those moments are really fruitful. In like, again, like, they more psychologically than anything that I’m having a healthy, happy moment, like, I’m not beating myself for being artists and artists are a professional.

NB: I think it’s important that we’re as generous to ourselves at times, as we are with others, you know, especially around those questions of being fraudulent or an imposter, not doing the work we should be doing or not being in the right place or knowing the right people are getting the right kind of accolades or getting the right kind of support for our work. You know, I Think that conversation with others, you know, if you heard a friend of yours, say the things about themselves, that you say about your own self and your own mind, you would certainly say to that friend, Oh, come on, you know, take a look at yourself, you know, you’re wonderful, you’re generous person, you’re a great artist. Come on, you’re very inspiring to others. But you know, rarely do we turn that honor on ourselves. And I think, you know, that kind of brings us back around to ideas around self care and, and the particular ways in which artists need to have self care or scholars or people that are doing this kind of production of new thought or new making. And oftentimes going into areas that maybe they haven’t experienced before, right. So, for me as an artist, my main interest is doing things that I don’t know. Not doing things that I do know. So working in kind of areas of production or thought or interest or experience that are more what would be termed experimental. And so with that kind of territory goes a lot of insecurity. Because you don’t know what you’re going to find there, you don’t know what the production is going to be. So within that, it’s really important to trust yourself. And, you know, there’s certain things that you know about yourself, especially as you get older, and so you can trust yourself in those ways. Or you could trust yourself to have a particular kind of process. Right. I like to say that I haven’t even started if I’m not procrastinating, you know, so there’s, there’s sort of like, there’s stages that I have to go to in order to get somewhere right. And so knowing yourself knowing how you work knowing your process, I think can really go a long way. We even those points of doubt knowing when you’re going to be doubtful or depressed totally or have a come down or feel like poopoo, you know, if you know those moments, then you can initiate “self care,” you know, whatever that looks like for you.

JM: Yeah. Or like going into it. Like I have a simple like process where every single time I have a breakdown , I used to fight it. And then like, Dan was like, No, that’s just what you do every time. And so then I was able to kind of just like, let it kind of happen, knowing that this is where we’re at. Yeah, just admit, I have to do this process of making work.

TG: I have a couple people that I call that they’ve known me for who are artists who’ve known me since undergrad, and we stay in touch. And they know they accept the call and then I go, man, I feel like shit, you know, this is what’s happening. And of course, they will go: You’re, you’re crazy. And that really, really helps. I remember having a cal: I hadn’t made anything in two months. In a friend My name is Carrie Mae Weems. In came, she said, “darlin, in fact that you’re on this call. It says that you care. And that’s just as part of your life now just said, this is part of your process. Believe me. You’ve been doing it too long. Just just you know, let that go.” But we need those relationships. And it doesn’t have to be a zillion it just be one or two.

NB: Absolutely.

TG: Yeah. I wanted I just want to say that I’m involved… My partner and I, we have a building in Inglewood. In there’s like a couple studio spaces. And one of them is this group called zil. [CONFIRM] And it’s an incubator for black artists in South L.A. And so it’s a limited residences for black artists to work out ideas and things like that. And they approached me and said, Hey, can we use a space like this? And we said, yeah, this is great. So that idea of Just being involved in the community and we have a place in Ghana would have been 14 years and we’ve opened that up as a residency. Micol Hebron has been there, April Bay, CONOUR? Davis and so it’s just really nice. So like, there are resources that resources that were privileged enough to have, we’ve opened up and shared, and that and we know that were affecting people’s making. And that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s super fulfilling.

NB: That’s great. That’s great. I have a small studio. My studio hosts a writing group that I’m not part of, and a friend of mine said in the group, they said, oh, we’re gonna have a reading. Can you come as the as the patroness of the group? Is that Oh, I didn’t realize that I was the patroness of the group, and they said, Well, we meet in your studio every week. We don’t pay you anything. I thought, Oh, yeah, I guess that’s Yeah, okay. I think there’s so many ways in which probably all of us are making these small gestures and in your case, large gestures, you know, of, you know, this wonderful residency, but also, there’s just a small kindnesses that we can do for each other and other artists, just knowing how hard it is, knowing what a struggle it is you know.

JM: I mean, we were talking at the break, you’re doing so much like institutional work, you know, that’s like a huge amount of work that you’re advocating for students.

NB: Absolutely. I mean, I think if you’re clear, like you said about your core principles, and particularly related to your job, you know, like, what are the things that you want to stay focused on? Then I think eventually people, they they kind of get bored of hearing it, but I think also they, maybe at some point, it can go on the top of the list, if they hear it enough.Yeah,

JM: Yeah, sometimes I know sometimes for me, I have to hear things 100 times before you actually hear it.

TG: Caring is sharing.

NB: But is sharing caring?

All: Laughing.

TG: Nao in the house.

MO: Like that, being able to talk about creating supportive conditions and not leaving yourself out of that, because I think that that’s often what happens, the self sufficiency that we tend to operate under in an art world setting. So we are almost at time I said, we’re going to stop around 40 minutes so it’s almost a quarter tell any closing comments or thoughts or…

NB: Well, I just I was just thinking this isn’t exactly a wrap up, but I was thinking, I often refer to myself as a kitchen table artist, because, you know, even though I have access to a studio and office and other spaces, I often just find myself sitting at the kitchen table with a bunch of stuff around me and, you know, drinking coffee and munching on something. And it also made me think about, in terms of the self care, how it’s so much easier to cook for other people than it is to cook for myself. And so, you know, I just want to encourage everyone out there to cook for themselves. At some point, you know, as I wantto encourage myself to darnit I’m a good cook. Okay, I’ll cook. It’s almost like cooking for you. Yeah.

All: … leftovers.

JM: I can clean.

NB: Oh, perfect. I love it.

TG: I did cover most of those things. But one thing I wanted to add was this idea of fear. Fear is what keeps blocking me. And when you asked when I How do I know something is authentic? Or how do I know something really hits? I can’t remember exactly now. But one of the things I asked myself is what am i fearing. Fear ultimately comes in to the equation when I’m resisting something, and once I can articulate what that fear is, it’s really helpful. And so I use fear as a compass as a way to check my head to check what’s happening. And is that layer peel because it ultimately is fear. Is it fear of acceptance? Is it fear of success? I mean, you know, fear of success? there’s so many different fears that come up, and then Is it fear that it’s going to be shitty art? Is it fear that this idea Won’t be received well? Is it fear because I’m black I’ll Ultimately… people aren’t going to respect the work as much because I don’t come from the white canon. You know, there’s just so many layers and then once I touch on that fear, I can get closer to who I am, and how I’ve been influenced by the culture, decolonial strategies and so forth. So that’s what I just want to put out there is to really question your fear and see what it is and embrace it because Damn, fear is a lesson. It’s really a great teacher. Yeah, it was a great teacher.

NB: Thanks for that.

JM: False evidence appearing real.

TG: False evidence appearing real.

JM: I didn’t make that up.

All: Laughter.

NB: Was I just “scrooged”?

GK: I had something but then I forgot.

TG: I thought it was only the 65-year-old that does that.

GK: Oh, we didn’t get very specific. Maybe that was good though. Is there anything in particular to the L.A. artists experience that y’all want to share? I would be curious.

JM: I mean, housing came out a lot. I did the naval assembly and redistribute wealth and it was just in general like redistribute wealth. And then from the, the people who were a part of it, it became about housing.

MO: Started our conversation before you all arrived, talking about the changes in this neighborhood. I was just editing an essay last night and the writer quotes a theorist that talked about: The importance of being homeless. And I thought we have to edit that out. Because that’s such a real crisis today that that just sounds so poetic. And I understand that the core with that writer, the theorist was saying, but in a world that’s not welcoming refugees and asylum seekers, and in a time of housing crisis and homelessness, that just can’t be a closing comment.

NB: I don’t even understand it in a way at its core, like I know that there’s like these. And I think this is maybe a place that I can empower myself in the coming year and maybe other artists can too, as a way of exercising a kind of agency like understanding where all these things, how are all these things have come about, like this lack of housing, this shortage of housing or shortage of affordable housing, and, you know, like, where does this all come from? Is it just from the space of investment, you know, people parking their money in a certain sector, like I’m not a exactly sure. But you know, maybe that’s a way that we can empower ourselves to do something or come together in a way for making change. Because I think in L.A., there’s so many different activist communities. And I’m really grateful for that. For all the people who are informed and who are out in the world trying to affect change for the better in our in the city, in our city. But I wonder, you know, because the space of the artists, the spectrum of the artist is so important to the identity of Los Angeles. So I wonder if there’s a way that as a group, we could also affect the political landscape or the economic landscape. The social landscape. And I’m looking to you, Jennifer, because I need you to just tell me what to do. Yeah, is there is there a place we can go to sign up for scrooging? I mean, you know, can the list can listeners sign up somewhere?

JM: Yeah, you can contact me directly! Or you could also come to process group which is like this. Like it’s like group therapy. It happens every other Sunday.

GK: Oh, you’re still doing that.

JM: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Every other Sunday at Widgets, the place that they manage on 62. Sunday, actually.

NB: This Sunday. So every other Sunday, on which Sunday I would be the one who shows up every other Sunday the wrong Sunday.

JM: Yeah, I send out an email. I sent out an email, like the week before or like the Wednesday before each Sunday. Okay. And there’s like, if you want to email me, if you want to be added to the process group, Google group. Yeah, that’s a place also to talk about…

NB: Yeah, and I just liked the that, that place that, you know, that everyone’s been talking about, you know, the DIY DIY or the, you know, do it for each other do it with each other space of, you know, can, you know, like you’re having this process group? Well, I would. I mean, I’m gonna come and I hope you guys are actually doing something.Okay, wait, besides process…

JM: Okay, no, don’t don’t come in. That’s just like a that’s a that is like a group therapy processing feelings like processing, you know, like shame and also stuff like we’re talking about right now. But if you want to do like actual like organizing, yeah, maybe like that Navel assembly would have…

NB: Something along those lines.

JM: Yeah. Okay. Thinking about like how to, it got to a point where we’re talking about like co co housing co owning, buying up like trust lands and like building like how to get you know, that’s kind of how it ended. So there is like a group I that we haven’t met since really like… There was a dinner after the assembly was over, but we haven’t met since then. But it could reconstitute.

NB: Reconstitute.

JM: Yeah, yeah.

TG: I think a good group to get scrooged would be really artists who are participating quite actively in the market. Because they mean we all have this background that’s based on I would think on on socialist values or Marxist values, or so, I’ll just say this the postmodern and hopefully, we’ve all pierced that myth of the artist, being singular, alone, and, and having gifts that no one else has genius and so forth. And it makes me think of the dealers who are making so much money in that they are saying, Wow, all of these small galleries are being squeezed off, because the really that they’re we’re scooping up the young, successful artists and they’re going to mega galleries, and that we actually need these young galleries as incubators. It’s part of how the system functions. And they’re saying, Oh my God, we created a cancer. So they made entering art fairs, they’re actually underwriting some of the art fair costs for young galleries so that they can afford to get in because they see it’s in their benefit to help. And so it’s it would be great if some of these artists in the market maybe would get together, talk about perhaps how it’s possible to get a building or sign a master lease for a building that can help others and so forth to keep the vitality going. And then who knows how that ripple effect might might go out? Because Yeah, I know we’re like herding cats artists are, but perhaps this is, this is a good opportunity for scrooging.

JM: Yeah, those big galleries. Supporting the smaller like artists wants basically the small guys, what do they get out of it? Or like what’s…?

TG: What they understand if you don’t have small galleries and then a lot of then there’s not opportunities for young artists to exhibit and there’s actually a stepping stone process.

JM: So they eventually want to get those artists like take them away from the small, right?

GK: These plants have to grow somewhere.

JM: Before they deforest them.

GK: Or there will be no balance in the ecology.

MO: Thank you.