 Yeah, so Matthew talked about burning man and how influential it was to him in terms of the art and You know, I have a very similar story my wife and I we met at burning man seven years ago coming up on eight I think and Who knows what burning man is just so I can understand who doesn't know what burning man is One person. Okay. Perfect Maybe at dinner we'll talk about it Takes a little longer than that right and You know here we're We're talking about a lot of truth and we're talking about a lot of morals You know and the other big one is beauty You know in a sense everything all of our human endeavors in a sense can be fit into the categories of science psychology and art and Art has taken a big place in my life over the last several years after discovering this Kind of area of art at burning man and then getting to know a lot of these artists collecting their art and Getting to know them as people I've realized that the artists have a lot to teach us like we can really learn a lot from the artists because they have a whole different way of Interfacing with reality and with culture and in a lot of ways. It's the artist's job to stand outside of culture and reflect back what we need to see and Interpret what's happening for us So that we can make sense of the change that's that's going around Picasso had a great quote. He said art is a lie that tells the truth All right. I really like that one I also I think of art as You know in my own way now as being really it's almost like a Purified expression it's like expression itself made pure and by Engaging with art and with artists. I think we can begin to understand how to be more elegant in our lives How to communicate and how to think and how to be in ways that are more beautiful more interesting more attractive Another thing we'll you we'll be seeing here is mostly single what I would call single frame, you know images one one picture and I I actually find that one frame for me now is a lot more interesting on average than say a movie right, how many how many Individual frames are in a movie Right to our movie has something like a hundred and seventy five thousand of these and These artists can tell a more compelling story to me in one frame right then most can in a hundred and seventy five thousand and so There's something there about data compression and the efficient use of space and attention that I find extremely interesting and I guess yeah, I mean I really have I've gotten more from contemplating art and some of the art you'll see here Then from you know the movies that I've watched from all the kind of media and things So what we're gonna do is as I mentioned I'm gonna have each of these artists just Introduced themselves just give you a minute or two about who they are and where they come from and what I'll do is I'll show an image From each of their kind of collections while they're talking okay, so Hans Maybe just tell us a little bit about yourself, and this is one of Hans's paintings Yeah, my name is Hans Valour originally from Colorado and Yeah, I started out an architecture actually and I was got my degree in that and art was always a passion ever since I was a little kid and over the last 10 years I've been in Los Angeles, California and Started out an architecture there and just gravitated back towards my painting and drawing and I've been doing that pretty seriously for the past five or six years and This is a piece called Hearts Colors set the mind free and Yeah, I was brought actually my whole introduction to New Frontiers is through Evan and Just getting to know him over the last couple years and the introduction to Matthew and Yeah Hello, my name is Sephora and I am a photographer also work with video a bit, but I'm photography Still photos are definitely my my strong point This is a little girl in India who I had a really sweet connection with I think that's what that this image is showing is my connection with her and I've been intrigued by photography for as long as I can remember I think even as a young girl I Would I didn't have very many photos of myself as a younger Version of myself, but the few that that existed were completely fascinating to me I would pull my mom's photo albums off the shelf and I just I had I think I had this sense even as a really young girl that the photo could Reveal something to me about myself that I couldn't see from the inside There's sort of that that magic in it And I don't feel like I've ever lost that sense about photos There's just something really spectacular about them. So that's what I'm here. I've I'm very fortunate to have made my living now for about nine years In the business of archiving light That's what photography really is, you know, writing with light and so I get to have this beautiful love affair with that language and I guess I'm still learning how to be fluent in it Hi, my name is Michael Devine and I am a painter. I'm an artist Primarily a painter. I dabble in a lot of things I've been painting for about 20 years and I left school to go paint and follow my heart and really just taught myself most of it through trial and error and I think much of my life has been trial and error and learning a lot and pushing those Errors and those trials to their most beautiful thing possible because what I want out of it and what I want out of art and life is to create that most beautiful thing and this painting is the glass onion which is a painting I made out of that kind of pushing through the layers and boundaries and trying to you know Find something real sometimes and you know, the trick is there's no onion and there's no glass or anything It's all just there And that's that's my path in the world My name is Andrew. I go by Android Jones and I fell in love with art when I was around five years old and I Just never found anything else that so captivated me or took up my whole attention that I decided to dedicate my life towards it I'm I had a background in traditional academic drawing and painting and over the years I've transitioned into a more of a digital artist Using I love tools and I love using electricity and technology and really to create Experiences and whether it's these large gallery installations like Matthew and an ebonid experience at Burning Man or Immersive three-dimensional like 360 dome shows and virtual reality, whatever however, I can use the I Can find a way of leveraging an excuse for me to have the experience of being creative and Finding an output that gives meaning and value for other people and gives them an experience is where I try to spend the majority of my time and my attention and my life and This piece. This is called a rainbow Geisha So we're here talking about story We're here in a new frontier at New Frontiers and I think that art has a It's a unique voice for story whether it's a musical art or whether it's a visual art or whether it's dance or any one of a you know a whole bunch of emerging modalities of transmitting You know what's in here and here to other human beings And so I've talked to each of these artists over the last couple of days over the last few days about how they Transmit story through their medium and so what we're going to do is we're gonna have a little conversation here with each of them and You know, we've we've had conversations about this conversation Okay, so we've done a little bit of preparation Because we really want to get across Like what it is that each of these artists brings you uniquely and how they tell their story through their craft so Hans You know in our conversations a few different times now. We've talked about how you are You're basically Listening and telling your story at the same time, you know Can you talk a little bit about how you think about making a piece of art and how the story? You know is coming through you and through it Yeah, I Mean first off. I think that I'm basically to summarize everything just a reflection and I mean, I know that's really simple and But it's the truth behind all of it and I really find that You know, I'm kind of going from a macro scale to a micro scale all the time and back and forth and I have so many amazing influential inspiring people around me and all different walks of life and especially in the arts within Yeah, just within design fashion architecture film music So many people that are so heavily involved in different design fields and just people that are involved in like interpersonal work that I Feel like have like a really good grasp on just so many aspects that they can educate me on and and things that I'm just inspired me by just reflecting upon the patterns that I see and the patterns that I I find within myself and within the people around me and Yeah, just kind of finding those patterns that that I can reflect and and incorporate into the artwork and I was also supposed to Kind of chime in here about the idea of keeping things current Right, in other words staying in tune with Yeah, the other piece. Yeah, I think that as far as keeping things current with myself Yeah, I guess it goes back to just paying attention to what's happening at large and like a in a broader sense And like the collective consciousness of the design fields What a lot of different people are resonating with like what we're kind of like again What I said patterns that I continuously see and I think that Design trends and an interest of the masses always tend to shift and I think that if you're not paying attention to how life is shifting and and The things that you see people finding interest in at large Then I think that you run the risk of becoming like passed over or people just get tired of seeing You know something that they've seen before and so I think it's always a challenge as an artist to To really pay attention to what's going on with so many of the people around you and Like I said, you know, I'm so inspired by photography and film and fashion and graphic design and even web design digital media I think that all of these people have such a unique look at the design world from their own perspectives and Yeah, just getting a good Kind of overall view of that and then taking that and you know reinterpreted reinterpretating that into like my own view and my own kind of reflection of what I see and I think that you know That in a sense keeps it current I think that that in a sense keeps it as a reflection of what I see the masses going through and what they might resonate with So, you know, I think some artists just do the art for just themselves I find that it really works for me to have that story and message. That's a reflection of a general Macro view that I have taken back into a micro view and then reinterpreted And I think there's also a really odd kind of collective consciousness in the design world where I'll come up with some concept that I think is original and I'll find someone on the other side of the world that has like a Similar concept and I'm like how the hell did they like, you know I know that some of it is spread through digital media But it's something that I've never even posted before and so I think that there's on a collective level. There's these different energies that are that are felt and I think that's fascinating and Yeah, just running with that that That feeling I want to say like running with the herd but running with the design herd and running with The the people that are leading that edge and design fields and whatever design field they're in and just reflecting off of each other So I think that's what I strive to do to stay current. Yeah, thank you Zippy Zippora, it's okay. It's a piece for it. It's okay. I met her as zippy and I just Practicing so how do you tell story through your craft of photography? Interesting I've been pondering this and I realized that For a long time I've like to say that I've spent my lifetime telling stories through my various crafts and of Which photography is just one? and Something wasn't really sitting right without me for me and like the over the last 24 hours Has it really been feeling into this? and it just kind of came to me just like half an hour ago that I Think what I'm really aiming for now at this point in my relationship with the craft is to go really beyond the storytelling it to I Feel like I'm a story clarifier because stories are so multi-layered and I Think that if there's one thing I can see in my work at this point is that I'm I am attracted to moments that are that are moments of connection really Connection in very various different ways connection between people connection to you know between a painter and his paintbrush and there's a silence there there's a quiet and the best images that I that I am able to offer are ones that come when the subjects and I tend to be more of a portrait photographer even if that's a do-drop, but really people are My strength is seeing that but the best photos are the ones where they have no idea that I'm there So they're really removing myself From the equation as much as possible Trying not to inter intervene or interrupt or affect it in any way And I think that also comes from a a deep Fascination with called cultural anthropology. That's very deeply rooted in me just observing people in the way we interact and I think there's something in that is that I'm I'm really listening deeply with my eyes and Observing it and really trying to respond when there is an invitation and not to go searching for something and and being too technical about it, but really letting something else inform and In that there is a clarification. It's almost that I because they don't know that I'm there I'm able to Transcend or go beyond their projected story of who they are or How they're connecting with somebody as soon as you see a camera? I think we all have had this experience we we have so many stories about How we look or how we're going to be perceived and so many fears And so I think really what I'm what I'm trying to do and really try to maintain an integrity with is them I am I'm looking for moments of really pristine authenticity authenticity where people forget when they're in that moment of such connection that they forget all about their stories and I think it's also why I love with children. They haven't yet crafted these storylines of worth and and The fears of judgment or how they're going to be perceived and I think it's why I really really love Photographing children and and you'll see much more Photos from me of children where they are actually looking and really engaged with me because I can go there with them and they don't change so I really I'm grateful for the question that that I've just gotten so much just in the last 24 hours of understanding clarifying for me what it is that I'm actually doing and I like this shift now. I like to think of myself as a story clarifier Thank you, so Michael um Something it's interesting about your your method and your approach is these pieces often Include maybe not totally, but they include the story of you know, some development that you've made yourself Can you maybe talk about your approach to? Mapping your own development through your painting. Sure um, I think where I begin and making a piece is looking at the emotive content before the thing and In doing so I'm looking at the feeling the movement the momentum just What that experience is and so if I'm gonna sit down and make a painting. I'm thinking about What's inspiring it sure but but it's going to push me into that space. I'm gonna go strike out and Explore that for a while And sometimes it's kind of Challenging because it might be something that's actually really dark and I know I'm gonna have to be working on this big dark painting for three or four months on my easel and that's almost frightening in fact It's generally frightening anytime that I'm like, okay Now I've got six months to meditate on this thing And I'm gonna feel it and think about it and eat with it and sleep with it every day and wake up looking at it Thinking it's coming from that place as long as coming from that place You know, it's not trying to be a thing and I have to get rid of like the feelings of like What I'm gonna do with it and will people like it which is every artist fear regardless will will they like it? But just get into the emotive quality. So that that story is Everything that's happening in front of it. It's everything. I'm going through along the way It's it's my life and and I have a pretty just average life It's just a life going on like everybody else's life and and I have this whole great big sort of space to go explore in it sometimes and what I Hope is that I can bring something back that's valuable for people to map out that Emotional content because we all have all of these emotions in us We have joy and grief and sadness and happiness and we all experienced when we have a thousand stories around how we experienced them, but they're all very similar of the emotional content and I find that there's sort of Archetypal experiences around it. So I have shapes and patterns and things that all fit together that create just experiences, you know, and that's what I'm hoping to to ultimately end up with and Push it to that most beautiful exuberant. No exuberance not the right word just the most beautiful place Because it could be tragic and beautiful. It can be happy and beautiful. It's just, you know, the tree is just beautiful It's just out there doing its thing and and And bringing that to the world that sort of softens the the barriers between us because we can look at each other and say Yeah, I know that feeling I've been there and I've had that from all kinds of different people Whether it's like little old lady or like big dudes who I'm like wow I probably would not be hanging out with this big dude, but he's like that's badass Like he gets it and it's like some maybe it's this and you know And there's a shared connection of an experience there that we wouldn't have seen in each other Otherwise, you know because we have different worlds that we're part of and all the varying boundaries and barriers between things That just happened by like our human design, you know I Tend to I tend to think that beauty because it's so kind of impractical If that makes sense like it's not practical to spend months painting a painting You know, it is a highly impractical job Or spending, you know weeks to get the right shot or whatever But it it helps us in our lives, you know, beauty can make pain Barrel bearable it it has a really interesting function Andrew, maybe you could talk a little bit about how you transmit story through your art And I don't know if you can fit in there a little bit about the unique Medium of digital, you know, because you're kind of an explorer there, too You know what I think when I think about What story means and how story how I interact with story of my art? I think it there's probably I could break into three different categories and The first kind of like the metanus of it would just be the there's a story that comes through in the process of a piece For me the Really the real driving factor behind the art that I make is that creative experience itself Just this whole the agony and the ecstasy and the discovery and the success and the failure but this whole the arc and the journey from starting with, you know, and The opportunity for an infinite amount of Directions and exploring that to getting to one finite end just that whole Process is what drives me and the art that's that's left behind the art that gets created with that is really just the residue of that journey that I'm going on and so There's there's one element of the story that has to do with the process and that's what's going on in my life at the time Like what were the factors? Where was I when I was making this people so what was I listening to what were the set in the settings like all of that? There's a there's a rich story that happens within there Then there's a story that I would say evolves more around. It's there's the the evolution of a piece And when I'm making it often when I start off with pieces sometimes I'll think about wanting to go for an emotion But a lot of the times it's just I just try to really just come up against this me in my subconscious Within the tools and the digital tools that I use now Within these digital tools and I use tablets and monitors and these this monitor Once I can really be present with it it becomes almost as like a window into another world. That's a reflection of my Imagination that's kind of that. It's that that's like the mental context that I'm in when I'm creating a piece and a lot of times I'll really just start off with with chaos and shapes and just total subjectivity nothing objective of it all and a piece evolves as I throw down these these chaos and these shapes and colors There's a point where the chaos becomes so uncomfortable that the the meaning making machine of my mind starts to make something Objective and there's this back and forth of a it's kind of exploring a conversation in the first level of conversation Usually like my own fears like this isn't good enough or you're doing the same thing you did before like of all the little Little voices that are there, but I've been making art for so long that it's just I just know those are background noises sometimes they'll get to me because it's my ego evolves with me and gets more cunning and Brings me lower and de and lower and lower all the time like I'm you know, it's a it's an amazing foe But once I can kind of get past that then the piece starts to evolve and Ideally if I stick with it, and I trust the process there's a place where the conversation is almost more of a Subconscious and kind of an unconscious where things are starting to be revealed to me through the painting and the act of Creation gives birth to new ideas that I never would have thought unless I got to you know There's there's things that are revealed They're only revealed 15 hours into a painting or 30 hours into a painting something else is kind of revealed and you get over Under level so the piece is kind of evolves back and forth and it's finished either when I'm just like I just don't have any More fight in me I'm like tired of fighting it or I get excited to like pick another fight with another thing You know because it's always those first blows are so much fun And Or it just gets to a point where it's just like this is what this painting needs to communicate sometimes I don't even know what it means at the end is this like but it felt like that battle was worth Sharing and showing other people that and then the third element So there's the process. There's the evolution of the story and then what I really find valuable is what? Story it then evokes with other people because often the paintings that I'm making they're just like half of this Combination, you know, they're just this thick. They're they're a they're kind of a prima materiel like a catalyst But the real magic always takes place within Someone else and they're experienced in them viewing the painting so often I Try not to be I try to be or try not to be very heavy-handed with like this is what this paintings about like I have a heart I'm even naming some paintings because I don't want that name to influence someone's experience because Often the paintings and the reason I I go to the effort to make these galleries at Burning Man to introduce all these people to art and their subconsciouses are very open and vulnerable and Is that I feel that the there's something really valuable about the mirror that a painting can be and And you know, I think one of the reasons that you know ebb and made this He was talking about how he gets more out of a single image Then he does watching like a whole film with all these images and you know the reason I my theory behind that is because Ebb and brings so much to that image, you know There's so much depth and and richness and there's the ebb and brilliant mind and it's it's ebb and's capacity to understand something that Makes the story come alive Because there's enough there that he can journey into that a film doesn't do that a film just beats you over They had the entire time like beginning, you know, there's a structure and there's a moral or there's this most films but an image it gives someone the ability to in a very non-verbal way to interact with these shapes and archetypes and colors and forms and it's I really find that it's that That a painting can be and the story can be as as developed or as successful as The as the frame and the state of mind and the consciousness that someone brings to the painting when they see it Andrew, could you share a little bit more about me being smart? That was That was awesome But calm down after that So we've got a we've got a treat here These artists are going to we're gonna we're gonna do a little show and tell right? so we're gonna walk through maybe five images from each of them and We're gonna do maybe 20 or 30 seconds each with a few and then Each of them has selected one image that they'd like to you know really tell you the story of that piece, okay? Sean could you maybe knock out the sunlight? Okay, thank you perfect So we already saw this one from Hans Hearts colors. There's a there's a great print of this out in the gallery You might want to go see I can talk about this if you want go Being as it's one of your favorite pieces. It is Yeah, this this piece is Really about just like listening to your heart above anything else and how it can really help let the mind chatter and just fly and and release and The only real colors in this piece are the the tears that are coming from her eyes, which you can see are falling and stopping or basically cutting through this clock pattern that you see kind of revolving around from her face and How just listening to your heart and like those tears can stop all time and space and Yeah, that's It's about the quick and dirty of that this piece is called Genesis It's a piece that can has no right side up. It can be flipped upside down. It can be flipped sideways and it's just speaking to the duality of consciousness and human existence and how they exist at the same time at all times and a lot of my background in architecture helps inform the composition with very heavily based geometry compositions that tell this that helped tell the story and just about the human existence reflecting upon the consciousness or the conscious existence and that never-ending cycle and the whole piece is based off of splitting of two circles in the vesica Pisces and just the beginning of how the beginning of creation Basically and the division between light and dark piercing all third eyes of every face on the piece And how she sees this hummingbird that can see through to the other Level of existence or plane of existence if you will This one is called listen to the rhythm and a lot of again You see that kind of geometries informing the story a lot of my pieces have story a message to them This one has has a circle that continues from her heart and is feeding has basically Turning into the flowers that the hummingbird is then eating from and then coming back through the third eye and this whole cycle and revolution that's happening and Yeah in the background you see the Cross that basically represents the cross of nature and for seasons and Yeah, just listening to the rhythm of nature This piece is called epiphany and it's a commission that I did for Evan and just basically talking about kind of finding your purpose in life and Yeah, just following that This piece is called stepping into the light and it's a another piece based off of escapizes flipped upside down and Basically the point of that starting at the heart center coming up through the third eye of each woman and then back to a moon and The moon is basically in center with a flower called Princess of the night It's a cactus flower that only blooms on a full moon and the story of In just a day and night dream and awake states and what's the difference between your dreams and your awake state? And your perception becomes your reality and as this hummingbird with a heart in the center being the messenger between the dream and the awake state Do you want me to talk talk about this one? Yeah, okay, so I'll go into a little more detail with this piece This piece is called Cielo Cielo sky sky and it was Inspired actually by a medicine ceremony that I had with ayahuasca and it's a particular vine or that Lineage of ayahuasca I should say or a variety that Grows along the jungle floor in the deepest darkest parts of the jungle and basically finds its way to a tree where it will wind itself up the tree and and Up the branches and out the top of the canopy up to the sky And so it goes from the darkest part of the jungle into basically the most bright sunlight and so you see the division the strong division in this beast between light and dark and So much growth happens in that darkness and you know in your heart and in your life and a lot of my pieces kind of reflect on this Dark and light duality and and you know how one wouldn't exist without the other and how you learn so much from the darkness and so in this piece she has this lion that's pumping out of her heart and it's just this kind of release of everything that the darkness is you know taught her and that Just the juxtaposition of the hummingbird that's coming out and between the strength of a lion and agility of a hummingbird And if you draw a line from the heart through the third eye of the Lion and through the hummingbird into the Sun. There's a direct line and path there that it's just this fearlessness and Also hiding geometries within here using you know Fibonacci numbers and golden mean ratio just as a hidden piece in it to organize the composition of the piece and You kind of see that starting from her hair coming out and Up through the bottom like underneath the lion's mouth and then back through the hummingbird and to the third eye of the lion and it just helps organize the the subjects of the piece for me and I think Creates a really nice harmony in the composition when people look at it and a lot of the times I use that just to subconsciously create compositions that are pleasing to the eye and You know Da Vinci a lot of people did this isn't anything new. It's just something that I find inspiring and Yeah pieces that the pieces that I do I really try and just evoke a sense of remembrance of our strength and our relationship to nature and earth and Really just trying to have this remembrance and this like Remembrance of uprising and union between each other and the masses and and the strength within the feminine That's rising right now so heavily and a lot of the women that I that I portray have this kind of Look of this drifty look if any of you ever do yoga. It's this Centering effect that is just this concentration and the strength and quietness that I think everybody holds within them And I really try and find photography and inspiration that really captures this mood and the strength and this energy and this A lot of pieces have this connection to heart heart-centered pieces where I feel like we all really need to Listen to our hearts to find that strength And I think that's about it for this this piece Yeah, if you get a chance go out to the Art container because there's a great print of this piece right by the door And when you can really see what the the print looks like you get a I don't know a sense of the luminosity and the radiance of it It's really really beautiful. I guess last thing I'll say about this piece You'll see a lot of patterns in my pieces with stripes and striations and and it just to me represents When you look at like sedimentary layers of rocks over time and life experiences and how you can tell the history of what happened during that time and To me that's what Lifelines in a tree when you cut it open like that's what these straight patterns that you'll see repeated through a lot of my pieces represent All right. Thanks Hans Zipporah. Oh, you know what I forgot. I just snuck this one in there We just took this literally an hour ago or something if you go up to the house known as red door, which is just down this Right that way The other that way. Yeah, go out to the road and go down the road that way Two driveways on the left. You'll see that on the garage door of the house. Hans is just finishing it up. Oh yeah on the art studio at the house, right and Yeah, just go see it. It's really great. It's really special PC just painted it over this last week So let's talk about some of your you're right so this was taken at the temple at I believe a burning man 2014 and Burning man presents a tricky challenge for me because I actually photograph as part of their official dock team and especially representing the the event I have I'm supposed to ask permission and what I was just explaining before as it was very difficult because I It's this tricky thing to interrupt And when there's a moment that invites me to honor it I've had to find a really graceful way of of feeling into that permission and I did manage to catch his eye and He he gave me the nod that it was okay, and then he just let me he really just he didn't shift anything And she wasn't aware, but he'd given me permission. So I'm really I'm in love with both the children and the elders. They are the bookends There I want to bring them more in so this is my honoring This is a good little triptych I just threw together that shows gives you kind of a good sense of the the sort of moments that draw my attention The one on the far left was a moment at InVision Festival I can't remember which year and also the one on the far right I think both of those were moments during a random rap sunrise sets, which have come to be random rabbis a Producer music producer makes really beautiful music that his sets are sort of these like church for this culture And I they are very rich with these sorts of moments for me and the one in the middle is that a festival called Beloved in Oregon and I think it's definitely one of my favorite photos that I've Created thus far in my career so this Image is really touches me There's so much in this one I and I will avoid going too deep into it, but the little girl in this image This was at Burning Man this year or just last year 2015 and it was Sunday At the temple again, and I had photographed this little girl at Burning Man 2014 And she has quite a fascinating story. She's got several parents and they've really socialized her in an incredible way You see she's got like pink and blue hair She's just a little she touches people you can see people are almost brought to tears when they encounter this little girl And she has quite a presence So it's a beautiful moment. These people had just met her and This is a little girl that I had a very playful momentary connection with in a place called Gokarna in India and She really really wanted to engage with with me and the camera and that extension of me and This image is one of my favorite also just for that her luminous eyes They tell me so much, but also this playful little purse lips There's so much I feel like she's she's telling me so much and I was so curious about Who she is and and who she will grow to be? So I chose to end on this one. This is also at the temple Burning Man 2014 and This again, I'm going to go back to the this notion of being invited and for me part of honing my craft is to really develop a Sensitivity to those invitations and to those moments that are inviting me again for me it's really about trying to remove myself from the equation as much as I can and As the last image might have indicated I spent a fair amount of time in India I actually spending almost 20 all of 2010 there and in India the locals are so overly sensitized to cameras that that it it forced me to really go into this place of of discernment and to be really clear in my the energy that I'm bringing to those moments With the cameras as an extension of myself and I've I've shifted my terminology, which some of you I've I've been Gently trying to convey and like offer a shift in the terminology the way we we talk about photography We've been given words to describe it Take capture and they they hold a certain energy that for me I don't feel fits what I'm doing now and a lot of that came from that year in India So there are moments like this that I feel such a strong invitation to honor I prefer the word honor. I honor moments rather than capture them and Again this this not supposed to take a photo unless I ask was it's very it was a very difficult moment and I I really checked in and Something just told me it was okay. I really didn't want to interrupt this man was having such a beautiful moment I don't know what his story was. I don't know what it was about But something there asked me really to show up with my camera. So I I took two photos and This is this is one of them and I just quietly put my card in his hat and moved on my way and hoped that all would be well and He called me About a week after Burning Man after I returned home from Burning Man and he was giddy and just so grateful he said he'd found the card in his hat and He'd gone to my website and produced my work and I've got a fairly extensive body of work and he said I really hope that finding your card meant that you photographed me Because if there was one moment in that entire burn that I would have wanted a record of it was that moment and It was such a beautiful Beautiful reflection back to me that I really am here for something that is not about me and to go beyond those structures that it that I've been asked to work Within that are from some paradigm that that that my craft doesn't fit within Just confirmation that I'm as long as I honor that Then I will be doing just that I will be honoring moments Rather than capturing and taking them for me Thank you Michael let's talk about a few your images here Yeah, it's interesting giving sound bites to things, you know that are like months at a time and as Andrew pointed out they're like boxing matches and safaris and Meditations all together so This is called birth of a star and You know sometimes an idea could just kind of comes to me and Drive was driving through New Mexico. I think and was reflecting on a experience from a vipassana meditation where at the end it was just all this sort of flickering blue flames all around me that were just so warm and I was like wonder would that be like to paint that and explore that idea Because it's sort of just giving space usually to those kind of things and and that's what I mean Limits I painted I think I was 24 And it was like 2001 anyway limits, you know when you're like 24, it's limitless. There's no limits to anything so there's often a pushing of edges and stuff and that feeling between the sort of base emptiness Nothing that we could imagine and that farthest edge in ourselves where we sort of Dissolve until the the edge we come back to that's the the I am part or the part that says I get it and You know, that's where that's our limit. That's our furthest edge I think until we dissolve again and we come back and I get it again, you know and so on See, I'm sorry. This is a painting. I just painted this past summer And it was interesting because my my wife just finished her PhD this past fall and she was working on dissertation through the summer I don't know if you've either written a dissertation or been with someone writing a dissertation And it's like you don't want to be anywhere near that It's kind of like Frodo in the ring, you know my Frodo and he's like going up the mountain It's like you're watching just watching this and it's like And I was like, you know sitting and it's hot It's like boiling the Southern California summer. I was like, this is there. This is the wheel life and death and it's just Goes on and anyway, that's samsara, you know, that's samsara The glass onion I had I had wanted to paint a painting that was Just a sort of Cathedral mental space and the just worlds passing through and as I was working on and getting through these layers of it and Imagining these layers and getting through I ran across an interview of John Lennon and Rolling Stone It was like, you know his last interviews or something and the the interviewer was asking about where his work comes from and You know what inspires it and he was like, well I'm I'm always trying to dig through all of the the reasons to make something, you know, like like whether it's for fame or They're self-aggrandized men or you know, just all the reasons to do stuff and and the interviewer is like Oh like looking through the glass onion and I thought, oh, yeah, the glass onion has a good title It was just, you know, no onion and like that's it. So this painting was commissioned by I've been and any over here and Last year a little while back and you know, we're my wife and I were we're going through some Difficult times and they were like we want a painting of true love and I was like I can do that But you know love was like It wasn't last night. It was a little bit ago. Anyway Love to really paint that is like you can't fake it So when it really came to like that November Really sitting down with it on my easel and it's like this giant blank canvas, and I'm like, right? So you think sort of the think Russian six feet tall. Yeah So it's two meters tall and it's kind of daunting at that point and I'm like I'm gonna make this top where it's these two jewels communicating and We were not two jewels communicating so I actually put it through a progression of a slide so that we could look at the different parts because a lot of my paintings They have like these different parts and and this is one of the more sort of linear almost, you know So there was like two people and you meet and you're in the space and it's sort of like crystal And it's it's great. It's really sparks are flying, you know But it's pretty tight space still and then you come out of that and in the next one There was a sort of this growth thing that happens. We're either like kind of Faces on the side the this kind of Tension that develops as we get to know people and and these powers I think go through our lives quite often in life and in intimate relationships where it's like it pushes apart We have to find like the the place where we come together again. We keep growing and in the next one There's this like flower sort of space developing and this new sort of beings in there this sort of like Where we meet each other again We meet as equals, you know There's not like a higher or lower and there's not the tension between people and you know the the going through this while working on my own relationship was a Was is that story is that story? We were talking about about process, you know, and I mean truth be told Right here in this painting. I'm not gonna know if truth be told. It's another story for another time and Then towards the top, you know, there's these two great jewels Kind of just communicating like light comes in and you know, we pretty much are taking all this light And we're separating into this spectrum and experiencing things and we're speaking it back out And there's a cycle that can happen between people, you know we're really communicating and In those moments when we're really like truly in love with someone and we're there and we're in that dance It's just those like two massive jewels in space and you're not colliding but you're just like passing by and sharing and That was that that experience and it was called the crucible because you know love is just like crucible within which with in which Something new comes out of it. Something new is formed, you know, we can melt everything down and keep growing and building in that Thanks, Michael. Yeah, this is the the rainbow Yisha image When I made this I remember I kind of started working on this It was right when the the Fukushima earthquakes had happened It was this really interesting time where I just finished this piece and I was I was actually in Sydney at the time and I as I did this piece I did a time lapse and I was working with this studio called the obscura and they wanted a They wanted a piece of art because we were actually in I think we were in Australia and the Fukushima earthquake It just happened and they wanted a Like kind of like a response to that in a way like some type of like visual Gesture and we're doing this project We're projecting onto the Sydney opera house And I happen to have this painting in a time-lapse version of it that really fit well in the ratio of the Architecture of the opera house and so we ended up going with this image and showing this like live Projection of it being created and then it became this real focal point. So up to this point This is probably the image that was seen by the most amount of people this one is called love as a riot and I have a like a certain category of thanks guys pieces that are pseudo Political they're almost more just reactionaries. I I love watching history unfold I think where it's such an unbelievably amazing time to be alive and to witness all of these like social upheavals and changes in society and this was when the the riots were going on in Turkey and I Sometimes when these things are happening I get like really glued to these like live feeds and I such to start Watching like the movement of people and a lot of times when you have these like these drone shots or these overhead shots You almost start seeing kind of like the fractal Nature and the patterns and the micro the macro and the micro of all these like this momentum of all these people moving and As I saw there's With with this particular kind of like historical aspect There was a lot of red that was used with that was like the unifying color of all the rioters and all the police had these like Police in Turkey had these really white helmets and there was a really stark contrast between them And I just was just really obsessed with all these overhead shots of these two groups like clashing in this friction point in the middle which they were meeting and I guess the idea about this piece it was from kind of a I don't know like an integral Ken Wilber like Beyond the where light bifurcates into into dark in light there's this or even even though this is an interaction of like violence and and Frustration and anger and Terony and lack of freedom. There's these these humans are coming together They're still within like behind the veil of every all of our interactions This is the need for love and more love and a lot of times when we're acting out It's because we're just not able to communicate our love or not get enough love and even when you see these two Forces rioting there's really an element of it's just groups of human beings trying to love each other And this somehow this is the most technological way they can figure out at the time that fulfills all those things within the social political context So and love is crazy and love is a riot. So name of this piece this piece was called this is called cosmic kiss and Trying to think what there was I think this is when I had first I had I had just met my my first wife Phaedra at the time and I was trying to encapsulate that moment when two people meet and they fall in love and Within it's kind of a I wanted to encapsulate that that Quantum occurrence when two really two people that are that have some type of a fate intertwined meet for the first time and kiss for the first time and within that nexus point as They're exchanging electricity and energy and saliva just like the quantum Explosion of possibilities that happens in both of their imaginations and resets this whole template That's going to change the rest of both of their Destinies and that's what this piece was about. I just got a show because sometimes you can't see it especially small like this Imagine okay, so forehead nose mouth. That's a head shoulder arm hand around that's the man and Then here's the woman here. This is her head and this is her arm and her shoulder and her back You seeing it That'll help it make sense I don't know. I also have a we talked about this subjective nature and people bring their own experience to it but I have a I sell editions of Shameless plug and these pieces off my website and had a guy that bought like a massive like maybe like an eight or ten foot version of this and Well, then another guy actually with that also has amazing taste bought this piece and We have an eight or ten footer of that in our living room Yeah, almost no, but but he calls this this is like his sit this he calls it like that He loves this piece so much like he loves the the Japanese Japanese samurai on the horse And I have no idea what So, yeah, it's total choose your own adventure on that one This piece are noticing a theme with all the I do do paintings of things that are not two people Effigy's making out believe it or not But they are really successful. So they do they do keep the lights on on the farm This piece is called in brace and this was made at Burning Man in 2014 I think that's when this happened and it was a Friday morning and I hadn't I was really proud of myself I'd made this Burning Man is really cool because you can make these things called art cars which you sacrifice a fully functional vehicle and You destroy like all other purpose other than it having some sort of like flashy signaling or spitting fire or Doing in my case this I made this dude It's a dune buggy that had a projector on it But it had a little Honda generator and the goal was that I could make art wherever I wanted to instead of Shlepping my stuff all around the ply that I'd done for a decade. So I had this really cool art car and There's this huge effigy called in brace and these are two figures that are If I said 50 feet high would that be exaggerating anybody? It was there sounds pretty close like 75 feet tall like huge Huge these huge wooden effigies of these two figures and this Friday morning was the morning that they were going to burn it Which is really rare to most of the burns happen at night. So this is just a really unique time and place and it was gonna happen at sunrise at around six and I Stayed up all night and I got out there with my car and I was there Which is one of my friends and like a lot of things in Burning Man It was just delayed and it wasn't on time and I was kind of there and I had a really good spot But I didn't want to leave and I didn't you know, I was kind of bored and I was like Oh, I've totally got my computer in my wake home I should just totally make a painting of this thing right now And so I just started making a painting because the the environment was so charged You had maybe eight or nine thousand people all this this this this Kind of this this anxiety and excitement that was just building everyone was just waiting to see this this Beautiful piece of art that was the end result of just thousands of people's hours of life and time and tons of trees and timber Waiting for this moment for it when it started when they were gonna set this on fire and they finally did and it was it was just a very It was very exhilarating everyone there knew that they were seeing something that was very special that would never Happen again, and it was such a catharsis to watch these two figures like these two this this figure this couple Burn in front of you was so surreal. And so yeah, this painting was kind of my little Just a way of capturing the this this really I felt this really valuable Potent moment and a way that I could capture it that you know, isn't a camera or wasn't a video It wasn't just a story and so that's why I painted this one and the piece was called Embrace and this is this one is called Union and This is I Tell my girlfriend. I'm really glad I'm not like a musician because if I was this would be my free bird And I'd have to like sing this painting over and over and over for like for the rest of my life So stoked that I chose the art path because I just hit a button and I just print it out but this is definitely like the free bird of all my Images and it was a commissioned as a wedding piece between this to this beautiful couple on the left Which is Brian Franklin and Jennifer Russell and I had not known them But they had known of my art and when they were getting married they invited They know they didn't invite me they commissioned me and they paid me money to go to their wedding and Make a painting of them and I'd never really done that done portraits before I've never really isn't the first couple painting that I had done before and I Was a little suspicious at first But I got I started talking to them more and all of their that all of their friends like send me these huge like Several paragraph like descriptions of who Brian and Jennifer are and what they represent and they were like really into their story their particular story and we had like phone conferences and I was on this one phone conference Where they were it was our first time meeting on the phone and they were Just probably went off for like an hour about what this means and what their relationship was and it was at a time when I was really Exhausted and I like I fell asleep during like the whole phone conference and like Fajor I like just kind of kept the conversation going and like woke me up afterwards And so I had no idea what they told me to do whatsoever But I went to their their Their ceremony and it was it was so beautiful. It was the most beautiful public love Ritual I had ever seen before and Annie and Evan were actually part of it They were characters in this this this this huge bit of public Signaling and commitment and I was just so touched that I really I don't think I'd ever seen two people That made such a powerful commitment to their entire tribe in Front of everyone in this public way and it really made me realize this is this is what marriage is about You know, it's not just this formality. It's not just this thing that we do automatically like it was Yeah, it was really moving and I wanted to try to convey that and I think that one of the reasons images really successful Is that their love was so? so authentic and and so Continuine and this is just one of those pieces that just it just hits this strange sort of like archetypal Balance like I know it's just like colors and shapes and things But the amount of people that are able to that I've met that are able to see themselves in this painting It's really remarkable. I mean I have people that accuse me of Going on to their Facebook and copying photos of them They think it's they think it looks so much like them that they're that convinced And but yeah, I love this piece because it makes a lot of love, you know people that have this and they put it on their wall and it becomes this This is this little alchemical magical two-dimensional Rectangle that when they see it it evokes a higher ideal of how they can show up in their relationship or with their partner and Yeah, just it's just there's there's a marginally Maybe even measurable Larger amount of love in the world because this piece exists then before this piece existed and so that's pretty cool