Interviewer: Okay, okay, good. Back in action. That's where I looked at. I didn't see the red one like, "It's my nightmare. Am I closed? Do you have it here?"

Jay WIlson: Yeah, perfect.

Interviewer: Here's this. Oops, sorry.

Jay WIlson: Perfect.

Interviewer: So if I can teleport you back where we were. You found cardboard scraps, you found paint. We talked about your dad kept stuff from high school. I'm just you getting you back in and me back in. Then you said something happened kind of magical. You knew at that point, there was something there.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. Anyway, I painted lots of stuff. But at the same time, it was still kind of a private thing in that I didn't ... It was just something I did.

Interviewer: Did your dad see it? Did you do it in his shop? I don't mean to come back to your picture.

Jay WIlson: No, not at all. So I would do it in my room. I have my own room in Wisconsin, which was awesome. It was just something I did. I did it for me. It wasn't really something that ... It was just something I did. Then I guess-

Interviewer: Which is exactly what you said about your dad.

Jay WIlson: Right, right, yeah. Then so I guess-

Interviewer: So you said fifth through sixth grade.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, fifth through sixth grade.

Interviewer: Did siblings see it, were you an only? Did siblings see it? Did parents see it then nobody just talked about it or you just kept it? Tell me a little bit about the dynamic there.

Jay WIlson: Okay. Well, as with any kid, you do something, you show mom.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Jay WIlson: So I'm sure that that's what I did. My mom has always been very encouraging and, "Oh, that's nice," and all of that, which I think is important because I think it's something I've thought. Whether it's accurate or not, is at least an idea that I have, is that I think there have probably been, there have been more than one Picasso. There have been more than one Da Vinci that's lived, but unless the right combination of things happened and talents are recognized, a child doesn't necessarily know how to place a value on a talent. So I'm sure that my mom's encouragement and all of that helped me out and sort I kept kind of pushing and pushing. So anyway, tons of bird paintings of bird heads, and all kinds of stuff flowed.

Interviewer: What you saw, like where? You said mountains at first and like because you're in Wisconsin and that's what you saw or just like-

Jay WIlson: No, the mountains were probably just out of my imagination. If you look at the mountains there, just ridiculously shaped and all of that stuff.

Interviewer: Lots of triangles.

Jay WIlson: So very imaginative mountains. Birds, really magazines, things like that, photo reference, which I still use today or rely on today. So photo reference was kind of where I would go. National Geographic, awesome looking bird. I'm going to paint it.

Interviewer: So let's stop there because I think that's interesting. Photorealism, you can't get more tangibly representative than a photograph.

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: As far as like just that this is this, this is this, a one-to-one ratio of this is a bird and this is what it looks like. So you see that. Then you say, "I'm going to paint that." Was there a deficiency you saw or you just wanted to recreate it with paint or was is it that you would take something that's already a realist representation on a paint?

Jay WIlson: I think it is something that still kind of grinds me today is I want to see if I can reproduce that in a technically, in a really convincing compelling way, kind of I don't know if it's a competitive thing of wanting to see how good I can reproduce that. But I think that is what was a driver even back then of just still wanting to see if I can develop my skills enough to where that's a really awesome bird you just painted. You know what I mean?

Interviewer: Right, yeah.

Jay WIlson: So back then, it was really up through high school, it was about replicating like the, "Hey, well, how about a bird pouring out of a teapot," or something like that. That really wasn't what I was doing back then. I was just competitively drew them I thin too.

Interviewer: See paint, see paint? Yep, yep.

Jay WIlson: To me, that was the part of my limited knowledge of artist and art and all of that stuff, I knew that when I saw an artist, like Salvador Dali.

Interviewer: Oh wow, yeah.

Jay WIlson: Technically sure, absolutely amazing, imaginative and all of that. But technically, I was always blown away at his paintings of just this guy can paint.

Interviewer: It's interesting that that's what you saw. You looked past the obvious blending of reality to the reality.

Jay WIlson: Right.

Interviewer: I think that's interesting.

Jay WIlson: So that Salvador Dali was an artist, probably the first fine artist that I was really really drawn to. A lot of it was just because this guy could just paint unbelievable elements within his paintings. He was technically so good.

Interviewer: How did you come across Dali?

Jay WIlson: I think Dali is kind of ubiquitous.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: It's comes out of a town.

Interviewer: Sugar salt Dali.

Jay WIlson: When you're growing up and you're going to come across Salvador Dali somewhere, in school.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: Posterings in friend's house or something like that.

Interviewer: So you're saying ... So that happened, so this kind of inner epiphany or magic or just something happened around fifth or sixth. Mom was encouraging which was great. Did you continue to a standing in your studio today or were there fits and starts? So take me now from Jay that found cardboard and paint to ...

Jay WIlson: So I've always been doing something. There has never been a, like a true gap. When I say I didn't paint for four years, well, I built some kick ass soap box derby cars.

Interviewer: I've competed against those.

Jay WIlson: And the masks of like of the Halloween masks and stuff out of papier-mâché and stuff like that. So like-

Interviewer: Who are you? Those are just-

Jay WIlson: There was always something that I was doing, but I just wasn't painting. So this is something I would do with my boys, as far as create the masses and that sort of thing.

Interviewer: So I see what you're saying. If I'm being literal, it's that you might not have painted for four years, but you were still serving the self by some sort of expression.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, yeah. But in doing those things and working in the soap box derby cars, those were, felt more family-oriented and that sort of thing as opposed to coming back here, family's in there, and being separate.

Interviewer: But it allowed you to have a little bit of that release.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, yeah. It's probably, I want to be careful about the terminology here but it's obsession. It's there.

Interviewer: Yeah, a compulsion of-

Jay WIlson: Whether in the compulsion and all of that. It's there whether I'm painting or not. It's going to come out in some way of just that I can't help but get completely hyperfocused and locked in on something. That's kind of creative and I'm going to apply it somewhere.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: Painting is where I really where I should be applying it.

Interviewer: Okay. So that's an interesting sentence, where I should be. How did you get to that sentence, "Where I should," like that's-

Jay WIlson: Should in that in high school, I started having a goal. It's hard to say goal because a goal is something you set out and strive for, and think that there's a chance you could accomplish it. I pause on that word because maybe it's because of my upbringing and a very practical family, and that sort of thing. But being an artist, that was a ridiculous call. I mean, come on.

Interviewer: Right, right. Why would you do that?

Jay WIlson: It's not very responsible that I'm thinking of it-

Interviewer: Or practical or ... Right.

Jay WIlson: Exactly. I mean, being able to make a living and not have to rely on others in that sort of thing is I think a very important theme growing up in my family, and I think a lot of families. Being an artist, talk about a gamble.

Interviewer: Right. It's frivolous, it's selfish. It seems all those.

Jay WIlson: Yes, self-indulgent and that sort of thing. Anyway, it was still a goal as disconnected as it felt, as it seemed, it was still a goal.

Interviewer: Was it a goal for self or was it your life goal? Did you say, "I'm going to do all this other stuff as well. But I'm going to be an artist," or did you think? You know what I mean? I'm trying to ...

Jay WIlson: Gosh. That's funny. It was sort of murky and undefined. At one point, I wanted to be an Air Force pilot in high school. Aside from being an artist, a painter, being an Air Force pilot was probably the other goal that I had. That was aspirational in that I really probably didn't have the qualifications in terms of like math and things like that. But it was an aspirational goal. It was something that I've thought I would really like to do this as a profession or career.

Interviewer: An artist was profession, career thought or just the thing you wanted to be?

Jay WIlson: It was just this thing I wanted to be. It was probably like a lot of goals unfortunately that people have where they have it but they never actually put any gravity into it. To where, "Okay, well, how am I actually going to achieve this?" It just sort of hung there because I couldn't make a connect. Just there wasn't a natural connection of how I grew up and doing this. I didn't know what an artist was to be honest.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: What's an artist? Other than somebody who sits down, probably does a lot of drugs and paints what's on the top of their mind.

Interviewer: Right. This frivolous, self-indulgent, not disciplined.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. Just only works when they're inspired and that sort of thing. Well, that's bullshit.

Interviewer: So you're in high school now.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. The crossroads is when I graduated. Oh my god. I've got to tell you a very important part.

Interviewer: Yes, please.

Jay WIlson: So within Wisconsin, finished my sophomore year in high school in Wisconsin. Again, painting like a phene, loved art class, did life-sized paintings of like Michael Jordan and stuff.

Interviewer: At this point, family was supporting art habit because that takes brushes, paints, canvasses?

Jay WIlson: Well, uh-

Interviewer: Or how did that?

Jay WIlson: Yeah. So somehow, paints were being supplied.

Interviewer: That's a separate book notion.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, right. Yeah. There was definitely support from that standpoint of supporting a hobby.

Interviewer: Got it, sure.

Jay WIlson: Supporting a hobby.

Interviewer: Sure.

Jay WIlson: It's good to have a hobby, as the saying goes. So I was at an interesting point, my sophomore year where I'm playing varsity football, I'm having a lot of success on the basketball team. I'm a jock. I'm a total jock. But-

Interviewer: Who paints birds.

Jay WIlson: But I love painting Shaq.

Interviewer: Michael Jordan, like yeah. Okay.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, yeah. I think part of the reason why I like doing at art class was where I did the big Michael Jordan thing is because my friends who were jocks, they could get into that. They could totally appreciate a life-sized Michael Jordan painting.

Interviewer: Sure, what teenage boy at that time put mind-

Jay WIlson: Yeah, yeah. It's so-

Interviewer: Now, it's Lebron. But what else?

Jay WIlson: So that kind of feeds into the vanity of an artist in that you want to paint things that people oh and ah over, and that sort of thing. So anyway, I was doing lots of different things to where ... I don't know. I think looking back on it, I did it to sort of stay connected with my jock friends and that sort of thing.

Interviewer: Which is interesting that you used it to connect, to stay relevant when it was your thing that was a stand out thing later.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. Well, so-

Interviewer: The worlds were blurred.

Jay WIlson: Definitely, definitely.

Interviewer: Because you were photo real with painted what you saw, and then it started to bleed over to, "I can just bring this over here," and kind of force fit. I mean, not forced maybe, that's what you wanted to paint at that time. So-

Jay WIlson: I think there's something to do that because I didn't feel comfortable. Again, didn't know what an artist was, and painting in the comfort zone.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Jay WIlson: Painting subject matter that's in the comfort zone, that still allows me to maintain all of my connections.

Interviewer: Right, and it didn't put anybody off.

Jay WIlson: Exactly. Yeah.

Interviewer: Family or friends are going to say, "Oh yeah, he's this and he's painting. This all makes sense."

Jay WIlson: That's right.

Interviewer: Nice hobby.

Jay WIlson: So a lot of it was staying safe.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: A lot of it was staying safe. Then really everything changed when I moved to Korea.

Interviewer: So sophomore year.

Jay WIlson: So that summer, at that point, again, it's amazing how young people or just me, can like how oblivious you can be to realities of okay, my dad's in the army. We've moved every three years growing up. We had been in Wisconsin for five because he had gotten an extension. He had extended his tour. But I knew we were going to move again. But somehow in my mind, this is where I'm living. I'm just going to continue. Sports were going so great.

Interviewer: You had a life.

Jay WIlson: I had a life. Anyway, boom. At the end of sophomore year, "Jay, Dad's been transferred to Korea." What?

Interviewer: So that's another state, that's another, that's a-

Jay WIlson: Yeah. It absolutely rocked my world, the idea of moving, of moving again because all my friends are here. Why would I move? Anyway.

Interviewer: Well, at that age, it's much more important.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. I mean, sure.

Interviewer: When you're in third or fourth grade, it's like, okay.

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: Friends are kind of the same, this is different.

Jay WIlson: It was gut, it was a gut punch, big time. Even though, had I ever thought about it, of course, I'm going to move.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: Because that's what we do. So anyway, Korea was going to be the biggest shit hole in the world. I was going to hate it. An absolute devastating blow to my future and all of that stuff. When I got to Korea, instantly, just putting feet down, you start to realize, okay, well, there's life happens here. It's not just a black hole where I'm floating in space or all up in-

Interviewer: Well, probably because you had no context for Korea.

Jay WIlson: I had no context for Korea.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: Anyway, just to get into it, school starts. Something really interesting is starting to happen here. I had come from probably the typical high school, athletes. There's kind of in the pecking order, the athletes and all of that, or at least from my perspective are kind of up here. Art students aren't lit.

Interviewer: That weird four kids that hang out.

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: Yeah. Right.

Jay WIlson: I don't even know where it plugs in.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: Something weird happened. I'm sitting in art class, in my art class, junior year.

Interviewer: In Korea.

Jay WIlson: In Korea, for probably the first week. I'm like, "Okay, this teacher, Mr. O'Brien, what a jackass." Art is not an activity anymore. It's work in that-

Interviewer: It's taken seriously.

Jay WIlson: Take your papers out. We're going to do, I can't remember his terminology, but like speed drawing. You've got five minutes to draw this composition of glass vase with flowers, and all of that in it that's in the middle of the room. It's like, "Five minutes?" I think it was only like five minutes, yeah. I was like, "How can you draw anything in five minutes?" It pissed me off. I felt kind of, wait a second. I'm artsy. This is ridiculous. Anyway, it kind of-

Interviewer: To date, you had controlled your art. Nobody has been in your space. You were the-

Jay WIlson: That's right, yeah, yeah. Nobody told me how to do it or what to do in that sort of thing. So that was a major sort of whoa. So did the best I could and all of that stuff. Again, the competitive thing goes in because wow, there are some good stuff happening here. Other people are doing really solid drawings in five minutes. Then what happened at the end of the week, and this is huge because I still think it's part of my psychology today, the wall. Top left, at the end of every week, you come into class. There, would probably be a row of ten by five.

Interviewer: Oh wow. That many kids were in the class?

Jay WIlson: Yeah. Well, all the classes.

Interviewer: All the classes, got it. Okay.

Jay WIlson: Wait, ten by five, so that's 50.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. Of all the classes, top left, number one.

Interviewer: Chair one, right, like in the orchestra.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, that's the best drawing of the week. Then it went best to tenth best, and then down, down. In the bottom right was just the 50th best. If you didn't make the wall, you just weren't good enough for the week.

Interviewer: So it's not that 50 was bad, it was just off, these are the top 50.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. It was the 50 of the best.

Interviewer: Got it.

Jay WIlson: An interesting thing happened of just being on the wall and being top row, and closer to the left was a thing.

Interviewer: Because it wasn't your mom encouraging, it was validation from-

Jay WIlson: Oh my gosh. It was up there for everyone to see where are you on the wall this week. It wasn't just the art students. It was like a thing in the school. I had suddenly found myself in this world that had been flipped where the artists were like ... Where you ranked on the wall was like a status thing. The jock was kind, it was still good. It wasn't like it was in Wisconsin. It completely just right out front.

Interviewer: So you were upside down. You were on your ... Yeah, wow, yeah.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, yeah. So-

Interviewer: Seemingly overnight too.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. Just about literally.

Interviewer: Social structure, name, spaces, everything. Whoop.

Jay WIlson: Anyway, it was something that again, competitive and wanting to ... I wanted to be on the top left of the wall but there's these jackasses like James Way and Jennifer Gordon Air.

Interviewer: James Way was in Korea.

Jay WIlson: Oh no. James Way but a different James Way.

Interviewer: Okay. Sorry.

Jay WIlson: That's right.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: But there were these guys and girls that they owned the top row.

Interviewer: Top left, yeah, oh right, right.

Jay WIlson: Anyway, it just became a thing of, "You know what, I am going to inhabit the top row." So I embraced Mr. O'Brien and his things. I'm just like, "I am going to establish myself as a top row artist."

Interviewer: Then you couldn't really argue with doing that because back to your whole practical, had to be in this school, that was successful. That is what you did, right? So art class was legitimized.

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: As something that was important and prestigious. Therefore, practical to the point of it served the purpose of you being in school was top left. Right?

Jay WIlson: It really did. Yeah. Maybe it's unflattering in a way to where basically I, or maybe it's just human nature. But that was sort of a thing. I wanted to be in that thing. So I sort of gave up the initial resistance that I had to Mr. O'Brien and just the push and the insistence, and having no problem telling you, "That is not good." But ugh, it was really an incredible experience in time to finally embrace and start to kind of establish myself and become a top row.

Interviewer: Become an artist.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. Yeah. Then eventually start to hit the top left.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: It's like that was oh my gosh, of just like oh my gosh, Jay, did you see where you are today? I haven't been in the class yet. Where I walk in and oh my gosh. I mean, just the feeling of like being up there because Mr. O'Brien did not hold punches. For what it's worth, I'm still close with Mr. O'Brien.

Interviewer: You mentioned him when we talked before.

Jay WIlson: Oh yeah.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Jay WIlson: He lives in Hawaii. We've always stayed connected, distantly connected. Not like this week.

Interviewer: Just connected, yeah, yeah.

Jay WIlson: Every six months, we connect and email, that sort of thing.

Interviewer: I mean, that all makes sense though because you have this practical dad doing something, the response to all that, and you were following that track, and you were keeping this with you. But you weren't hardwired to be competitive. Right? That is in the sports and all that.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, it was just there.

Interviewer: But this, this was here. Mom was encouraging. And then that got flipped. So you still had that competitive hard wiring.

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: Right? But then it validated this thing that you wanted to be. It started to define it to where it was accepted broadly versus this thing you did.

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: So that's kind of interesting how it gave you the form to like, "Okay." And watching you, you got so animated where like, and this is this thing. What did you say? You said I could finally ... You used the word, "Finally". I was like so that tells me that it had been slow bubbling.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. Yeah.

Interviewer: And finally. So you had it seemed by using that word, kept a little bit of a lid and were constrained a little bit in doing the sports thing.

Jay WIlson: Right, right.

Interviewer: Right? There's that word. I was like, "Aha."

Jay WIlson: It was safe. I went from safe to where finally, it was this artist environment that I was in. You were pushed to do something interesting and that sort of thing. It was cool. So that's when I got more interested in okay, let's go. Because Mr. O was not about, "Let's see how well you can draw that bird." It was, "How well you can draw that still life in the middle of the room?" Again, lots of times, it was glass vases and just objects, and floral and things like that. But draw it without ever looking down on your paper. Draw it in one-minute studies, five-minute studies, that sort of thing. To where you're really pushing up against your comfort zone of, "I'm not able." Whereas before in Wisconsin, I loved being able to retreat and get my piece of paper and pencils, and draw, and take whenever.

Interviewer: All the time in the world, yeah.

Jay WIlson: And that sort of thing. But this was like really pushing you, constantly pushing your comfort zone. There was that judgment of good or bad, and just of ... I don't know. It was just amazing things happened when pressure gets applied sometimes, yeah.

Interviewer: You weren't used to that exposure either. You were used to maybe, used to work to more passive encouragement. "That's cool, man."

Jay WIlson: Exactly, yeah, yeah.

Interviewer: Or that's good, honey. But not like, "I'm going to get up all in your shit and tell you this is good or bad."

Jay WIlson: Yeah, this is being pushed. So anyway, again, I started to play around and experiment with surrealism and that sort of thing. Then the amazing, the ultimate break, what I think is it really kind of gave me the confidence moving forward past high school to continue to paint, and put the time in to art was the fact that my senior year, the way school credits worked in Wisconsin, it was like I guess very accelerated to where the credits that transferred over to when I was in the militaries, the Department of Defense School in Korea, my senior year needed one class.

Interviewer: Oh wow.

Jay WIlson: To graduate. Of my seven periods, I had six with Mr. O.

Interviewer: That's fortuitous. I mean like-

Jay WIlson: Yeah, it really was amazing. He pushed me hard. But then like one of the periods, he decided that he had a off period. We'd run errands together. Photography is his thing.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: He was a prolific photographer. So I'd go with him to develop film. We would just run errands together and stuff. But I kind of became his guy.

Interviewer: Right. Well, yeah, after that, that's ... Now, did you choose to take? So if there were six or seven classes. You chose to take all six. Could you have taken other things?

Jay WIlson: I could have, but I just wanted-

Interviewer: I love it. I wanted to make that point.

Jay WIlson: But would I do anything else? So yes.

Interviewer: Did you say, "Why would I do anything else?"

Jay WIlson: Yeah. Why on earth would I have chosen anything else?

Interviewer: Did any eyebrows raise, school, friends, parents that you took six classes of-

Jay WIlson: Just pure envy from again, because the art class just had this-

Interviewer: Cache.

Jay WIlson: Cache to it of six of my seven periods were in the art room. So anyway, senior year was absolutely unbelievable in terms of I was just getting my hands in everything. Batik, you know, I love.

Interviewer: Oh yeah.

Jay WIlson: Ink drawing, photography. Gosh.

Interviewer: Tactile, clay, anything like that, wood?

Jay WIlson: No, not so much clay or wood. Collage, and that's all that comes to mind right now at least.

Interviewer: Yeah, it's fine.

Jay WIlson: Oh starting watercolor. Starting working with paints and that sort of thing, pointillism. Anyway, it was just like being completely thrown in and it was an amazing year. Then I do have to say this, Mr. O, I said this in an interview a long time ago. Mr. O found it online and razzed me about it, but it's very important because I was also starting to think about college football. Three coaches had called me, division two coaches, phone would ring like 2, 3, 4 in the morning. Of course, it's daytime.

Interviewer: Because of the time change, yeah, yeah.

Jay WIlson: Here. Hey, this is Coach something something from UW Whitewater in Wisconsin. We've seen your tapes, and blah, blah, blah. So anyway, I was starting to think, okay, well, man, college football. That would be pretty awesome. Then again, I have to say this because it was a very important kind of Yoda moment. So it was one day. I'm in whatever period in art class. I think it was when one of the periods where he didn't have an art class. So it was just he and I in the room. I was working on a project or something. Then he just kind of walked up behind me. It was toward the end of the year. I think he knew that there was some college football talk. He just kind of walked up behind me. He was like, "Don't you ever turn your fucking back on your art." Then I still get a little kind of emotional. Then he just kind of walked away.

Interviewer: Wow.

Jay WIlson: Then it just was an electric shock through me of-

Interviewer: You indigested that.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, yeah.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Jay WIlson: Took the full-

Interviewer: Force.

Jay WIlson: 220 volts of just the intent and the meaning, and what that could mean in the future. It was really that moment that kind of cemented art as I'm not going to go back to this being a hobby or just something I pick up on a whim or just when I feel like it or that sort of thing. So really, that to me, was the die being cast, internally in my mind of-

Interviewer: That's a huge galvanization of like, "Would it already had been forming," it was the fulcrum level that had built it so far.

Jay WIlson: Absolutely, absolutely.

Interviewer: Right? Of like ...

Jay WIlson: So truly a defining moment. So really, so then moving on past that, I decided not to play college football.

Interviewer: How did that go over at home?

Jay WIlson: It went over just fine.

Interviewer: Okay, right.

Jay WIlson: Right, yeah. Again, sports were encouraged growing up. But there was never an what you see today of ... I mean, there is so much grooming for college soccer, lacrosse, football, all that stuff going on.

Interviewer: It's craziest.

Jay WIlson: It's insane. There was none of that going on. Never had there been any discussion that I can recall with my mom or dad about college sports.

Interviewer: Right, so they were.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, they were ambivalent when the calls came in. Oh okay, that's great.

Interviewer: Left it up to you?

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: Wow.

Jay WIlson: But because none of them were scholarship offers. I mean, I'm playing football in Korea for heaven sakes. The fact that they even heard, got wind, was kind of amazing. So anyway, it finally came down to college. I just knew instinctively, fine art is not an option. My parents are not going to pay. So it was clear to me my parents are going to pay for college, which is awesome. But it was just instinctively understood I am not going to let them sort of have that conversation of I want to be in fine arts because number one, I knew it wasn't going to be supported. How can you make a living?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Jay WIlson: It's a total gamble. I still look at fine art, to be perfectly honest, as a giant gamble for a young person, getting ready to put money down for a college experience. Excuse me. So graphic design seemed like a practical way because there was no doubt in my parents' minds, I'm creative. I've got technical skill when it comes to that sort of thing. So graphic design was something that they would support. So that's the approach into it. So my parents are from Illinois. In the army, even though you travel around a whole lot, your home state is what establishes in-state tuition.

Interviewer: Where is the in-state, okay. Oh yeah, okay, got it.

Jay WIlson: Residence. So in-state tuition at an Illinois school, Southern Illinois had the best graphic design program of all the schools. My mom and dad happened, my dad did four years at Southern Illinois. My mom I think got her bachelor's at Southern. She went on to get her master's and doctorate at different schools. So she had experience at Southern. So it just seemed like a natural-

Interviewer: This all makes sense.

Jay WIlson: Place to go.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: So that was the path that I chose. I wouldn't have changed anything in the world.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: I mean, graphic design has been a great profession. Whether I had chosen accounting or graphic design, the fine art that I've always been drawn to and pulled toward in my mind was something that I can still do it.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: I have made this choice to go with graphic design. That does not mean I'd close the door on fine art. I don't have to ... Again, this is where I'm going to sound probably a little like an ass. But my mentality has been I don't need someone to tell me how to paint or what to paint or that sort of thing. After what I had learned from Mr. O in terms of the discipline and the challenging yourself and kind of being relentless in terms of what to expect of yourself, I felt like I had what I needed from the core sense to apply that to fine art even though I wasn't taking it as a course.

Interviewer: Right, to go be you.

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: To go, yeah.

Jay WIlson: I wouldn't have had that had I not gone to Korea and experienced Mr. O.

Interviewer: Right. Who knows how it would've come out?

Jay WIlson: Because at the beginning, then it was just something, I feel like it. It was just kind of like, I feel like drawing. I'm going to go draw.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: As opposed to this is something I'm pursuing.

Interviewer: So after Korea, you came back to Illinois and started college there?

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: When did you meet Amy or is that later, a lot later?

Jay WIlson: A lot later.

Interviewer: Right, okay.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, yeah. Basically, college was college. I know a lot of people have fantastic experiences and all that. But to me, my old friends are high school friends from Korea that I still stay in touch with and all that. College was college. It was something I did to get my degree, four years. I couldn't wait to be done with it.

Interviewer: Right, it wasn't. Yeah.

Jay WIlson: So-

Interviewer: Did you paint while you were in or draw?

Jay WIlson: Yeah, yeah. So I won't spend much time on this because again, college was college to me. It was just four years of me working hard to get a degree and get out and start doing something.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: Part of that, just as a little dog ear, high school in Korea was such an over the top experience, aside from the art and stuff, there was no drinking age.

Interviewer: Oh gosh.

Jay WIlson: There was freedom that no high school aged kid should really have. It was more, there was more drinking and fun, and all of that in high school than I guess I had had my crazy sort of fun experience.

Interviewer: Right, and you were much, yep.

Jay WIlson: And all of that. I felt like I don't need four more years of this, of trying to see how fun I can make it.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: So anyway, that was one mindset when I went to college. So busted my ass a graphic design student. But when it came to painting on the side, I would go down to the student crafts center. I don't know why, but I would make my canvasses, stretch them from scratch. So I would paint. I realized there was this thing. Again, I'm trying to just sort of knock it off the chest and not try to like package stuff for you. But then this is where I developed a little bit of an issue with fine arts because it was the fine arts students.

Interviewer: So you were among, right.

Jay WIlson: Yes. I learned very quickly, there was like a student art exhibition where you submitted your stuff. So I did a painting, submitted it. It was in the exhibition. But the thing that really sort of hit me was when I was talking with people and people that I realized, oh, these are fine art students. When they discovered that I was a graphic designer, I was put in a different class.

Interviewer: Because you were bastardizing your talent for commercial purposes.

Jay WIlson: I was commercial and blah, blah, blah. That's where a little bit of a chip on my shoulder start to develop. That still I mean to be honest, is there today.

Interviewer: Oh yeah.

Jay WIlson: With the groomed and the educated fine artist and that sort of thing. Where I was chopped liver because I wasn't a fine artist in terms of the student experience.

Interviewer: It's interesting is I think sometimes that purity hurts because it isolates you into this world over here. You need to be in the middle of life to ... Eye out.

Jay WIlson: Well, so that became kind of a chip on my shoulder.

Interviewer: Oh, you know what happens now. I mean, you get it.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. So again, we go back I guess to the recurring theme of okay, well, I am going to create art that is absolutely fucking kickass. Whether you have a degree or not, my shit is going to be just as good as your shit. Again, it all ... Amazing slights or perceived slights, whether they're real or not can be pretty amazing triggers and drivers to make people do awesome things.

Interviewer: Yes. Yes.

Jay WIlson: It can make people do bad things too.

Interviewer: Right, no, but they can ... I mean, yeah.

Jay WIlson: It's on all how you want to steer it.

Interviewer: I mean, look at Eminem as a musical artist. His whole life, his slight is just success now.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, yeah. I attribute a lot of what I'm doing now to the slights that I kind of ran into, of realizing I was a second class citizen as an artist because I didn't have the MFA or I wasn't pursing that. Again, I think as with a lot of slights, some of it is real. Some of it is blown up, imagined and that sort of thing. But it is what it is. Don't get me wrong, I have absolute ... The person that I am now, I have absolute respect for groomed, certain groomed fine artists but not just ... Just because-

Interviewer: Not because they are groomed, that's right.

Jay WIlson: You're groomed, you are.

Interviewer: That's right.

Jay WIlson: I mean, some of my biggest influences are in terms of like Atlanta area influences are like Todd Murphy, James Way. Probably James Way above all, just from his technical abilities have really, as an actual painter, oil paint and brush, and all that stuff, always been just kind in awe of him. Other artists that probably aren't coming to mind right now, so don't get me wrong. They are MFA artists. It took as far as my understanding is, and so it's like I don't have a built-in grudge against them.

Jay WIlson: But I do kind of embrace my chip in that I love that nobody taught me how to paint like this, and that this started with just painting on cardboard with the paints I've found. This is what I do, it's just to me, feels very natural and pure, in terms of just a desire I've always had to paint really interesting compelling, technically good paintings. There is some satisfaction that I did it myself.

Interviewer: Yeah, because you're saying interesting things. The competitiveness is that something that you can self-satisfy. Meaning when you look at something and there's no upper left, can you go, "My bear kicks the ass of whatever this is," and that's good enough or do you need people to validate? You know what I'm saying.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. As far as people, the oh and ah validation, there's no way I can honestly say that's not a part of the equation. At the show, and it was-

Interviewer: Heavy validation night?

Jay WIlson: It was heavy validation. It was heavy validation. So that's absolutely something that my ego just like anybody else's ego is going to soak that stuff up. But when it comes to me sitting here and painting, and that sort of thing, and this maybe something I just need to kind of talk through. I don't know if I can just say it. But what has driven me, especially over the last ten years once I got into the oh and normal space, and all that is I think, I honestly thing every paint, the painting I'm working on is going to be better than any painting I've ever done. It's just ...

Interviewer: So was self part of what you're competing against as well?

Jay WIlson: Oh my gosh, absolutely, absolutely.

Interviewer: I mean, I guess validated by that sentence you just said.

Jay WIlson: Because I think in a way that another sort of phrase I guess I'll use is I feel like once I've completed a painting, like I'm only as good as the painting I'm working on, in that whatever I've done in the past, I'm extremely proud of the paintings I've completed. But the painting I'm working on is this is what is setting the mark for me. So that is an extremely, in terms of how I'm going in, that is such an extreme driver because this painting has to be absolutely stunning and just it's not like I'm trying to ... There's just an obsessive level that I'm trying to achieve and I haven't achieved it, and I never will.

Interviewer: Right. So is it that each new adventure painting is your next upper left?

Jay WIlson: Yes, yes. That's a great way to put it.

Interviewer: It's next, I got to unseat the bear or unseat the peacock or unseat the ... So no deference because it was in and of its time, the upper left.

Jay WIlson: Yes.

Interviewer: But now, I got to. What I love about that is to me, that's what makes this sentence Mr. O said to you ring through. Sure, he meant it literally like don't go play football and everything. But I think he also meant it or is also probably proud that you do that because it's not. Someone of your success and of your accolades, I think it would be easy for you to rest, right? In oh this has been so successful, I'm just going to live here.

Jay WIlson: You see it all the time. You see it all the time.

Interviewer: You do see it all the time. That's where I think it's interesting or I wanted just to pause for a minute because I think the point you just made is hugely important. It is that once you get to a plateau or a place or an upper left, a lot of people stay in that upper left. "This is successful, I'm just going to ride this out." I think when you get into, who might say this sentence but when you get into true artist, there's that, "I did that, now, next. Now, next. Now, next." It's that compulsion where you went from birds in a magazine to this, to this, to this, to this. Your to this will never stop when I think that to me, an artist is that you don't get to a place and stop and live there. You can't help it.

Jay WIlson: Absolutely. Oddly enough, there was a time, and this was when, let's see, I think this was in the space between that show ten years ago and the one that just happened is there have been a little bit of a lay off. This is kind of important. I have to keep painting because as odd as it sounds and again, I don't know how this fits in with what we've just talked about but I lose confidence. If I don't keep a brush in my hand, if I let a week, two weeks go by-

Interviewer: Oh that short of a time, wow.

Jay WIlson: With like smokes my confidence. I start to second guess myself. I even start thoughts of, "Why are you doing this?"

Interviewer: Oh wow. So you really go into it.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. Again, it's a madness. But I still, if I don't stay in it, there's a part of me that is a pro at second guessing it.

Interviewer: So it's a healthy madness.

Jay WIlson: And dotting it. Yes. So it's a healthy madness. But again, and again, it's crazy but it's a very compelling voice that is of doubt.

Interviewer: It's interesting. Have you heard that ... I think of Native American about the two wolves that live inside of you?

Jay WIlson: Uh-huh (negative). Not that.

Interviewer: Well, there's two wolves, the confident wolf and the self-doubt wolf. Then the Indian would say, which one wins? His answer is whichever one you feed.

Jay WIlson: Ah, that is well said.

Interviewer: I'm butchering it. It's much more beautiful the way it's cames out. But you're like, "Oh, it's true. It's up to me whether I feed this wolf or feed this wolf."

Jay WIlson: Man, perfect, perfect. So self-

Interviewer: And that was to me, yeah.

Jay WIlson: Self-doubt is absolutely always in the picture. The way that I've found that I keep it at bay is by staying on it, persistence. I can't remember where I was going to go with that.

Interviewer: Yeah, sorry.

Jay WIlson: Oh no, no.

Interviewer: Well, the confidence part you were talking about, if I go a week or two weeks without, I start to really self-doubt.

Jay WIlson: Oh yeah, yeah. Okay. So that's the key is I start to just completely doubt my abilities and to achieve a painting, and that sort of thing. So it's really hard when I've taken time off, and especially and again, in the period between the ten years and the last show. There was lots of months where I wouldn't paint and that sort of thing because just busy doing other stuff. It's extremely painful to go through that process because even though I've gone through it lots and lots of times, it's just as hard to fight back all of those doubts and that sort of thing, and get back into a grove where I'm painting with confidence. Even though it's not looking like how I wanted to look, I know I'm going to get it there. That the time I'm putting in is worth it to get there.

Interviewer: Wow.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, so-

Interviewer: It's interesting to me that you doubt your ... For a layman, I've never picked up a brush, for the most part. It's interesting to me because I've seen your work and I've seen that you would doubt your work, that is almost unfathomable to me because it's so innate, and everything that ... So it's interesting to me. I think it's good for people to know even artists of your stature, doubt. So I want to take that for a second and go back to, so you're just starting with mountains and birds that you see. Did you have self-doubt then or that it didn't matter because you weren't taking yourself seriously yet or ...

Jay WIlson: I think doubt is just part of my DNA. It's just it's a very familiar feeling. So way back then, I think it was absolutely a part of it. At the same time, in the discovery phase, it's sort of a flash of just a adrenaline and excitement, like that sensation when I was first feeling the paints and that sort of thing. There's so many kind of new tactile and other experiences where I think you can just be kind of a wash in that. It's just sort of just pure. There's nothing tainting it. Once you continue, almost as with anything, that initial flash kind of goes away. You have to start being confronted with those other, the other wolves in the depth.

Interviewer: Yeah, their level of the game, yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about doubt for a minute because you know if we go back to why I'm standing in your studio, it's because it you point, there's probably other Picassos or de Koonings or Polacks or whatever out there.

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: But they're hidden. I thought this was interesting. One of the artists I talked to, his mother had a studio upstairs with paints and everything. She never never used it. But she had it.

Jay WIlson: Oh my gosh.

Interviewer: But she would never because she didn't have time or she didn't know what to draw. I feel like that's a metaphor for a lot of people.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, that's interesting.

Interviewer: Who have that around fourth or fifth or sixth grade, the crayons go away. That's not even encouraged anymore. It's squelched for more serious practical things, right?

Jay WIlson: Sure, sure.

Interviewer: So it's that doubt mixed with kind of societal expectations of what's practical and what's whatever, and the title of artist and all of that stuff, mixes into a formula that I think suppresses people expressing themselves. Now, they might not get to a point where you did or some of the other people we're talking to did, but the act of doing it in and of itself should be enough without an end outcome in mind.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, yeah.

Interviewer: I'm saying these things. You don't have to agree, but I wanted you to kind of respond to that a little because there's maybe some other OMs out there, that they're afraid to pick up dad's paint or somebody's cardboard. So talk to me a little bit about that kind of.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. So I think there is a lot. As you go through life and add years and responsibilities and all that stuff, foliage develops around your personality and your life. Foliage is great in that you can think of it as each leaf is an experience. As your foliage grows, your life is full of experiences and all of that. Foliage also creates shade. I think a lot of saplings or other facets of the you that you could be can sort of get shaded out as opposed to maybe ... And I don't want to get too into gardening and printing. But anyway, I think some of the most interesting, potentially interesting aspects of people are in the shade. They're there but for whatever reason, they just can't find a way to incorporate that into everything else that they do.

Jay WIlson: I think some of it is confidence of well, I do this but I've always been interested in this and that. Trying to like force puzzle pieces together whereas just because you do this and you have an interest over here, they don't have to make sense. They can be completely-

Interviewer: Air Force pilot and artist.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, yeah. That you can be totally different and disconnected. Maybe it's just a desire to feel like everything should fit together and plug into each other. But I think it's important because that fuel that you have, that inner soulful kind of element that gets you through any time, good time, bad time, whatever, the more connected you are with those things that live in the shade are I think the more connected you are with those, the more I think you know yourself.

Interviewer: Right. Right. That's where I was going when we talked in the beginning. I do think a lot of people think they're unhappy with their life. But it's not their wife or their kids or their job, that might be but it's that they're not doing that one thing. So they think it's all this stuff keeping me from. I think it's a great example where you're up at four because you realized the importance and you're going to make the time for it. So I like, I'm not a big excuses person because I grew up military as well.

Jay WIlson: Oh right, right.

Interviewer: So for sure you didn't wash, you can't play. There was no excuse for it. So I feel like I love hearing you say like you are a dad. You're committed to being a dad. It's not like you're stand-in, and you are a husband. You take that seriously. You are an artist and you take that seriously. You figure it out. There's not the oh, I can't do this because of this.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, I tried that. I tried the I can't do this. Just I couldn't accept that as I couldn't put a period on that sentence.

Interviewer: Right. Have we talked about this question? What would make you stop? Is there anything that could?

Jay WIlson: Yeah, yeah.

Interviewer: What would happen?

Jay WIlson: As funny as it may sound, and this is because I'm reading a book right now. I kind of thought about this for a second last night. One of the characters is in prison.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: A little flash of anxiety when I started to kind of imagine myself being this character in prison. What ran through my mind and it was a cold chill was, "Can I paint in prison?" I mean, seriously. To me, that would be prison, like true prison if I couldn't do something like that.

Interviewer: I could see you stealing a toothpick and painting with your own blood, like you know what.

Jay WIlson: Right. Yeah. So I think kind of like what we talked about a little bit with my four-year hiatus from painting, I could stop painting. I mean, there could be a circumstance where I stop painting.

Interviewer: Right, sure.

Jay WIlson: But something else would pop up in its place.

Interviewer: In its place, yeah. You would have that.

Jay WIlson: Halloween masks, soap box derby cars.

Interviewer: Soap derby cars, yeah.

Jay WIlson: Something else because there just, I would explode if I didn't do something obsessive.

Interviewer: So let's talk about that explosion for a minute because I think that's the slow burn that happens with people that over time, I think that's what feeds some things like midlife crisis-es and things like that is you've never got in touch in with that. This is the hypothesis I have, but I'm seeing it. You would explode. What would that look like? Outwardly frustrated, just tense or this would deteriorate?

Jay WIlson: I would be a hard person to live with.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: Because anger, just knowing myself, the way I could, at least to the level that I do. Anger is where things got. That anger fueled by frustration and ... Because well, you take that away, you take this away, and you take away maybe a very very important factor is self-worth. The third leg as we've kind of talked about it, husband, dad, artist, you take away the third leg, the stool doesn't stand up. Self-worth, being an artist is a huge part of my self-worth. So you throw just anger because that's happens when you can't channel. I mean, that's at least what happens with me. It's sort of just a natural response. Then you throw in a diminished send of self-worth into that. That's not pretty.

Interviewer: No, you got insecure and angry, which feeds its. Yeah, you got a pack of wolves on the bad side.

Jay WIlson: Gosh, yeah. Then you truly have that cycle that you can get into that is just very destructive.

Interviewer: Across, like a Bloods Creek of everything and not just that one part.

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Jay WIlson: Snowballs.

Interviewer: So let's go from or let's go back or wherever we are, I like the jumping around actually, is you're Jay. Then you decided to go to alter. Tell me about OM Norling.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. So kind of two things, OM Norling. OM Norling originally was a very practical device. I painted like this. I had a few successful shows. People bought paintings. But then again, four years went by. I had, we had Max. Four years, and then when I started to get frustrated and get back into this, I didn't want to paint that anymore. I wanted to go more realistic, add surreal elements into things, and tell a different story. Well, actually maybe tell the same story but I wanted to just tell it in a different way.

Interviewer: Much different, yeah, yeah, because it's ...

Jay WIlson: Because I really think the story I tell, there's one story I tell. It's just told in different ways. I've always been very interested in late 19th century, earlier 20th century hand-painted poster design and things like that, from the graphic design world. James Way, Todd Murphy, so I started playing around with using some of those styles with a little Salvador Dali from that. The first painting I did, our dog, Lily had just died. I just used that as a way to, "Okay, I've never done a dark background before. Let me do this." That was the first painting. I was like, "I like that. I like that." Then there was a school auction coming up. So I was like, "Okay, I'm going to do a painting." So I did it. It was such an enjoyable experience. Chad and Amy Wall, I don't know if you know them, they have that. It's kind of what I consider the first OM Norling painting.

Interviewer: Wow.

Jay WIlson: But it was so different that I think out of respect for people who had bought the Jay Wilson to suddenly shift to something that was totally not in the same world.

Interviewer: Not Jay Wilson, right, right. Not, right.

Jay WIlson: Out of respect for them and as sort of a dog ear, I created another name, OM Norling, in case I wanted to come back to this. Actually I do still plan on coming back to this as Jay Wilson and doing a painting in that style.

Interviewer: I'll start saving.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. But not, but still paint as OM Norling. But just now that I've been away from that style a long time, I kind of miss it.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: But OM Norling is kind of where it's at. So anyway, very practical reason for using OM Norling. My great great grandfather, his name was OM Norling, Olaf Magnus Norling.

Interviewer: That's an awesome name by the way.

Jay WIlson: I mean, Olaf Magnus Norling.

Interviewer: That's like a character waiting to be written.

Jay WIlson: I know. So-

Interviewer: Some fantastical thing like it.

Jay WIlson: So the reason I jumped on that real quick is he was born and raised until he was like 20 in Sweden. He was in the mid to late 1800s. In my story, I moved it to like 1932, but anyway.

Interviewer: Artist license?

Jay WIlson: Yeah. So anyway, fascinating story, he did disappear as my story says.

Interviewer: You're kidding?

Jay WIlson: No. But he stowed away on a ship to come to America. He actually landed in New Orleans and then just worked his way up the Mississippi as a farmer. Farmhand, basically working his way, finally made enough ... Oh, but what happened between New Orleans and ending up in Illinois, it's assumed he probably just worked his way up as a farmhand. But there's seven years where there's a gap. Where when he got to New Orleans, he sent a letter home. No, no, no. I'm messing it up. Seven years went by before his family got a letter from him saying, "I'm sorry, I came to America. I didn't have an amnesty-"

Interviewer: Oh so they didn't even know what happened to him?

Jay WIlson: That's right. So he sort of just boop, gone. So it fascinated me the seven years of someone just kind of banishing and then suddenly popping up again. Okay. So that was the practical part. Didn't want to confuse people. If I wanted to go back to Jay Wilson's style, then I could do that. But then something amazing and interesting, and unexpected kind of happened. Being OM Norling kind of freed me up creatively. Totally unintentional, didn't know this would happen, but things that are kind of hangups for Jay creatively and that sort of thing, aren't hangups in an OM Norling thing.

Interviewer: Wow, that's interesting.

Jay WIlson: I know it's starting to skirt on psychic break and schizophrenia maybe. But like I don't think of myself as OM Norling as a person, as OM Norling. But when I'm in the OM Norling space, there are no limitations that Jay might have that I can't do here.

Interviewer: Because OM Norling didn't grow up as Jay. So he doesn't bring all that.

Jay WIlson: OM Norling can be anything he wants to be.

Interviewer: Right. I think that's kind of brilliant. I don't think there's anything ...

Jay WIlson: Yeah. Anything.

Interviewer: There was a colonel in one of the arms forces I sat next to at a dinner. He actually had hair and no facial hair. But he showed me a picture of him overseas and he was bald with a beard.

Jay WIlson: Really?

Interviewer: I said, "What is that?" He said, "Well, because that person had to kill people and do things. I didn't want to look in the mirror when I'm back with my family and see that guy."

Jay WIlson: Interesting.

Interviewer: So he changed his persona so that he could reconcile that.

Jay WIlson: Wow, that is fascinating. There is something to it.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: Even though I just stumbled into it, there are those unexpected sort of extra element to it, psychologically.

Interviewer: Important because we were talking about doubt.

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: So I think it's kind of brilliant because it gets to what I was saying, is this expectation, this practicality, this separation of artist and all this stuff that our world puts on all of that path that you just took off.

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: Because it's up to you what happened in that seven-year span or however long span. It's a kind of deal.

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: So I think that's kind of brilliant.

Jay WIlson: There's kind of a natural inhibitor that I have is modesty. When I paint as OM Norling, I can be the best fucking painter in the world.

Interviewer: Right. That bravado and that.

Jay WIlson: That would be hard for me to kind of paint as Jay Wilson to think like that.

Interviewer: Because you do have a humbleness about you.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. Anyway, I mean, just again just to sort of be honest, there is kind of a chismo or a bravado that I can have as OM Norling that I couldn't have as Jay.

Interviewer: The name itself gives it to you, right?

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: You even said it with your fish tongue.

Jay WIlson: I know. Olaf Magnus.

Interviewer: I think that's a safe space for you to be like that and knowing that it's not ... You're not going to walk into one of your shows and go, "I am this fucking ..." But it comes through in your work. I mean, the work from the show is very brave and big. I mean, that's eight by five feet.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of brains in big-

Interviewer: You go to have some confidence to be like I'm going to paint a fucking bear that big.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, true.

Interviewer: With a couch and a bird.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, as Jay. I don't know if I would have that kind of audacity. Audacity is another thing that I don't naturally-

Interviewer: That's a great word for it, yeah.

Jay WIlson: But I've developed it with OM Norling.

Interviewer: Yeah. You can see it like I said, you can see it in the work. There's like a confidence. It's a bravado. It's an audacity to that like I'm going to take a lion or a bear. I'm going to ...

Jay WIlson: There's a trick in that.

Interviewer: I got it.

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: I mean, that's interesting. That's an interesting thing to think about as things that were daunting. You take on kind of a different persona and approach them that way. You can leave all the baggage and the expectation, and the practicality.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. So very unintentional but a very important sort of development that happened after kind of going down that path.

Interviewer: Yeah. But I like it. That's like mindblowing. Did you ever read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clayman?

Jay WIlson: Mm-hmm (negative).

Interviewer: It's a really good book.

Jay WIlson: That sounds awesome.

Interviewer: Well, one of the kids wanted to be a magician. He has this alter personality. It's just an interesting book about how that happens. He gets trapped in one of his tricks. Anyway, it's a very good book. I can't remember the guy that wrote it but somewhat famous book. I'll trap it out in a minute. So you would call yourself an artist now?

Jay WIlson: Yes.

Interviewer: I liked it, I liked the bravado of that because you're answering as Jay.

Jay WIlson: But my reason may be unexpected. So it was probably late 90s before I met Amy, when I finally realized what my definition of an artist was. It has nothing ... So my definition of an artist is basically it is how you see the world. It has nothing to do with what you can do with a pencil, a pen, a paintbrush, clay, whatever. It's simply how you see the world. It just all clicked when I finally looked at it that way. It kind of became like a truth. Truth that kind of hit me in college was you're the sum of the things you do consistently. That I think you can defend that in any way. That definition of an artist, you can defend it in any way because there are people that are just so much more bright and vivid, and just alive and creative, but can't draw a stick figure. Can't do that. But of course, they're an artist. You know what I mean?

Interviewer: Yes.

Jay WIlson: So it took me a while to kind of come to that simple definition. But to this day, that's still kind of how how I view it.

Interviewer: I love that so much, it may be on the first page.

Jay WIlson: Wow.

Interviewer: Because I think that's the whole, that might be like some sort of golden chalice thing because I think that's what I'm looking for is it doesn't have to be and how, what the expression of it is. It's different than that. I think that type of definition gives people permission to explore. They don't have to be successful tactic. It just has to be, because I think that, this keeps people from seeing things differently because they think it has to come out in a certain way.

Jay WIlson: Well, how many times do you hear, have you heard someone say, "I can't even draw a stick figure?"

Interviewer: That's usually the common sentence, yeah. Yeah.

Jay WIlson: Well, it doesn't matter because that's output. Artist is really about the intake and how you process it up here.

Interviewer: Yeah. I mean, I think there's ... One of the people I think it's Joe Manis, doesn't really have a studio. He said, "I'm going to take you out on a boat to do the interview because it's not ..."

Jay WIlson: He's awesome.

Interviewer: This validates what you said. He said, it's not what I make that makes me an artist.

Jay WIlson: Wow. Nice. That's huge.

Interviewer: He goes, "I just want you to see how I think," but your articulation of that was like I think you guys will get at the opening or the mention of the book party, you guys will meet.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. He said, "It's not what I do."

Interviewer: It's not what I make.

Jay WIlson: Make.

Interviewer: That makes me an artist, it's how I think.

Jay WIlson: I'm going to have to absorb that, that's ...

Interviewer: Right? But he goes, "That's why I don't want to take you to this. I want to take you to this," and point and go, basically borrow his AV goggles and-

Jay WIlson: Man, that's huge.

Interviewer: I thought it was interesting too.

Jay WIlson: That is huge.

Interviewer: Because I said, "Here I am having my grid. I want to do this. I want to take pictures of this," he's like, uh, I want to do this. I'm like, "Okay, let's do it," because again, I'm here for the ride.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, yeah. That's really cool.

Interviewer: Well, I think you guys, the way you articulate it, I'm like, oh, that's the first page right there. Good, you open the book and there it is. It's funny, as all you guys talked, I'm like, "There's a quote, and there's a quote," because I want to lay it out where it's not a story and a couple of pictures. It's read, look. So I don't quite know as a graphic designer. I don't quite know how I'm going to do that yet, but I want it to be where it's the pictures are supporting what I'm saying. So I don't know.

Jay WIlson: That's huge.

Interviewer: That's next.

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: So that's the OM Norling. So now, you've had this, there are a couple of very successful shows. You're onto the next.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, yeah.

Interviewer: You're kind of thinking into the next space. Is this what you see going forward, next space, next day? Maybe revisit that or you don't know and you let it come? How do you decide after you walk out of curious art spectacle show, now what?

Jay WIlson: Well, the-

Interviewer: Other than the commissions and carrying the painting down the street.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, right.

Interviewer: Wish I would've filmed that.

Jay WIlson: Oh gosh. Well, what is really gratifying about a curious art spectacle is the struggle, sort of the call. The struggle that has led up to that. Don't get me wrong, the beautiful struggle. I'm not talking about the struggle that woe is me. I'm talking about the struggle that I absolutely embrace, that led to work that is as good as I ever hoped to do. What that has done is it's made it more clear than ever, and this has a lot to do with that amazing partner. That is onboard to do crazy things in terms of like completely risky endeavors. But it's never been more clear that this is the direction I'm heading at.

Interviewer: For both of you?

Jay WIlson: For both of us, for both of us.

Interviewer: Yeah. For the unit.

Jay WIlson: That's key because if she's not onboard, that's a big challenge.

Interviewer: It adds attention and a thing to the stool. There's a hole, right.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. So anyway, so looking ahead, my goal is within a few years, to be just doing painting. Graphic design is essential because it's what allows me to get there. The idea is well, because of the show more of our revenue is from paintings this year which that feels so good. So is graphic design hopefully starts to taper? Well, no. I mean, as the paintings go up, graphic design just starts to taper. There doesn't have to be a ... I've been guilty of this in the past. When am I ever going to get to a point where I can just stop work and become an artist? Well, that's not how life works.

Interviewer: Right. Why do they have to joined like that? You are an artist.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, exactly. So that was sort of a kind of early 90s mentality that I had of when I would just make it so hard and impossible to ever achieve that because I was stuck with a really absurd game plan of how you would do that. Stop work, start being an artist. Come on.

Interviewer: I love it. I love it. That's another one I think is good is it was another block of why I can't.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. Absolutely. That is like a nook of putting a can't up in front of you. But a nook that's pretty easy to unravel if you allow yourself to. If you want to be an artist, be an artist.

Interviewer: Right, regardless of anything that comes after.

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: Because I feel bad for that woman who had this little nook in her house, this little corner.

Jay WIlson: I know, yeah.

Interviewer: Everything was set out. She never used it. But it was up there.

Jay WIlson: I know that some of us-

Interviewer: Always there.

Jay WIlson: That's really quite an impression that idea makes.

Interviewer: Yes. Can you imagine? It wasn't, it was in like upstairs in a landing, so she'd passed by it doing the laundry and making the beds and getting the ... So it was her, "Oh I can't do that because of all of this."

Jay WIlson: Interesting.

Interviewer: Right?

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Jay WIlson: So graphic design and being an artist, they are ... There's a symbiotic.

Interviewer: Symbiotic?

Jay WIlson: Yeah. Nice. Nice. They are. They are not at odds with each other. Sometimes because of time commitments, they both require time. Sometimes they battle each other a little bit.

Interviewer: I can see that.

Jay WIlson: But really inherently, they're not. Graphic design provides income. It allows Amy to have the comfort and confidence to say, "I trust you, that basically paintings will be our revenue in the future because we can pay the mortgage." You know what I mean?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Jay WIlson: But anyway, this is what I will be in a few years, 100% or sooner.

Interviewer: You already are that.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, I'm just talking from an income standpoint.

Interviewer: Yeah, practical, practical sort of.

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: Yeah, because I still go back. I've never been to the other artist's openings. So I don't know but I go back to the impetus for this whole thing was you and that night, and the conversations, and the snippets that I heard of you because I knew you from the neighbor.

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: We know each other from school. I knew you as dad of three, lives in the neighborhood.

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: Then I walk into this space. There's these transportative, making up a word, and that each one stopped you. Then it's huge. I'm standing in front of this giant bear. But then my new brush stroke, like it was a macro, micro. I got close up and then I would back up. Then I would get closer. I'm thinking, and I looked at one point, you were talking to some people in the corner. I looked at one point at the whole body of work. Then I looked at you and I went, "Oh my god, how did that come out of ..." There was a lot of different things. It was, "How did you find the time?" Because it was obvious that it was meticulous work, because I knew you were a dad of three, because I knew you as dad of three here. How did it come out of your head because you live in the same neighborhood I do? Then there was obviously conceptual consideration around. It wasn't like, "Oh, I'm going to do a bear in a couch." There was a story behind each one.

Interviewer: So it kind of just blew my mind that this entire planet that you took us to came out of your head, father of three, husband, lived around the corner in my same neighborhood. So that kind of started making me. Then when I came over to see what wasn't, then we had that conversation. I was like, "Oh, there's a whole thing in here worth exploring that I think people would be interested in."

Jay WIlson: Well, I think your observation and what hit you, hit a lot of people.

Interviewer: Oh yeah. That's why you sold everything.

Jay WIlson: But from a parent to parent standpoint. Because we're all parents and busy, and doing things and all that stuff.

Interviewer: I knew you from school functions.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, yeah. It was so funny. One guy that I didn't really know well, but I've seen him for years. He's kind of a nemesis on the flag football.

Interviewer: Right, right.

Jay WIlson: Basketball and stuff in terms of he coaches and I coach. We've always enjoyed going up against each other. But at the opening, he was like, "I thought you were just a basketball coach," as in knowing I have a job and all that. But thinking that just being a basketball coach for 11-year-olds was like the thing that I did other than that.

Interviewer: Yeah. That was your thing.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. So ...

Interviewer: I'm sure there were a lot of people that didn't approach you with it but were thinking the same thing. It's the shows like America's Got Talent and all those kind of shows where I go, "There are people out there that can sing or perform or do whatever, and they just need a little bit of the venue." That's a ridiculous example, but it's an example of it's out there.

Interviewer: I don't think they're all going to be upper left but I think there's importance in what you said about just knowing yourself and having that third leg, and the self-care thing that would just raise everyone's level of happy and maybe open us up all more to appreciating what's in each other rather than just the precious few that we want. Somebody who I was talking to said, "I'm not an artist because they never put me in like the Louvre or anything." I'm like, "That's the ..."

Jay WIlson: That's your standard? Well, then yeah, you've nooked. You're heard of the nook of a know.

Interviewer: But it's interesting how it's really not encouraged. I mean, at some point, the crayons get taken away.

Jay WIlson: Well, to me, one of the things along the lines that made the show like truly complete to me was the fact that we didn't use a gallery, didn't connect with a gallery. To me, that was always in one of the know things of well, you got to get with a gallery. Then you got to play ball their way and all that stuff.

Interviewer: And give a path.

Jay WIlson: That was a big no. And they leave off a path.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: That was a very important part of the whole process, of it feeling pure and truly, truly a direct expression.

Interviewer: Yep. That's a great way to say it.

Jay WIlson: Well, we didn't have space. Well, we rented a space on the pure gamble that we would actually make some revenue and be able to pay for it.

Interviewer: Right.

Jay WIlson: So again, it's not like, well, we just had $15,000 lying around. Why don't we do it here? No, we made a big giant risk.

Interviewer: Yeah, that's one of those don't look down. Just keep walking across.

Jay WIlson: Yes, right. But it allowed us to basically eliminate all the no's and the obstacles and the hurdles of ...

Interviewer: We can't because.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, yeah. Well, we can because we're going to do this. We're going to do it when we want to and how we want to. I know you could interpret that as control freak or anything like that. No, it was just a matter of you know what, there is nothing that is going to fucking get in our way of doing this.

Interviewer: I created this and I'm not going to let, "Oh well, what's supposed to happen here is this."

Jay WIlson: Yeah. Then of course, you run it down the gallery route. Well, this barrier is great but it's really too big for what we want to do or in the concept stage. I didn't have to sell anybody on well, I'm going to do a bear that's this big. I'm going to do this and that and then have someone come back and say, "Well, can you do the bear this big, and this-"

Interviewer: We need some quick sells. Can give us some five by sevens of an octopus? Yeah.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Didn't have to go through that.

Interviewer: Camels are big this year, whatever.

Jay WIlson: Right, right.

Interviewer: Because I got to tell you, it would have been different. If I would have been standing in front of a bear and somebody gallery-esque would have been trying to sell me bear.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. Yeah.

Interviewer: Do you see that? I would have been like ...

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: Not anything bad. I think galleries are great purposes.

Jay WIlson: I need to throw my aster up in there because I don't want to burn any bridges. Bottom line is did not want someone to be suddenly telling me how this was going to be. Then what sealed it was Amy and I did some research and recon, going to some gallery openings on Miami Circle. Talking about sealing the deal. Again, this sounds ugly and I don't mean it to but they were such yawners, the openings. The art was fine. It was-

Interviewer: Right, it wasn't the art. Yeah.

Jay WIlson: It was like, "Don't you enjoy what you're doing?" It was just so stuffy and lame, and just didn't want to be there.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Jay WIlson: Again, we were just kind of like, well, this is not what we're going to do. We're going to have some bands. We're going to hang the art. We're going to suspend it all and make it kind of interesting.

Interviewer: It was a walkthrough.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. Yeah.

Interviewer: It was a cool ... I really felt like I was somewhere. Yeah, it was cool. Then you were saying something about there are stories behind it. People asked me like what's the title of ... I'm like it's Subjugation of the Hat Box. That's written on the first page, and the rest of it's blank for me. He knows. But I don't know. So it was just, I don't know, I just thought everything about it was just right. Well, which is why I'm here. So last thing, I don't have a watch in me. Do you know what?

Jay WIlson: Yeah, it's noon.

Interviewer: It is exactly noon?

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: I need to go email somebody I'm supposed to meet for lunch. Amy.

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: So supportive the whole way, nervous? Did you have to talk each other into and out of, off of ledges or those kind of things? How did that go?

Jay WIlson: Well, that's the part.

Interviewer: Because you have three kids.

Jay WIlson: Yeah, yeah.

Interviewer: That's no joke.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. Wow.

Interviewer: Were you an artist when you met her?

Jay WIlson: I was an artist when I met her, by the definition in that I'd come to grips in terms with that. She is ... I'm truly the luckiest guy in the world. I really am, because being an independent graphic designer is difficult because the paycheck doesn't arrive-

Interviewer: The 15th and the 30th of the month.

Jay WIlson: The 15th and the 30th of every month. It can be a struggle. That can be tough on the best relationship. But even so, when I originally pitched the idea of, "I want to do ..." Originally, it was 25 paintings. 25 paintings about a year and a half from now. Originally, well, we know we did briefly talk about a gallery, going the gallery route. It'll be a lot of time. There'll be some expenses and all of that. She was like, "Absolutely."' I mean, there has never been a needing to, "Okay, how am I going to try to pitch this to her or anything like that?" She has supported it enthusiastically.

Interviewer: She sees that in you. Yeah, that's great.

Jay WIlson: From day one, from day one. Even when it didn't make sense and maybe we were really struggling. We're in a bad pocket where nothing had come in for six weeks.

Interviewer: Right, right, right.

Jay WIlson: Somehow, she, and this is what is just so amazing about her, she can detach from the stress of the day and connect with a bigger idea and vision.

Interviewer: That's incredible.

Jay WIlson: It's incredible.

Interviewer: That's a little bit of an artist thing, if you know what I mean.

Jay WIlson: I will never ever be able to fully ... Well, all I can do is just be thankful for, and feel immensely fortunate for having an incredible person in my life like Amy.

Interviewer: Right, right. It does make a difference because and sometimes that is people's reason why not is because the person they're with doesn't believe in it and doesn't get it.

Jay WIlson: That would be so hard.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Jay WIlson: That would be so hard. Yeah.

Interviewer: I'm sure it is, for the people who have that because it seems like she saw you, all of you from the beginning. So it wasn't curious to her for you to be asking this. It was of course.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. That's definitely true. I was an artist when I met her. So she knew that that was what she was getting into.

Interviewer: I mean, it seems like it wasn't like when you were growing up, it was something you did. But this was something you did. This is you. You had gotten to that point which was great. Then here you are. And here she is helping you with it, not just supporting you from sidelines, but she's actively involved in.

Jay WIlson: Oh my gosh. Yeah. She is such an essential component to me doing this. I really don't know had fates been different, had I ended up with somebody else. I think about it every now and then of would I still be doing this? I kind of don't think so.

Interviewer: Don't know, yeah, yeah.

Jay WIlson: I mean, I'd be doing something as we've talked about. But maybe I'll just have the best freaking yard in the neighborhood.

Interviewer: I don't know. He's shaping the hedges again. I don't know what he's doing.

Jay WIlson: Right. But anyway, I don't know. I really doubt I would be here doing this kind of stuff if it wasn't for her.

Interviewer: Right, right, right. It's just another vital part of it. It was an unidentified golden thread that's starting to come through is how artists that are expressing. I won't even use the word, "Successful." Artists that are free to express themselves and are doing so fervently have another person who is go.

Jay WIlson: That's very interesting.

Interviewer: Yeah. I would have thought it was more a I sneak out in the back and I do it while I'm ... But it's definitely been more of a, "No, no. Everybody knows and everybody's good."

Jay WIlson: Yeah. Yeah.

Interviewer: It's not like a secret thing. Those are all, that's usually the field of stuff I want to cover. The last question I always ask is if I being general population of the world, am reading this book because I'm interested in understanding a part of me that's there, that I don't understand, and you were wanting to just give them a little bit of wisdom or a little bit of encouragement or a little bit of take it or leave it, what is it that you would want them to feel or what would you say or what would be your imparting to them?

Jay WIlson: Wow, that's big. That's big.

Interviewer: Yeah, I know.

Jay WIlson: Well, so I may email something that I think is better than this in the future.

Interviewer: Totally fine.

Jay WIlson: I think because doubt is such a part of my own everyday struggle and again, a struggle I embrace.

Interviewer: Yes.

Jay WIlson: Again, I don't mean struggle as something that has been cast along.

Interviewer: Arduous. Yeah.

Jay WIlson: Yeah. Is don't let doubt win, at least off the cuff right now. Without-

Interviewer: No, that's great. It goes back to don't ever turn your back on art.

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: Already.

Jay WIlson: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Interviewer: No, that's good. That's another one of those like as you guys are talking, I pull out. To me that, again, with you, again is a synthesis of everything that I'm doing. Right? I mean, if you just have that and there's the mantra to these people who might won, who have tried and haven't ever.

Jay WIlson: Yeah.

Interviewer: Don't let doubt win because that's all all of it is. It's self-doubt. She never touched that thing upstairs, it wasn't because of the laundry or the kids or the ... Because she was faced with, "What do I do to this white piece of paper?"

Jay WIlson: Yeah, yeah.

Interviewer: Yeah. There might be something to the book that that gets to be a pullout. That would be cool. Don't let doubt win. Whoo, you gave me chills a couple of times. It was good. I try not to let you see though. Thank you, Mike for ... I get so worried about him.

Speaker 1: I'll see his face and then I'll get lost. I'm like, "Is his nose wet?" I'm telling you. You would be amazed if you got to see it. Plus I don't know if you ever need this, but you're welcome to, if you ever need it. And pictures of it in practical. Like in somebody's house.

Speaker 2: Oh gotcha.

Speaker 3: I think that would be important.

Speaker 1: If you ever wanted that for marketing or whatever. This is how it transforms the room.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Because it's made the room. We took everything else out. All the furniture, and everything. It just was the damn bear.

Speaker 2: Oh really. You took the table in?

Speaker 1: No the table is there, with the hat boxes and the bear, but it's all built around him. And I have this one painting in there that I'm gonna move because although he's looking at it, it's hilarious. I'm gonna move it because it's just too, you can't see it because he's there.

Speaker 2: You don't notice it.

Speaker 1: Right. It came to me in a dream okay. Is this new?

Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: Is it okay? You gave me a sneak peek at that last time I was here.

Speaker 3: Oh totally. So yeah, so the curious art spectacle that was the 22 paintings. And then-

Speaker 1: Was that your first show?

Speaker 3: Second show.

Speaker 1: Second show.

Speaker 3: And so the first one was ten years ago, in 2008. And it's the crazy of having a life, being married, having three kids, and having goals and interests that are just as important as anything else. Being a good dad.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 3: Being a husband that my wife likes. You know? And things like that. And ten years passed. And the show was really successful.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 3: Sold a lot of paintings. Someone from the AJC came by and gave a really nice flattering review of it and then poof, ten years. Gone.

Speaker 1: Oh the ten year ago one. I thought you were talking about this one. You're talking about the ten year ago.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1: Wow.

Speaker 3: And so that was the first O.M. Norling show. And it just felt incredible and that leading up to that. What created that was getting completely, well so, [inaudible 00:02:40]. I had had a show, that painting was in the show, as Jay Wilson.

Speaker 2: [crosstalk 00:02:46]

Speaker 3: Four years before that-

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 3: And then that night, of that show opening. My son Max was born. My middle one.

Speaker 1: Wow.

Speaker 3: Same day.

Speaker 1: Wow. So that's really the intertwining of painter life and life life.

Speaker 3: It was a big day. And I didn't pick up a paint brush or a pencil for four years after that day. Just having a second child. Having to work, make a living all of that stuff, it just ... don't get me wrong. I was happy. But it was just too much for me to try to do anything else.

Speaker 1: So let's talk about that for a minute. Too busy for me to do anything else. Does this and then we want to talk about your personas because I think maybe this has something to do with it. So you do your life right, and you do your painting right. And you don't sacrifice either one.

Speaker 3: That's the key.

Speaker 1: Even as a percentage.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 1: So if you're gonna paint, you gotta have the mind space as well as the time? I'm putting words in your mouth but I'm asking.

Speaker 3: No. So that's interesting that you say that, because I was just having a conversation with Amy's dad. He and I went out to eat a few weeks ago. And we were kind of talking about that. And if my relationship with my wife and my family, my boys. If that is out of whack or bullshit, nothing else matters.

Speaker 1: If you're faking it.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 1: If you're standing in for you.

Speaker 3: Right. Unless those two things are in balance, then truly nothing else matters. And so that's really kind of I guess my lynch pin, or is the lynch pin or cornerstone, that if that's not right, then really nothing else goes.

Speaker 1: So what happens if you feel like that's even a little bit out of whack, you can't paint either?

Speaker 3: Well life is life.

Speaker 1: Or just ... right.

Speaker 3: And so sometimes things are a little out of whack. But there's just sort of a threshold. And so that's why I paint at four in the morning. Because I'm not taking away from time with my family.

Speaker 1: So let's do talk about that because you are fully present in all of the areas that you can be. When do you find time, do you carve time, do you tell them on Saturdays from this to this. How does that work?

Speaker 3: Yeah. So Saturdays kind of the exception. During the week, it's I get up early, I put my time in painting and that sort of thing.

Speaker 1: So what's early? I'm gonna question you on this, because I think this'll be interesting to people, is what is your schedule? Is it 6am and then kids? Or so tell me-

Speaker 3: So it's 4-6:30am and that takes me back to why I didn't paint for four years. After that show, painting as Jay Wilson, is because I just could not find time and I wouldn't just take blocks away from these little boys that we have. Being a dad you get one shot.

Speaker 1: That's true.

Speaker 3: And so, anyway, the eureka, was finally just getting pissed off enough that I needed to paint. It was a huge part of my identity. And I just really didn't feel ...