Episode 40: Chess Brodnick – Interior Abstractions of Life

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Our guest Chess Broadnick, a Psychotherapist and Artist, shares his story on how he is trying to point out the interior abstractions of life through his artwork. Chess is a self-taught artist that took 2-years to study and draw self-portraits. He drew from his memories and experiences, pushing his art to the very edge.

As a psychotherapist, Chess is exposed to many emotions from his patients. He’s even used his art-making to help his patients when nothing else would reach the severely mentally ill. He shares with us on how art provides connectivity on an emotional level.

One thing is for certain, this is an interview that if you think you have heard it all when it comes to creativity, think again. Hear what our guest Chess has to share about the interior abstractions of life.

Show Notes:

Episode 40: Chess Brodnick Interior Abstractions of Life

00:00:17 – 00:05:04

I’m really excited about our new segment on the show. Yes a new segment and today is the day to be included for the first time and there will be many more after that. Considering we’ve had some pretty amazing gas. This is going to be a great addition. You bet a by the way. I see we have a guest in our podcast studio today. Yes she’s a little furry though and her name is lucy. The see the dog. Yes thank you for joining us nine. Hi everyone and here. We are celebrating. What people love to do creatively by giving them a voice. I’m rod jones. i’m nj jones. Welcome to the thought. Rose show we invite you to subscribe wherever you listen and check us out on thought row. Podcasts dot com there. You can also listen to episode so you don’t have to go somewhere else in. It’s right on our website. Yes also we would love to hear from you and don’t be shy. You can always reach us through the websites contact page and let us know your thoughts. Yes that’s why our show is called. Dot ro podcast because we would love to hear your thoughts before i ask you to share your quote yes. Let’s reduce our new segment and it’s called. What are they up to now. Gary excitement to now. And i’ll tell you what it’s about everybody each week we’re going to find one of our previous guests and let you know what they’ve been up to since you’ve been on the podcast and today we’re going to start with madison. Marie macintosh a soprano mezro soprano opera singer. And she tells what she’s been up to since we last chatted with her well. Our past guests madison. Marie macintosh will be performing the role of rouge arrow. In all cena’s revamped with alter ego chamber opera is a company that creates performances in new ways that are relatable raw experimental and intimate in order to connect with new audiences and it changes the ways in which opera can be experienced. This modernized version of han. Dole’s sina an english language. Libretto by ali’s francesca rosny way. And i hope i’m saying her nickname correctly. Regret a tough one. Okay i so. It will be presented as part of the philadelphia fringe festival on september. Twenty fourth and twenty six at the adrian theatre later this season. Madison will sing the title role of rossini’s cinderella with fargo moorhead opera. All wonderful. yeah. But if you don’t miss this performance of your if you’re anywhere near where you can see these performances by all means you should and i have to say madison. Deathly lives a creative life. He does and so what else is better slept to. Yes not only. Does she have that going on but she has also beginning a musical collaboration with great team. And that is a florida based nonprofit that strives to eliminate. ptsd related veteran suicides. It’s called voices of valiant and they will select composers to set poems written by patrons Madison recently premiered the first song of the o. v. And its name is. It’s only when. I close my eyes by poet. William j. toll and composer and pianist gary coda and a concert at great team veterans and composers. Who are interested in finding out. More information can lis- visit not listen. That visit voices of the valiant dot. Org you know. Madison has definitely been creatively. Yes she had a lot of respect for her and as a veteran myself. I really appreciate how. She’s working with voices of the valiant. yes and congratulations. To her honor. Roll eh cinderella. Yes better that’ll be so much fun for her now. Okay so del. Let’s hear your quote in okay. So my quote this week. This episode is nothing can make our life or the lives of others more beautiful than perpetual kindness and that quote is by lael tolstoy.

00:05:05 – 00:10:00

It’s interesting to me. How many of the people that we’ve interviewed on our show are perpetually the perpetuating perpetually perpetuating waiting kindness. Yes they are. they’re they’re always giving. And i and i think that’s why they received so much in return while i know the surly a been kind to us on our show by making themselves available to be interviewed and they’ve been very supportive so we greatly appreciate that for non brennan. Well now. it’s going to be your turn. Ron were ready for rods motivational moments while more. Wellink assis- motivational. When you wake up in the morning to start our day your day our day. Yeah you generally set the stage for how it’s going to be. You may want to adjust your attitude. Accordingly boy isn’t that the truth. If you know if you wake up on the you know the wrong side of that proverbial rump. Say the wrong side of the bed. I mean it really does affect your whole day. A lot of you could wake up with a headache. That always difficult or allergies which are really difficult right. Like you said taking allergy station. That’s the worst. You’re running late for work or trying to get the kids off to school. Or they’re being difficult or you in a serial you have to go to your hampered oppo something you should have watched a week earlier so you have something to wear but you don’t you made to come in also about paying it forward. Oh when we were talking earlier. That’s so true. I think that you know if you’re paying it forward with kindness. There’s just so much out there of kindness to give and receive and it’s like when people are doing the starbucks line where you’re paying for the guy behind you and it keeps on going. I know they’re in around. Our area. people tend to do that a lot. And i know that puts a smile on. Someone’s face but some in a good mood and makes them feel loved and there’s nothing better if you’re not familiar with The pay it forward gogel it. That’s really an interesting concept. It’s been around for several years. But so many people practice that i mean i’ve been exposed to a myself. I mean i’ve actually been in a line. And then i get up to pay for my stuff and the server says. Hey you don’t have to pay for this to go. Yeah was my lucky day. They go no the person before you pay for it and they go well then. I better pay for the person behind me right. Yeah well speaking while we’re on the subject of having a good or great attitude in life let’s bring on our guest. Okay yeah today. We’re going to be speaking with chess. Broad neck and he’s a psychotherapist and an artist and both of those talents require creative strength in his case he is really creative and definitely strong. Yes chess welcomed the thought row. Podcast we know. Our listeners are going to be a really fascinating out. Your creative background is very interesting. Yes hi chances so good to have you with us today. Well hello. it’s great to be here. I’m really excited about talking about this. It’s a it’s a subject. I got a great deal of interest in. So let’s go before we officially get started with the interview. We always ask our gas what they had for breakfast now. I realize that we’re actually doing this interview in the afternoon so you have to remember back to morning. Well that’ll be easy because we we were on our sixty hour fast today. So i had nothing for breakfast. Only intermittent fasting. Yeah we we do it three days a week okay. How does that work for you. Do you find you have energy. Yeah that’s fine. Yeah it works. Fine cool okay. Very curious about that. Well we’re gonna start with this. You’re an artist and a psychotherapist but before we get into what that actually means and discuss it. Tell us a little bit about your background where you’re from. Where did you grow up. You know all the other details stuff. Sure right now. I live in. We live into luca. Lake california a suburb of los angeles near hollywood. I grew up for fourteen years and the outskirts of buffalo new york in a small working class area. Close to a lotta farms in the woods which in lakes and streams which was great. Nice certainly in those days. You know there weren’t with no this helicopter parenting. We used to just go out and my parents would see me for lunch. They’d see me for dinner and bedtime and that was it.

00:10:00 – 00:15:13

I was outside. All the rest of the time wasn’t wonderful. I mean i know it was time for dinner. My dad for whatever. Reason had a very powerful whistle and he would go out and just put his two fingers in his mouth. Hover people do that and then all the kids in the neighborhood go. Oh it’s time for rod to go home for dinner time too. So that’s great that guts growth. That way yeah definite way so. I had a lot of fun interests. Lots of imaginative stuff. And i think it was an. I’ll get into that when you ask me a few other questions but it had to do with my family background in place with safety to go to to go to internally which was pretty crucial for me and crucial later as a therapist and is an artist. I love movies. I used to love to go to watch science. Fiction movies sleepover with my friends. Outside all the time. I used to do a little bit of drawing but not a lot. I had a a fair hand so i would sort of push that but i was busy with action. I was doing things more than reading or or anything else. That’s boys do kinetic. I guess yeah right yeah quo. Along the way. I it sounds at some point. You made the decision to become a psychotherapist and an artist. Right the star wars y you decide to become a psychotherapist. Interesting thing is. I think the seeds for being a psychotherapist were set or sewn when i was two or three years of age and that sounds odd. But let me explain. My family was In a lot of turmoil my parents thought tremendously and he fought violently. And i was really able to at a very early age. Look at their faces. Listen to their voices and their body language and see vice were about to develop and that was important because sometimes i had the role of sort of getting in the way and stopping it so my sense were honed at a pretty early age and that stuck with me so you can walk into a room and i can read it and can look at people surely quickly and sort of see what they’re feeling and see what they’re thinking it’s sometimes it’s great for my profession but sometimes it’s a curse because you don’t want to see a lot of this thing exactly so you know and then later my mother would take me and i was confident. She told me all the problems with my father. I became a good list. There and i could do that with friends. How it came to be that it morphed into an interest in psychology was senior year. I had a wonderful english professor In my senior year and it was all literature literature base and we studied all kinds of great literature and macbeth came up and we had to read macbeth and he thought it would be fun. Because there’s a lot of psychological stuff like lady macbeth handwashing except compulsive disorder and macbeth’s inability to act. He thought you know this would be fun. If we looked at this from a freudian perspective and i really never heard of it before but he’s sort of outlined as and we had to do a paper on that and we also had illustrate the paper. So i had a blast. Just you know analyzing the bath. When it came time to go to college. I was not very academically oriented and had not a lot of interest in that thing. But i was going to go to college. No doubt about it. So i picked my major psychologist. Oh that’d be fun. So that’s how psychology came into play as i began to study it though. I was really sort of intrigued with the more dramatic aspects of it. In the more out. There edgy kinds of things. A lot of my activities have always been sort of going to the edge and there’s a place there when you’re out in an edge where you have to focus really focus very strongly and that to me is worth sort of creativity comes in and you can hone it there. So as i was going along the very dramatic psychoses and emotive kinds of disorders really became interesting to me. And that’s what i began to focus on and that’s what my career is made of treating people with very severe mental illness. It’s an interesting path that you had taken especially when you consider how you grew up and the relationship that you had with your parents i think during that period of time there were a lot of parents out there that did argue a lot and i know it just seemed to be. Maybe it’s because they were both working. They both have jobs and they won’t dealing with other issues then. Unfortunately i think the children are the ones that in your case you turn it into a positive thing and and unfortunately i don’t need to tell you this there’s probably been millions of children that have been affected by that that they carry those scars with throughout their life.

00:15:13 – 00:20:04

I suspect some of the patients that you have to deal with probably came from a similar background as yours. Sometimes yes and all those things that you can see that as as yeah it was not not fun growing up it was painful but boy it really honed. A love of things with it allowed me to go deep inside myself and find a place of safety and fantasy. Was that place. So while i’m watching all this stuff erupt i’m going deep into myself to protect myself emotionally from all this stuff and that’s an important thing When you’re doing therapy too because you have to be involved. But you have to have a sort of a pullback you have to have a sense of detachment so you. Don’t overreact and you don’t do things that are dangerous to yourself or the client place right in your own soul and psyche leah to detach detach tough. Yeah two detached and involved at the same time and again all the fun activities that i was interested growing pets. Same quality walking out on an edge having this focus being in control of your emotions and acting. I mean being able to act and do something It y was part and parcel. That i think kind of saved me from a lot of difficult. Well apparently is your destiny. Exactly really was but before we get into your work as a portrait artists. I what kind of people do you treat in your psychotherapy. We treat people with severe mental illness know their words diagnoses of schizophrenia manic depressive bipolar severe depression things of that nature sometimes some people with asperger’s and some other things but these are the people who have been spent most of their adult lives in state hospitals. They’ve been locked away and forgotten about their. This is the most difficult and the population. What we can’t do or people who are serious. Leave violent because we treat these people in an open setting. They’re not locked up when they come to us. So we do. Is we bring them out of these restricted environments. Put them in an open setting work with them on a daily basis. And we’ve got a great staff to do that and help to get them to understand their symptoms. There’s no cure for this. Unfortunately but we can help them to manage their symptoms to lead better and more productive lives and we integrate them back out into the community. We take them right out into the community to have all kinds of activities and and work with them as they’re going along with that so it’s pretty interesting and it really works. We’ve made a difference in a lot of lives. We don’t have success all the time but a lot of a lot of success. But you mentioned as you’re growing up pugh when internally you had this safe place at you rationalized what was going on on the outside world but also may be to a degree and built ear own and wanna use word fantasy but your own self awareness. Let’s use that your own self awareness self awareness but fantasy too. Because while i was aware of myself. I needed a place to get away from the stuff shrill while it’s happening you. I’m turning myself into tarzan or or You know some space person or you know whatever it was just to sort of get away from that total intensity at the moment while it’s going on so and that was That allowed me to t to get a focus and a healthy focus to be able to focus something and then they will use it to act to help in the situation to get in the way of my parents. Because if i’m tarzan i can do this sort of thing. I can get in the way of my father when he’s trying to hit my mother and and that sort of thing so that was it also is. You’re sharing those experiences with this. It seems to me that that was the birth of your creativity because our discussion with you is going to be about your art in your in how you ended up with your art. But it’s pretty interesting that that you you’re exploring a your imagination at a very young age and that imagination has carried you forward. I know both engine. I’ve had the opportu- sear provocative art andrew portraits and. I’d like to know what you find so fascinating about painting or drawing people’s faces. I have to tell people that we will talk about this later. Because we want people to see your art. I when i first discovered i was amazed. It’s very intriguing. But you seem to focus on people’s faces you tell us a little bit about that. Yeah it’s an interesting story to my earliest memory.

00:20:04 – 00:25:02

I have memories visual memories going back to probably two to three months of age. I remember at my. I’m in a no no verbal attached to this at my grandmother’s house in a preemptive later. And i’m looking up and i can see the pictures on her wall. He’s photographs and i see two faces coming in over. I’m assuming i don’t know who they are. I’m assuming there and an uncle in there looking at me and that’s my first memory in visual and faces so i mean that’s stuck with me and then needing to see. My parents faces when they were doing these things to be able to read them to sense when these fights are coming up. The face became pretty intriguing to me and it really shows you know what’s going on with the person so it’s also difficult thing to to paint her to draw to get all the proportions right and i like difficulty so i think it was just a natural for me to be drawn to face that i could really do something with the face and really show knee and and basically what a lot of life experiences about by by focusing on a face and a portrait. We don’t need to tell you this. There’s what more muscles in a human face than anywhere else and when the expressions could be. What’s the word juxtaposed juxtaposed into so many different happy sad mean also like nuances like when we watch some of the older movies where you see like twenty different expressions in one little actress or an actor. That’s really telling exactly. And that’s fascinating to me. And i love to watch movies and i love to do that Look at the actress motivation. Look at to see what the subtext is. I’ve been doing that all my life with people and it’s so interesting to see it and then i wanna portrayed i want to draw i wanna paint it. I wanna i wanna put it down because it really moves me. And so i wanna take that change it up inside me and put it out in a new way. That’s interesting i b we. We recently saw this small documentary on the silent movies and those actors and actresses Had to do everything by facial expressions conveying everything. And it’s interesting. At least i see a strong correlation between your art and juror psychotherapy and the fact the way you grew up in how you witnessed people’s expressions change and she. I knew you have a question to follow. Put this one you know. How did you end up focusing on making portraits of yourself and like rod said. I think some of them can be disturbing. But i know that you know given your history that there is a story behind this absolutely i originally i. I’ve been interested in our for a long time. I went through various phases and for a long time. I was doing a lot of photo realism things and then my business went through some slumps. And i had to sort of back away from art and i got into some other activities things that were fun. When i came back to art i was like. I don’t wanna copy photographs. I wanna learn to draw and paint from life. And so what i did and i wasn’t terribly skilled doing that so what i did was for two years. I sat down in front of a mirror. And i did nothing but drama. I face not in any strange way but with all these different draw from the side from up from down from many many different angles views. And i did that for two years and to develop my skills and one day i thought you know. Okay you can draw this now. What am i going to do with us. You know i could pay portrait’s and stuff but it wasn’t capturing it wasn’t interesting so i played i. I took my drawing pad. And i drew my eye on a slash. I do something else. Think wow what’s this and that was it. I mean the spark hit me and it was like okay. There’s a mine here that that just has a never ending source to it. So that was ed. We sort of a flash of inspiration to make this change after. Just mundanely drawing my face for two years. Well that is. It’d be not very many artists. Have that kind of commitment and painting. The human face is one of the most difficult things to capture. There’ve been some incredibly great portrait artists and been corporate artists that have taken the human face and converted some of the most bizarre ways. Your stuff stands on its own. I have to say you know. You commented about artists psychology psychological images. And how the emergence startling ways could you share with us your thoughts on that. Well i think it was talking about myself. But i think other people as well. I think that when you anytime.

00:25:02 – 00:30:02

When i look at somebody’s art there usually doing a self portrait. No matter what it is. it’s a landscaper. An abstract basically painting themselves and so when people are doing you take a look at a rembrandt for example you look at his portrait’s. He’s painting the lightness there. But you can see if you look at his self fortunate you can see transposition from his. Is his subjects is. There’s that light in both of them. So he’s basically you painting himself in this likeness of another person and that psychological. You’re projecting yourself onto this and you can’t help. It is an artist and that to me is really interesting. Is that something that you learned along the way or is that part of observations. Something you all your own thoughts from your profession. Oh from me. it’s observation. I mean in my interest in art. I’ve spent god countless hours in museums. And i have a incredible library of artists books inside. Pour over these images and i look for these connections because i want to learn and i want to learn from the best so i try to not just look at how. They’ve painted user brushstrokes us. There is but what they did with their minds to come up with what they did. Try to follow that thought process When when you read their life stories the they’ve had a lot of had their own issues growing up or and it has impacted their art or it was a way to escape And i think there’s artists out there that use creativity in general as a way to escape the everyday toils of life right absolutely absolutely. Yeah it’s a place that i love to live. Creativity is is. It’s a life force for me. And i and i can’t not have it in my life in. If server or madurai there has to be creativity there are. It’s just not interested. That’s why we knew you would be a perfect guest on our podcast exactly. So we’re gonna say. I’m just going to say and i seen your art both realism and abstraction. Is there a reason why you create this way. Well absolutely first of all the realism is going to give a sort of a base. A touchstone where people can relate to realistically but the abstraction is where you can take something and push it to the edge and sometimes push over the edge and that to me is is what’s really interesting. I liked the best. You can bend the rules with abstraction you can throw the rules out and create your own you you can take to a place. That’s just you goes deep as you wanna go and that just turns me out. And that’s what i wanna do. And that’s what i’m trying to do with my work to make an impact that has a realistic Message to it but is abstract in the sense that i’m taking some place you haven’t been before and let’s go there you know i. Oh often say it. When people make a comment about my art. I always say it’s experimental every single thing that i paint and i’m sure that’s the same for you. I know it’s the same for angie and the same for you. Chess that everything. That you’ve created artistically. Just been an experiment. Oh absolutely absolutely. It’s play you know it’s it’s more of an experiment. It’s play down and when when i sit down and i sometimes i’ll have a clear image my mind of what i wanna do and what i want to say many times they don’t and i’ll generally start with an i and that i will tell me something. It’s got a different expression each time and my emotions and stuff before. I want to go with it. We’ll sort of dictate. Then it’ll it’ll tell me. Do i want to put the no straight on. Do i want to bend the knows. What do i want to do on a fracture. This and i’ll start to draw a line to do that. And that line is the play. And that tells me the direction of where it’s going to go and one thing suggests another and then i’ve got this whole intriguing thing that asked tied together necessarily fun park. That’s where the abstraction comes in. That’s where the flow of lying and shade and form come together and it surprises me sometimes and Know always comes out in an interesting way and so it’s play excellent. Yeah yeah. I’m gonna ask you a question that i hate to ask people. I hate it when people ask me this question but when we chatted before we did this podcast. We talked about a couple of different artists in. I made a reference to one in particular that to some degree or is a little bit like this particular artists. Answer any artist that you feel has helped you in the way you’ve developed your style or have you really come to your own terms with your style. Well i’ve come to my own terms.

00:30:02 – 00:35:15

But i’ve stolen a lot and i think all artists do that. I’ve stolen directly during influenced much by francis bacon and picasso’s work especially as work around that time that he he painted guaranic with the juxtaposition of the faces and things of that sort but every other artists. You know vermeer rembrandt goya all these people. I steal from i steal their their compositions and unabashed saying that. I think but what happens is gets nixed into me and it comes out as me so you can see the references and you can see references from bacon to picasso but then they can became himself and imitating picasso originally and kind of what i’ve done and i think a lot of artists stealing when you do that chess. I think i don’t think you are. And i’ll tell you why because you are making it your unique style. I mean i’ve seen people you know when you look on instagram. I’m sure you have to where they just take it like dictation. They’ll just flat out make it exactly like the cost. Were exactly the pirates you. It’s kinda cool because you’re taking it and you’re getting inspired and then you make an evolution for your own style so that’s really cool. It’s part of our education education cool. We have these people have inspired me. And then i jumped with it but i i see i have only jump into myself. You know and it’s if if i wasn’t doing it from me i wouldn’t be interested in it and i’d be bored with it and i wouldn’t do it. You’d be taking dictation exactly exactly considering your professional life and we suspect that could be pretty demanding and draining especially based on some of the things that you told us. Has your art. Become a form of therapy for yourself. Definitely not interestingly sell. You’d think it might be guilty. I would immediately say. Oh yes i keep into my art to know that deal with during the day right now even if i didn’t have banks even if i’m on vacation sometimes i’m in the most relaxes when i want to create the most so no it’s not a form of escape art and create titian gain. Creativity for me is a must. It’s i can’t not do it. And it’s not an escape and i’m gonna do a little quick follow up. There you have mentioned your soulmate. Your wife as she very supportive of your are your creativity into she Paint no but she’s a writer and She’s very supportive. Yeah she loves the arts. We both love to watch. Go to place when we could and ballet and all of that and were we just do pour over that kind of stuff and literature and reading and discuss all that. She’s she’s the best and absolutely just right right in there with me. Well that’s great. You both share that creative driver thought or nurture one another that way because she could support. Your argument can support her writing. That’s the perfect relationship. I think you’re obviously very creative and skilled artists. So how how does your work fuel your emotions in. How do you transmute them into creativity. That’s a good question. I would say that my emotions and my or linked. And when i’m feeling something or remembering an event that i want to portray it takes me. The emotions are there but they need to be channelled so it’s going in taking those emotions and taking them deep inside of me like it did was a kid and putting a focus on it. What is it that i want to say. What a what exactly my feeling. And how does that make me see what i wanna put down there and so of course it influences that i mean all of my. My work is all about emotions and the effective of life on me so it. It’s you know definitely directly related when you when you’re in your practice and you’re treating patients. Do you think about your art at that time. Well i think about the creativity. Don’t always have time to do that. There are very strange things that happen in my work in terms of where the clients and i have to go sometimes because they had this profound thought disorder and the creativity and the flexibility that i have from doing the kind of artwork that i do really translates into how england reproach his client and get inside their head to make a difference and that’s an interesting process and sometimes scary and sometimes lots of fun and i can tell you some stories about that if you wanna hear them yeah sure give us a story.

00:35:15 – 00:40:07

We have time in in this fascinating absolutely fascinating. Okay well. I think i’d mentioned this once before in our conversation i had a client who wouldn’t speak to anybody. He came to us. Wouldn’t talk to anybody if you ask them. A question tried to get him to talk about his experiences. He would just clam up and in his report. It said that he just felt that he was from mars and he wouldn’t talk anybody because he didn’t feel that he related so nobody could get him to do any sort of talking. And being the kinda guy that i am and then these are the things that my wife taught me in terms of doing therapy i saw. I need to take a different approach. I walk in the room with him. And i said you know what i went to mars last night and i looked you up and went to the hall of records and made up some name and they sit and they. You’ve never been there and i started rattling off about you. Know the hula blah blah Cafe near the bend in the what you call it can and went into detail just making it up going along and his eyes are starting to get wider me and he doesn’t know what to do and i i didn’t let them talk and i just i did this for like a half an hour. Qena what i’ll see you tomorrow. I just left it. I came back the next day and he was a little agitated and went through the same rigmarole. They did this for about two or three weeks until finally. He started to talk to me if he tried to. Challenge me on any of this stuff. I’d say iran. I give a bunch of reasons. Why and pretty city began to talk to me more rational and reasonable way and it turned out that he felt this real sense of alienation. He grew up with that. Put down in school. And when the psychosis it magnified all this these are the kinds of things that That happened and you have to be creative to deal with it. There’s another client that. I have that that i draw his portrait and this was an interesting guy when he first came to us. He wouldn’t let anybody get near to him. He had to be like six feet away from him at all times and he was yelling constantly. Twenty four hours a day practically not sleeping and it was driving everybody nuts and he kept yelling needed to talk to god so i walked in was room in his loud as i could in a commanding voice. I said i’m god. What do you want. And he said finally started to tell me all of his problems. And i listened and the next day i came in and and i said i’m god here i am. What do you wanna today. I also told him you have to stop yelling. So he did so the next day i came in and said you know what you said. You’re not god. you’re an archangel. I’m being demoted. Which is good. Which is what you serve so we would go talk about that then pretty soon. I’m just an angel. Then i’m the head of the cia then fbi agent then amber a detective and then his therapist and this takes place over a very long period of time. So it’s going or he was going now he’s still holds a lot of these crazy delusions and it’s for him to focus. He’s got a really strong ego so i said to him one day sit down. I’m gonna draw you and it was good practice for me. Because i was working on just ten in ink sketches and. I don’t have a good hands in good training. So i’m drawing him and and i asked him when he’s done he’s all over the place things crazy things and i show them the portrait and he says wow and he’s telling me what he’s feeling when i’m driving it so interesting so he asked me to do it again. So three hundred drawings later drawing focuses him. When i’m drawing it focuses and gets them away from all this crazy stuff then he can tell me about his day his actuality and what he’s what he’s doing and it’s been pretty impactful for him so i combined art and therapy i got. We both got something out of it. I got much better at at at drawing portraits and and he gets some help and contact. And that’s a therapy is all about it’s about making your connection You say on do all these things. Have you used your. Have you chase view. Use that technique with your clients in other cases where you actually drew. Were you actually china. And i know a couple of times. They’ve asked me to do it. But this was a specific thing to help him to focus right. And i i haven’t needed to because generally alarm. My clients are kind of wrapped up in themselves. And you know they either won’t talk about anything or they’re really ready to spill everything and so there’s just not enough time and it would be distracting to do that.

00:40:08 – 00:45:17

But the creativity. The creativity of doing it allows me to get inside their heads. I can see that and so. Did you ever leave what you are doing all day and then come home and then just immediately pick up your pen and paper and draw something that you actually saw are witnessed every day. That happens under stimulating. I do. I do art work every day and not all the time when i’m here but there’s not a day that goes by that i don’t and so yes i come home and i let the day absorb and sort of see what really pops up. What’s pushing underneath. It needs to come out and sit down. And i’ll start to draw and yes it definitely half. My stuff is just what happened during the day and how it impacted me and from several different sources several different clients have impacted in different ways. And that’ll come out in the drawn. Does that help you. Deprogrammed yourself at the end of the day no e. We’ve become pretty adept at once. Somebody leaves the office. We shut it down and we’re pretty good at that. Just shifting gears. I’ve always been a good gear shifter in my head to get away from if i can’t do something about something i shift gears while you know. I have to tell people both engine. I encourage people to take a look at your our work on instagram. Actually that’s where i first discovered told me about him. I told her daughter about it. And i was fascinated by what i saw. We we’ve been to museums all over the world. We understand are reasonably well. If anybody can actually understand art and i was fascinated by what i saw and the people that have an opportunity to take a look at your artwork on your website which is very good. It will mention that later They’re going to be in my opinion. They’re gonna be amazed at what they see and especially the faces the the fractured or abbreviated portraits. That you’ve done can you can you. This is going to be tough. Can you paint a mental picture for listers as to what they will see. Good luck that one is a lot of at. And and i’m not a word smith so bear with me here. Well i think we’re gonna see when you first look at this is a wow and then a ha and by that i mean even to see something that you do not expecting. It’s like what’s going on here. You’re gonna start to look a little closer and you’re going to see that one is moved off to a different direction. I mean one hundred eighty degrees off to another direction and then those who sort of bent and maybe fractured and put into different places in the mouth has doesn’t connect and maybe there’s two miles into one and yet at all sort of flows together in in a moment and it’s disorienting but at the same time it kind of opens you up to some feelings that you might have had when you what what’s happening there these paintings. I’m distilling in event. And if you look at events especially dramatic events in your life. They don’t come at you in a real. You might see things from different viewpoints and angles and distortions. And that’s what i’m trying to do. In one moment in other words all these things that are happening to coalesce into one moment and it’s going to be fractured. And those fracturing makes sense to me and they make sense to other people they frighten. They made this orient them. But you’re going to be taken someplace. And that’s what i’m trying to do to take because i’ve taken my self someplace to do it and i just want show the human condition and what’s underneath the human condition. Not just the face of it. I’d say you did. A pretty good job is like that but you painted a pretty good Picture with words but people are really going to have to see your work. You really have to view it for yourself. I mean that’s what arts all about anyway. Bright absolutely so. What would you like to convey with your art to the viewer when you when someone stumbles upon your instagram or your website. What would you like them to to get from it. i for people to look underneath. I guess to take the skin away. Because that’s what the abstractions about In my thing. I’m i’m showing my insides. I’m showing my stock and emotional process. And i think that it’s important for people especially in this day with all that we’ve been through to look underneath it ourselves to look at what the impact of life is ’cause when you know what’s happened to you when you see what’s happened to you you have two choices you can either succumb to it or you can do something about it and i’m trying to show the fact that if you look at it you can do something about it.

00:45:17 – 00:50:00

That’s what i’m doing with my. I’m doing something with events in my life. I’m portraying them but i’m portraying them in a in a way that’s hopefully instructive thing That sort of thing. Well okay gray ashu this question that we like test people in five words or less. What would your advice be to people who want to live or be more creative. ’cause you surly are forwards and that would be be yourself and go when i when i mean go i mean act do it be yourself and put it out there. It’s really good. yeah. I think too often. We psych ourselves out of just starting the process of being creative. And even if you just make a little baby step each day towards something that you want to do creatively mike. You obviously have special the time you spent teaching yourself which i greatly admire that quite good vase ‘rational really. Is you know. I think that so many people criticise themselves and you. You really can’t do that with creativity and with art because it’s really just an expression that’s right and that’s what i mean by go. I mean you’ve got a blank paper blank campbell’s blank anything and it’s up to you to make something. And that’s what creativity is creativity action. It’s not passive. You know it’s it’s moving. It’s it’s taking yourself and doing something with that. Which makes something true true but now we’re going to ask you a question. We ask all of our guests. And i’m always fascinated by the answers and that is if you could sit on a park bench and chat with anyone from the past. Who would it be. Well i’ll start out with saying. I would probably want to spend time with my grandmother. My mother my father and my brother and sister all who are deceased and just go over my life with them and their lives. But i think you’re asking for more of a professional or famous kind of a person and so that person to me. I think would be on vermeer not much known about him. I’d really like to probe him on how he was able to. Miraculously paint the air in a room and the painters stillness that says so much. I’d like to look over shoulder. What how he did it and you look at his painting so it’s tremendously realistic. But the paint isn’t like its photographic we put on there there’s their dogs and blobs to it and they all coalesce into magic and i’d wanna talk to him about how he did that and i’d like to find out what his inspiration who are what his life was like what his torments were for. He’d be the one. I’d want to spend time if amir has been very popular. Answer it is question. I wanna go back though to something you said about heavy dow To sit down with your grandparents your mother your father your brother. What do you think if you showed them your art in your creativity. What do you think they’re impression would be. Would they be proud. Would they be curious. Would they go. We can’t believe you do this. Or what do you think they would think. Oh yeah they would definitely be proud. They were while the house was crazy terminal. They were tremendously supportive of me. So i had that yes they. They probably wouldn’t understand it. My father wouldn’t understand it at all but he’d be amazed by it and he’d be probably asking me questions like you know what’s funny way had a good sense of humor My mother to be tremendously supportive. My brother would love what i did and my sister would as well. So yeah they they would they would. They would get me. Might not get the art that they would get me doing. That’s great that’s a great answer. Excellent answer and i’m so happy that would be the case. Yeah you know. It’s unfortunate that we can’t go back and bizarre parents and let them see what we’ve accomplished. And i think we all like to think that they’re going to be proud of us. I know mine would be. And i’m sure yours would be extremely proud of what you’re doing. You’re not only very talented as an artist. But you’re helping mankind or helping people definitely in that that’s should be very rewarding. It is very much so era.

00:50:00 – 00:52:20

Much some well chess over coming up to our end here ear very much living an interesting and creative life and we’re so glad you’re able to share some of that with us in our listeners of this has been a fascinating discussion you were very open which we greatly appreciate and some of the things that you shared and probably also very importantly as we want people to go. Check your website ear instagram. And i agree. With ron such an interesting interesting and creative life and i want to let everyone know our listeners. If you’d like to know more about chess we will have links for him under the show. Guest tab on thought row podcasts dot com so everyone can learn more about him and please connect with him on social media and check out his website. Yeah you wanna do that yes chest. Thanks again for being with us today and we have so enjoyed this conversation with you thank you. I mean it was an absolute pleasure. I wish we had you know four or five more hours. Because there’s a lotta stuff we could really get into. It should be loads of fun. I mean this is a tremendous experience for me and you guys are doing a great job with this and so interesting. I i love your focus on creativity because it’s sort of the root of things and you guys are getting to the point of what creativity is about not that many people talk about it in that way so this has been exciting very. I always like to say you’ll be back anytime anytime huge as i’m really glad you tuned in today. We hope you enjoyed the thoughts and ideas we shared with you. We post a new podcast every week. So remember to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. So you don’t miss an episode. So it’s by for now from my husband rod. I wishing everyone a great day blind.