45 Andrew Tischler — The Chase for Something Greater

Andrew Tischler: 0:00

So in their experience, photo is real. So when they say, Oh, looks like a photo, I'm like, cheers. In the beginning, it used to really bother me. But, you know, I what I'm trying to do is going beyond that I want to recreate an experience and be able to share that experience with the viewer. That's the choice for me. It's not trickery or illusion, per se. It's not to try and pull a fast one on the on the on the viewer but it what it's what it's doing is taking them out of a moment where they are and putting them in a new one. And I think it also just get on my horse a little bit here. I think maybe that's that's even needed in today's day and age, you know, with the amount of distraction that we have. Sometimes art is a way that we can access nature, something bigger than us and and just have a moment to check back in. And if in some small way, I can do that with my work. I love that, you know, and that's what I tried to do. It's what I tried to go for.

Laura Arango Baier: 0:55

Welcome to the BoldBrush show, where we believe that fortune favors the bold brush. My name is Laura Arango Baier, and I'm your host. For those of you who are new to the podcast. We are a podcast because there's art marketing techniques and all sorts of business tips specifically to help artists learn to better sell their work. We interview artists at all stages of their careers as well as others who are in careers tied to the art world in order to hear their advice and insights. On this episode, we sat down with fellow podcaster and an incredible artist Andrew Tischler. Andrew is based in New Zealand and has been a professional artist for over 20 years. He focuses not only on producing the absolute best work that he can create, but also focuses on helping others learn to do the same through his podcast, YouTube channel, and Patreon while also balancing his time so he can be present with his family. We discussed the importance of self development to find your authentic voice, why being moved is the key to moving others, by art created with inner motivation is more powerful than art created from an exterior motivation. And how stepping into different roles can help you move forward in every part of your life. Finally, we discuss how to transition from day job to full time artist focusing on your time management to achieve that goal, and why working on your social media will pay off so long as you're patient and consistent. And to end things off, we talked about Andrews teaching platform called Tisch Academy, and his upcoming courses where he will be taking his students through the fundamentals of oil painting. Yeah,

Andrew Tischler: 2:24

very cool. Yeah. So have we have we started yet? Are we starting?

Laura Arango Baier: 2:29

We're recording. So.

Andrew Tischler: 2:32

All right, you take it away. You're the host. Yeah, I gotta remember, I This isn't my show. This is this is BoldBrush show. This is not this is not Tishler show.

Laura Arango Baier: 2:41

I mean, I'm more than happy to like collaborate, you know, back and forth a little bit, because I like to treat podcasts as like a conversation as well. Obviously, we're here to talk about your work and all the amazing stuff that you've been doing all your life. While I've been, you know, like in the crib, like just starting out. I mean, my career hasn't even taken off. And you're like, woof, you're like one of the first people that I actually heard about, you know, when I was first starting out, and like, Oh, my God, this guy's so cool. Like, I remember I'd go on your YouTube and I'd be like, really? Yeah, of course. Oh, that's funny. Yeah. So this is kind of like the crazy moments in my life

Andrew Tischler: 3:17

review. Oh, cool. Oh, that's very, very kind of you. Thank you. I always find that so funny. Because I know me. I just like, I don't know, I'm not that big of a deal. But it's, but it's it's good fun, man. I mean, I love to paint I love to teach. And, and I started YouTube. Kind of it was it was a it was a last ditch effort to just kind of make something of myself. I was in a real dark spot when I started my channel, but I'm not sure where you want me to start with that? I can. I'm happy to answer any questions. I'm an open book, Laura.

Laura Arango Baier: 3:55

Sure. Yeah. Well, actually, before we jump into that, I would love to hear a little bit about you know, maybe for some of our listeners, maybe don't know who you are, which I think that's very few of them. But you know, just give us a quick little backstory on you and who you are, what you do, and then we can take off on the teaching.

Andrew Tischler: 4:14

Sure. Well, okay. I like a lot of people that I talk to on my show, I was always the kid that Drew and I was obsessed with art from a very young age raised by a sculptor, my mother was a painter, but she left when I was two years old. And so I was raised by my father and my stepmother, but my dad really nurtured that artistic spirit in me when I was quite young. And I was quite curious about the natural world and and animals and wildlife and nature was always part of my upbringing. So my father remarried a zoo veterinarian, and there was always something going on with zoos. I would always find myself in the zoo. To like on a school holiday or a break, and so naturally, you know, being, you know, bit arty as a kid and having this abundant subject matter there and being stuck into the zoo, I started drawing and painting animals, and I was really taken with that. And then also being a little boy, I was really taken with monsters, dinosaurs and aliens, and that all that good stuff. But um, this was just something that was always around, because my father was sculpting and drawing and doing his art, it wasn't something that was forced on me, but it was just there. And of course, a lot of little boys, I want to be just like, Daddy. So here I am kind of following after his footsteps and, and really, so taken with. I even remember, at the time, even being really young, just so taken with his work ethic and how dedicated he was to his art. I remember having an awareness of that just as a young child, and wanting to be serious like that, too. And so I would have been one of those weird little kids where, if you would ask me, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up a little boy, I would just said, Well, I'm an artist now. And that's not going to change. So as I grow up, I'm just gonna continue doing this thing. And fortunately, it worked out. So kind of fast forward a little bit. You know, I did okay, in school, but I was a distracted student. And I really just wanted to draw on paint. And I, you know, got out of there went into art school. So I did a cursory university course got a degree in fine art, I wouldn't recommend it at all. I think there's ways to study art that makes sense in today's day and age, but there, you really need to do your homework before you go into an art school to make sure that it aligns with your values and your direction in life. And it was just a poor choice on my part. Maybe I made some assumptions there. But after that, shortly after that, there was a bit of a recovery process of finding myself after university, and then I went into full time painting. So I say that, you know, at this point here, I've been a full time artists for the last 20 years, I just turned 40. And I pretty much went full time. 2021 years old around there. But I say I went pro kind of while I was in my university, you know, doing my university course, because I just I was just like, Screw it, I'm just going to exhibit my work, I'm gonna start selling my work do commissions and, and I was supporting myself. So excuse me, a lot of a lot of my fellow classmates were, you know, they were working jobs, they're doing all their stuff, but I was making a go of it by by painting. And so that at the time that I don't think the lectures were too, too happy about that. I had odd jobs here and there to try and make ends meet. But really officially full time never had another job since I was 21 years old. So I've been going since then. And it's been great. I mean, there have been ups and downs of course. And so my work in terms of what I love to do, I I'm just I'm inspired by it all, it's really hard to kind of pin myself down to a specific subject or genre. I love landscape. I love painting big. I love animals and wildlife. I love portraiture, I mean, I adore portraiture I give you feel like you have a connection with your subject and you just want to capture that on the linen with by pushing that paint around. There's something so amazing that happens when you're painting that I just, I'm addicted to it. You know, it's like surfers talking about the chase, you know, that perfect wave or the search. You know, for me it's a similar search of when you're painting just trying to capture that thing. And so naturally, I was always have always been taken with realism and traditional realism and you know, as I was developing, I started to become aware of past artists art history, some of my art heroes and and then ultimately wanted to paint like them wanted to be like them, you know, the Hudson River School 19th century, painters from all over the world, you know, like here we've got evolving from Norway. He's a great painter, you know, but others like like Bierstadt and Thomas Moran are in Australia, Arthur Streeton. Tom Roberts Frederick McCubbin here in New Zealand, we have had an amazing portrait artists, Charles F. Goldie. And so I think there was really something that was captured out for me that was the zenith of painting was right in that 19th century window, just when photography started to come in. So So painters were using some photographic reference, but they hadn't lost that ability to manipulate that paint. When I say that I think something got lost after now. Now we're picking up again, there's some talented painters working today. some amazing, amazing painters working today. But something about that 19th century period, you know, whether it's Russia or the Victorians over in the UK, the Australians, you know, elsewhere in Europe or the Hudson River School, there was something about that time where it was just, it was happening, man, it was happening, it's so I really wanted to paint like that. There. I've told this story on my podcast, but and others that I've been interviewed on before. But there was a moment where I had sold the same this exhibition called St. Petersburg 1900. And there was a painting by Ivan Ivan of it shotgun. And I remember it. So clearly, there were these, there were these dark trees, everything was caked in snow. But these dark trees were just breaking up that composition. And the little glint of light was coming through the open canopy, and just illuminating some logs in the foreground. And it was massive, this painting was huge. But the way you've done it was with such sensitivity, and such care that when you stood in front of this painting, you felt cold, you felt the wind, or the slight little breeze on your skin, you felt like you were part of something that had been created by hand. And now I was like looking at this thing, it just went, just mind blown is 2005. And then at that point, like I knew I was going to be an artist. But there was something about that moment that solidified in my mind, I want to do this for the rest of my life, I want to do that. That's what I want to do. And I think it's important that we have these experiences, you know, if anybody's listening to this, and and they haven't yet gone out and experience the best art that's out there, go to museums, go to galleries, immerse yourself in this stuff, find out what's possible, and then just go and do it. Try your best to just go and do it. Yeah, so that's my story. In a nutshell. I'm all about it. I love nerding out and geeking out about painting. And I love passing on what I know to others.

Laura Arango Baier: 12:06

Yeah, yeah. And like I mentioned to before, like, you know, I, when I first started out, you were one of the first like, voices, you know, of, you know, talking about painting and how to paint and business side also on YouTube. So you were one of my, my first, like, intros into that world. So I'm really grateful for that. And again, full circle moment, right now. It's also very interesting that you mentioned the Hudson River Valley school, because I can see it, I look at your work and like, this is very Hudson River Valley. It's meticulous, its careful, it's, but it's not overly literal to which is, you know, there's like a very refined balance in between being, you know, to photographic versus, you know, allowing the painting to breathe a little bit in like that, you know, the way that you personally express yourself and your work, which is, I think it has a really nice balance so that way.

Andrew Tischler: 13:08

I appreciate that. Thank you. Well, you know, I haven't yet I haven't arrived at it, you know, me yet. I don't know what the final version of tissue is going to be. But I really, I really try to recreate an experience that said, you know, it's not, and I have people look at my work and it's sweet, it's nice. And they say, oh, it looks just like a photo, you know, you have you have people that don't have the the art background. But that's, that's the language that they use. Because what is a photograph, a photograph looks real, it's a representation of real life. So in their experience, photo is real. So when they say, Oh, looks like a photo, I'm like, cheers. In the beginning, it used to really bother me. But you know, I what I'm trying to do is going beyond that I want to recreate an experience and be able to share that experience with the viewer. The way I was moved, when I was experiencing Shishkin in the museum all those years ago, it's that that's the choice for me. It's not trickery, or illusion, per se. It's not to try and pull a fast one on the on the viewer but it what it's what it's doing is taking them out of a moment where they are and putting them in a new one. And I think it also just get on my horse a little bit here. I think maybe that's that's even needed in today's day and age, you know, with the amount of distraction that we have. Sometimes art is a way that we can access nature, something bigger than us and and just have a moment to check back in and if in some small way, I can do that with my work. I love that, you know, and that's what I try to do. It's what I try to go for. But ultimately when you're trying to recreate an experience, then the entire discipline is unveiled in front of you, because now you have to start paying attention to the way things are work in nature, in terms of visually? How do you do that? You know, what is going on? When you look at the landscape? When you look at nature? How does the light work? You know, how does that atmospheric perspective and depth work? How the heck do you get greens to recede? You know, and all of these things, and then then it comes down to the actual art of picture making, how do you layer that color? What do you start with? What do you even get to paint on? What are you going to paint with. And so this whole discipline was, was opened up in front of me and I, when I started out, now, I felt very much like I was thrown in the deep end, my father did the best he could with his limited painting knowledge. He mean, he had considerable knowledge, you know, compared to most, but being a sculptor, I didn't really have the the background that I needed. So I had to really start getting that knowledge, that information from wherever I could. And so a lot of it was spent, you know, looking at books, mainly looking at pictures, mainly looking at pictures, and I and so, side note, I was made to read as a kid. So consequently, I hate reading, I just don't like reading at all. It's like, you can't make me do anything bad attitude. But one thing that I would do is I would look at picture books, art books. And then because I really wanted to know what that painting was, or who did it, or flipping through nature books, I wanted to know what that animal was, where it was found, or whatever, I would force myself to read that little caption, but it hurt, just read me a little caption that went to the picture. But what I didn't realize at the time is I was actually training my memory. And so now my recall is the child was starting to be trained, so I can pull up names of artists or names of animals, or all these little weird factoids. If you ever go with me to a pop quiz, or a general knowledge quiz, I mean, we'll wipe the floor with the competition. I'm your guy. I'll be on your team. I'm your guide and a general knowledge quiz. It just, just from just pick it up this random crap. I mean, I'll have Rachel sometimes just turn to me, it just it also when I hear something, generally, it's locked in there. She's just like, how the heck do you know that? How did you remember that? So anyway, sidenote,

Laura Arango Baier: 17:14

I fully relate to that. I'm also the actually I have I have multiple friends who call me Google, because I'm also a hoarder of ridiculous information that I like, you know, that I like, honestly, no idea. It just got stuck in my head. No idea why.

Andrew Tischler: 17:32

Brilliant, brilliant. It's great to have that that that recall, though, isn't it? It's nice. Don't get me wrong. You could fill libraries with what I don't know. Okay. You could, you could, I mean, I'm not Google over here. But I, you know, it was just interesting having that that mode as a child, but having that reinforced, and then gradually, you know, back on the art side of things, as you're learning stuff, learning techniques, and you're researching this stuff. Of course, that helps. But the one thing that helped it stick in my mind was doing it. And I was always just just out there painting. You know, it just stuck in the studio or immersed in what I wanted to do. And I was always the guy. I lost a lot of friends. But I was always the guy canceling on everybody. And I'd make up excuses. I got a headache. I feel sick or whatever. But I'm not. I'm not I'm not going out to the bar to drink. Which you guys have not done it. You know, I'm painting. I'm busy. Yeah, they stopped calling.

Laura Arango Baier: 18:32

Yeah, it kind of sucks to it's like, I don't want them to call me but I still want them to invite me.

Andrew Tischler: 18:38

Yeah, well, you don't get the invite. You're like, oh, that thing. You bastard. I missed out. Like we weren't gonna come in anyway.

Laura Arango Baier: 18:44

Exactly. Yeah, I relate to that. Also, I was also I'm also the friend who's like a unicorn. If I show up, it's like, oh, thank you, you know what? Your cave where you normally are. I totally get that. Oh, man. But you know, um, that also brings a lot of value to your presence, you know, like, there, there are very few things that will pull you away from that thing that you're obsessed with all the time. And it can be a good thing and a bad thing, of course, like anything, but I think it also makes you know, oh, I don't know, it makes makes a moment when you are there a little more special? It does.

Andrew Tischler: 19:28

It does. It does. In the thing that I've had to work out later in life, and in recent years since becoming a father was that you have to get that balance right. And so for me, you know, I've got a particular order in my life and not that I ever followed that, you know, exactly because of the human being, but God first than my family, so my marriage than my son than my art. So after those needs get met, then I can focus on the thing that that I feel I was putting here to do. But I just I don't, I also just don't want to miss out on those times those those beautiful moments with my, with my wife, those moments with my kid that I'm never going to get back, you know, and he's growing so fast, he's nearly two years old, it's just insane how quickly the time's going. But he's getting bigger and bigger. And fortunately, I've been there, you know, to watch his first steps I've been there to, to, you know, look for crabs, under rocks on the beach, you know, I've been there for these little moments. And, and I want to keep that going. So I, I do have the tendency to become obsessed, and lose myself in my work. And I would happily work all day, every day and see no one. But, you know, again, we don't live very fulfilled lives. And when we do that, and I think beyond what we do. It's it we are who we are based on who we're with. And those people you know, I've, I'm so blessed Laura to have the people in my life that are that are here, because they make this experience so much richer. It's that first it has to be that first for me. But But hey, look, I'm I'm a I'm a loner, and I'm an art nerd. And I would happily spend all my time doing that stuff, but I gotta keep it balanced.

Laura Arango Baier: 21:24

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's, it's interesting, specifically, also that you mentioned, like that balance, because on the one night, on the one side, right, you know, a father, and I did see, you know, I'm not a mother yet, one day I will be. But I do also consider, like, I saw this video, this random video on Instagram. And it was like this guy that was, first he was complaining about all the fingerprints on the glass on like, the balcony, like sliding door, you know, glass door. And then it flipped to this, this psychologist who was saying, cherish those moments with those tiny little fingerprints, because there's going to come a time when you won't see them again. So instead of complaining about them, it's like, cherish that moment. And I think that's also the beauty of you know, having a family and having children is that children specifically live in the moment they know nothing else, because their lifespan has been so short. Yeah, that, you know, it really brings you back to that experience of, of just being in the what I like to call the eternal present, because there's nothing else there is just now just now. Yeah, yeah. And it's like the meditative states. Yeah, that that monks talk about. It's like you are experiencing eternity in the moment. And it's also something that Joseph Campbell talks about, and Carl Gustav Jung, they all talk about the eternal now. And it's so funny, because recently that that hit me where I was like, of course, that's why I enjoy doing exercise. And also painting because when you're painting, there are those moments of flow, you know, that you've probably experienced, where you're just enjoying that one moment, painting that one part. And you just have, like, all the voices in your head, just be quiet. You know?

Andrew Tischler: 23:19

Oh, really? I haven't experienced that yet. Oh, man, I've experienced flow, but the voices in the head part. Oh, that's still there. I gotta work on that one. I need to

Laura Arango Baier: 23:29

be a challenge. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the voice is also like, they shut up when I'm like, you know, lifting weights, because I love bodybuilding. That's when they really shut up. But with painting, I used to have that, you know, just like vibing sort of painting moments. Personally now, though, I am on a sabbatical from painting, which I've mentioned a couple of times, in other episodes as well, because I had so much schooling, that it killed a lot of my joy for painting. Oh, my word. Yeah. And it's nothing, you know, nothing bad with school. But you know, not everyone thrives in those environments. I have friends who got they do great. They're, they're doing amazing, you know, with what they've learned, and they've gotten galleries and they've gotten stuff. Meanwhile, I'm like, I feel like I'm like limping and like, wait for me guys, you know? But it's because I've been extremely burned out. And also, when it comes to like authenticity, right, which is something that I really want to talk to you about. When it comes to authenticity. academic schools can sometimes really make or break authenticity. For a lot of people. Oh, yes. Yeah, for sure. It can really drown you out. And actually, before I even went to these athletes, I actually went to a magnet school, which is Actually, it's kind of like a specialized high school. And the focus of that high school was actually like Design and the Arts. So I studied architecture in high school and also painting. It isn't like, you know, a police style painting, but I was already doing like artwork assignments for school for four years before I even went to these activities. So I can, I can like count almost 10 years of just painting for school. And it's really been a huge challenge for me, because it wasn't until I officially decided, okay, now I need to put a huge pause button on my life on my painting side, to allow myself to explore and rediscover joy. And I actually heard your episode with Christopher Remmers. And I think you mentioned something around there about that, too. And especially Christopher, because he's he's so wonderful. He's all about like, going out in nature is

Andrew Tischler: 25:53

awesome. Oh, yeah. He's he's the dude. Yeah, right. Artist. Yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 25:58

Yes, he is. Fantastic. And also just an overall inspiring person. Um, yeah. And it was after my conversation with him a few months ago, and also, you know, actually really deciding, okay, now, this is, this is time to stop. And, you know, step back exists outside of my head for a while, that, you know, made me start investigating Eastern philosophy and also like, authenticity, and like, what it means to find yourself, right. But then, like, the deeper sense of not just, you know, like, beyond painting, like who am i right. So I wanted to pick your brain a bit, actually about, yeah, what authenticity means to you?

Andrew Tischler: 26:44

Hmm. Oh, wow. This is a huge topic. This is a really huge topic. But I let me just start off by saying, I relate so much to that, you know, we talked about that a little bit, the beginning, you know, losing myself when I went to art school, and then there was a bit of a recovery period. So I relate to that so much, and really, the last 20 years have been me trying to just pick up those threads again, and and really work out. What is it that makes Tish tick? What is it that that really, that I responding to that I want to say? And that that can sometimes take a lifetime for some people to discover, but I think we can get there a little bit faster. Now, I don't have a complete formula or a thought and I'm by no means an expert on this stuff. But one thing that I've done over the last few years is is I've gone, just Full Tilt into, like just aggressive personal development, just really trying to work out all of this stuff, and trying to live as as honorably, as honestly, as I can. And to just be the person. I heard somebody say this, what's his name is Wes Watson, it is cutter incredible YouTube channel, filthy mouth on the but this guy's amazing what he's achieved. But he said, become the man that you're supposed to be, or become the man that you admire and give him to the world. Now, a lot of his stuff, a lot of his content is geared towards men helping men improve themselves. Because I think it for the for, you know, well, it's the case with a lot of guys that they've dropped the ball, you know, and so we need to step up and take responsibility. What does that mean? And so I've been really exploring all of this stuff. And it's interesting how it's kind of flowed on into my art, and finding out who I am and what I want to say. But I realized early on from working on commissions, in particular when I would do work for a paycheck when I do work for some sort of external motivation. My work was pretty rubbish. It wasn't it wasn't really hitting those those notes where I was able to hit when I was really inspired. And so first fortunately, pretty early on I recognized that the work that I did for myself that was really exploring something that was deep within and nobody asked for this and no one was expecting it either that that's a really important thing because anticipation with with your viewers or your audience can sometimes stifle that creative process you know, you're thinking all they're gonna see this what are people going to think of people are waiting on this and then you start getting in their head or you're allowing their them to enter your headspace and and so now that external creeps in, you know, Joe Paquette and I were talking about this and he talks about it, you know, the external versus the internal and I'm right there on that philosophy. That's it and this is one thing that we have to do as artists and this is when it becomes a little bit of a trick, making it work from a business side of things because if you You want one way to lose your authenticity, it's to get lost on that business side and try and expect a monetary return on things that are supposed to be felt creative, sensitive, you know, and you know, great art, the minute you inject that business side of things into this, now suddenly, you're you're off on that external track again. So it's really balancing out that internal with the external. And the way I do it is basically, I spend time in nature, I spend time with my subject. And I also spend time with those artists from the past, look into their work, whether it's in galleries, and museums, or books, or even online. And I just see, and I listened to those triggers of what's moving me, because of those moments where you're moved. That's the gift, that to me, it feels like a real God connection. You know, and being a Christian, like I, I really try to live and I want to be, you know, a servant. And so what I'm, what I'm doing is, I'm thinking about those things continually. And when we're, I feel like when we're on track, when we're online, we're given these gifts and a moment. And it can be something so subtle, like the moment when sunlight hits a mountain, and it explodes with color, and suddenly, you're like, Whoa, pay attention to that, whoa, pay attention to that thing, just going far out, that's mind blowing. And so the thing I tried to do is capture that moment, have a way of recording it in some way, and then recreate that and bring that back to life in the studio. Now, what actually ends up happening when we're on when we're, when we're really tapped into that thing that's moving us on a deep level. For some people, though, might call that a like a deep emotional level. For me, it's a spiritual thing, when it's moving you on that deep level, and you can't even put it into words. And then you try and capture that as soon as you create something based on that. Now you have the opportunity, the gift of being able to share that with somebody else. But the minute you do something where you're thinking, You know what I'm going to, I'm going to really impress Laura, I, she loves this, and this is what I'm going to do and, and so I'm going to paint this picture, and I'm going to hit all of those notes that were in that conversation that we had or whatever, it so I repackaged this thing, I recreate this thing, I'm in my head, I've tried to be a mind reader here and trying to interpret what's in yours. Now suddenly, you look at it, you go enter, this is very nice, but it's nothing like that thing you did before. You know, and so recreate it trying to learn what those patterns are, what those triggers are, and get in touch with that. And and so that's that's where I start. And so in terms of authenticity, I just tried to be present in the now, as you were saying, but with those moments where my mind is just been blown by how amazing creation is, you know how amazing sunlight is, how amazing these rocky forms on mountains are, how amazing the clarity and depth of water is. And I'm just going wow, wow, wow, you know, just looking at all this stuff. It's just, it's amazing. And they're just just trying to wreak recreate that recapture that. But there is the flip side to this is we as artists, in this day and age, we should be we need to be running a business. And I haven't met many artists, you know, there have been some but for the most part, people want to support themselves with what they love doing. So how do you do that? Dallas, there's a trick. So again, you're balancing out the internal so the Whoa, that moment between you and your Creator or you and the universe if you're if you're into that. So you try to balance that out with this, this new thing of now now how do I create a product. So, for me, I have to have this gonna sound a little nutty, but I have to have different roles. I got different characters that I play. And so I have to get into a different identity totally. And I've got four major identities that I'm running in my life. One of them is a husband. One of them is a father. One of them is a businessman, and the other is the artist. Now the husband is not a great artist or a businessman. The husband has got to be you know emotionally sensitive, attentive you know loyal, devoted right there in that moment to hold that space with as a father. I can't be on my phone. I can't be watching something else. I can't be thinking about anything I have to be on the carpet with the trucks making the sound effects or or having Hugo dump on my back and we're going for a ride through the house. You know, I have to be in those moments like that if I if I'm caught up in my head with with something else I'm meeting up but but specifically about art authenticity in the art business. There's two major characters there. So one of them, this is gonna sound silly, but it's just for me, okay, and for whoever's listening to this, maybe think about this. It's something that works for you. But what works for me is that businessman, that's Tisch, or the Tisch, which is so dumb, I know. It kind of reminds me this character of this this movie, I can't even remember which one it was. But there was a character called the Chad. I can't remember what movie that was. But it was like this ridiculous, like, Jock type character. But Tisch is a bit like that. Because Tish, Tisch knows how to go in and get something done. Tish knows how to lead his team, Tish knows how to make the business work. Titian knows how to get the job done on time, you know, and knows how to knows how to get in that uncomfortable place, and stay there and grind it out. And this is where working out because Tish not only is running the business, but he's also showing up in the gym. But I need a different character for that art to take over, because Tish can't pay to save himself. Because as soon as Tish paints to starts making business decisions, what I need is I need for the artists to show up. And that's the master. And now not that I've mastered this, but that's who I aspire to be, I want to master this. And any master that I've spoken to they've they're always a student, they're always learning. But to me, in my head, I've got that character where I'm thinking, Okay, now, the masters here, so who is the master. So I've got things that I'm focusing on, I've got a particular physiology that I'm focused on as well that I'm doing something with my body. And I've got a particular language that I use. Now, if this sounds familiar to anybody, it's called a triad. And I actually learned this technique from Tony Robbins. And I've done a few of his courses, read some of his books. And, you know, he's amazing in the personal development space. But soon as I heard this, I'm like, that is so applicable for art, I could make this work for my business, I can make this work for my marriage, I can make it work as an artist, I can make it work. You know, as a father, for whatever role I have in my life, I can do this. So then again, I know I'm all over the map here. But let's let let me tie a little bow around this. Because with the question of authenticity, we need to be aware of of what those triggers are, and what we're feeling in that moment. And what are the things that we're telling ourselves in that moment, that's what needs to get recreated in the studio. So there's something when I'm in the field, and I'm looking at this thing, and I moved, and I'm saying particular things, I'm feeling particular things, I'm doing particular things with my body that I'm not even aware of, but there's a breath, it's just like, it almost feels like your breath is taken away. It's like, wow, wow, you're just so humbled in that moment. So it's getting back into that state, when you're painting. Now you've got a thing, you let the artists create that pain, and now you've got a thing. Now just go and sell it, go and do it. There's all sorts of different ways that you can do that. But then that's the point of getting into the marketing side of things. The trouble is, is that a lot of artists today, they're trying to market the painting before they've even touched brush to canvas. They're trying to sell this thing and anticipate, oh, this is going to be a winner. And you see this happen with so many artists out there. And I'm not judging or criticizing anybody, but it is a trap. Just learn to recognize it will do something authentically in the moment because we're tapped in and we're feeling that feeling. And then suddenly, we drop that on our target audience with our market and there's an instant recognition, a response and the thing sells. Now suddenly we go, oh, you link these two things up. And you're like when I paint that thing, selling happens? Money. Ching Ching. So I paint water that I can see through chin water, I can see through touching, and we get far enough down that road. What happens is, people will show up to your exhibition, your first exhibition, and you're on fire, you're inspired. No one knows you from a bar. So no one knows anything about you. But you show up with this work that's on point authentic felt. You know, it's it's sensitive. It's incredible to see your best work your first show it maybe you've got some technical stuff that needs to be worked out. But then you'll notice Oh, the wave salt. The Kimberley landscape sold. I got in this trap. I got known as the Kimberley or the Outback guy or the wave guy or the rocks and water guy. And suddenly when I want to show up with something else that I'm feeling uninspired by I've been pigeon holed yes by a market but also I pigeon holed myself. So Well, when we when we do this, when we get too much in that external world of when I paint this thing that happens, what we missed is that it's not about the thing that you painted. It's about who you were in that moment when you were drawing upon your inspiration. That's what created the magic, not the fact that it's clear water that you can see through and how cool is that? No, it's about what you were feeling, there is something that comes through the work. And I feel like it's pulling, you know, a bit of a trick. And it's, it's almost, it's a little bit dishonest in a way. And again, let me judge myself here. I'm not judging anybody else out there. But I have done works, because I thought that they would sell. And and I think that's letting my clients down. And and so what my diehard fans, my raving fans want to see that by my work is they want to see, they want to see something that moves them, there's no chance that I'm going to move them unless I'm moved first. And that's where I have to be

Laura Arango Baier: 41:09

very well said very well. So

Andrew Tischler: 41:11

I hope that answer is a very long winded way of saying that,

Laura Arango Baier: 41:14

Oh, it was it was I mean, I felt I feel like it is unnecessary, well winded path to to be able to fully understand the scope of you know, authenticity, at least in like, in terms of, you know, authenticity and our work as artists and as creators. Because, you know, I feel like any form of painting, and I have some online students also, not as many as you, but also have few. And I know, I know, I'm just like, damn, bro, how do you handle I mean, I can only handle like two and I'm already like, this is good. My plate is full? Well, we

Andrew Tischler: 41:58

can we can talk about that. I mean, I love to help anybody listening to this maximize their business as well. You know, it takes both, as I said, it takes both. So for me, it takes both those characters, Tish, and the master takes both of them to show up to make this work. And I don't even feel like I got started yet. I don't even feel like a big gun. A lot of people are talking to me like I'm, I'm already there. Where's there? No, I'm still going. But anyway, I cut you off, please continue to

Laura Arango Baier: 42:23

stay. Yeah, I'll make a comment on that in a second. But I always tell my students, you know, when when you are learning the craft, you are facing your demons in a lot of ways. Especially if you're looking to be more accurate in your work, you have to face the fact that when you put a stroke down, it's not going to be correct. But the more you do it, eventually you will reach the point where you can represent because of course, we're in the realist world of painting, when you want to represent something accurately, you have to deal with the fact that at first, you will not be accurate, it will hurt your soul, you will feel worthless. But you have to separate your worth from your ability because your ability is something that's always evolving, your worth is something that you can't like, you can't put a number on it, you can put your worth is like limitless. So and that can be really hard. And then also to top it off with like, you know, figuring out who am I and I love that you mentioned like self development because that's also something that I jumped right into. When I decided to put a big pause button on my painting it was immediately jump into healing and diving into, like, who I am. What makes me tick, what I love. Why do I love it? What are my wounds? What are my core wounds? How do I you know, work with them? Because so many people. So many artists, actually we're we have, unfortunately, a very common streak of being melancholic.

Andrew Tischler: 44:05

People. Yeah, and comes from pain. Exactly. All of us are hurting.

Laura Arango Baier: 44:09

Oh, we're all suffering. We're all suffering. And that's why we paint we paint to allow that suffering to escape. And it's so hard to figure out what is causing your suffering, you know? Because unfortunately, sometimes, sorry. I mean, I'll just say this and then you can you can say something but unfortunately sometimes we love our suffering so much. I know that sounds crazy, but it becomes like such a natural state of being that we don't give it a second thought. It's very strange.

Andrew Tischler: 44:48

Yeah, no, sorry. You're you're you're just mentioning so much there that it that I've dealt with of my life. I mean, I I you know, I'm no stranger to pain and suffering and and But I think again, this comes down to identity. I think that what when you say that we love our pain, I think that the issue is we don't, we don't know who we are without it. And when we when we end up becoming too close to that, where it becomes part of our identity, the one thing that we need is this absolute sense of certainty with self, we need to be certain that we are who we are. And if that becomes part of our identity, we won't question that. But it's quite a painful process, going through this metamorphosis of learning to drop that and recreate yourself. Without that, what part of my particular journey and again, it the depth varies depending on who you talk to. And even people that aren't artists. I mean, if you're a human being, guess what suffering has been part of your existence? Yeah. And so this is just part of that human experience. I think artists though, one thing that, I don't know, again, I'm not a psychologist, and I'm no expert with this. I'm just trying to fumble my way around and work it out for myself, but let me just speak for myself. I felt that the negative self talk, the feeling abandoned, feeling lonely, you know, so I was bullied in school, I didn't have a lot of friends growing up. I was a weird kid. I was an American kid from Texas, brought out of that country in New Zealand. And I had a few friends in New Zealand because it was it was a little a little kids just get along and it was a bit of an international school where I went at high tide primary and Wellington. And then we moved to Australia when I was 10. Man, the Aussie kids were tough. The Odyssey kids were real tough. There was a real there's this thing I never knew what tall poppy syndrome was. But I was an achiever and I wanted to achieve greatness with my art. But I also didn't know how to relate to other kids because I was a sensitive kid. And and so and with with Australian culture, there's this kind of this jesting this coarse jesting that goes on where, you know, you'll put people down. And and if you put somebody down or in the as I say, you know, take the piss. You're not insulting them, it's actually a sign that you actually like them. Hang on, I'll just refresh my camera. There we go. It's a sign that you that you like them. And to me, I found that so confusing. So immediately when I got any of that gesture, and I took it personally and I acted put upon and I was a victim and, and so that that was just a way then suddenly, I had this target on my back. And then it just became hell, no school, school was not cool. But I saw other kids getting bullied worse than me, way worse than me. Like I It wasn't particularly physical, although there were a few instances where it was, but it was mainly just the name calling the teasing and just being shunned and isolated and ostracized. No, you can't sit with us, you know, you're weird, you're gay, you're this, you're that whatever, you know, oh, no, if you do art or anything like that, if you don't play football, you know, this is back in the 90s. You know, you're if you weren't on the field, or you weren't doing the typical stuff, you're gay, there's nothing wrong with that, that's fine. Okay, whatever. But that's what I did. That was just something that I wasn't, but that's something that it was, you know, kids or kids, kids, kids or kids or mean, kids or me. But I just found that really tough. So that was something so I had, I had to find a way of, of finding an identity, you know, outside of that high school experience, primary school, high school experience, and that took me a while to find but also just being bullied in the home. You know, I was the youngest and and then also not feeling heard feeling misunderstood, you know, acted out with weird behavior. And I, I just didn't know where I fit, you know, mother left the picture. And I didn't really have a strong, feminine role model in my life. I think kids need mothers didn't really have that. And so and so there, there was all the stuff that I felt went into the soup to make me me. So how do you how do you drop that stuff? How do you get over it? Well, I'm not so sure that you do. But one thing I realized is as I look back on those experiences, now suddenly, it's given color and depth to the present day. Because now I'll go looking for people that are feeling down and out. If somebody reaches out to me or one of my students reaches out to me, you know, I'll jump on a zoom call with him. Not recorded, not anything. Just just Hey, I hear you having a tough time. Let's talk. You know, I'll I'll feel things for other people. I'm not saying that because I'm so great. I'm not I'm not trying to win any points with anybody here. But because I didn't grow up With that strong you know, mother figure in my life. Now I get to give the best mother I've ever seen to my child. Because I worked on my marriage, you know, I'm married. Well, she's a beautiful woman. I love my Rachel. Just, absolutely. And now to see the way she's committed to Hugo is beautiful. It's beautiful. And so it gives a new depth and meaning because of what I went without to be able to see that it's not missing in my life. I get to I get to experience that maybe from a different perspective, but it's there, you know, but with all this stuff, I try to turn it into something that is a positive, something that can be a grotesque negative, something that can be just so that you just feel stifled. I can't because this, I tried to look at it and go, What can I do because of this. And so the whole bullying thing, being a lonely kid, looking back now, that forced me into rooms by myself. So that what happened because no one would play with me because no one would talk to me. I started drawing pictures, those kids created a beast, those kids created a force to be reckoned with. That's the way I get to look at that. Now. Those kids know when I showed up to my 10 year reunion, Bill, I attached what's up what's up, was like, Guess what, I'm an artist now, bitch. That's what this is what I do, and I get paid. What do you do I make more than you? How about that, you know, how bad I walked away from a solo exhibition with 10s of 1000s of dollars in my pocket. Once you do today, you know, a little cocky, a little bit arrogant. I know. But but the thing is, is I get to rebuild myself. They didn't know what they're doing. So what do I What do I do without now as a result of that, I look back on those moments. And I go, thank you. Thank you for that. That was a gift. Thank you for that. So you get to flip that identity on its head. You get to go hang on a second. I'm not a victim. I'm a victor. Now that might sound like I got that off a bumper sticker. Maybe I did. But I'm not. I'm not I will refuse to play that game. And so now the mode that I'm in, is I just want to see what I'm capable of. I want to see what am I capable of what can I do? What have I got here. And one thing that helps me tap into that is gratitude. Extreme gratitude. Now, I start the day with a prayer. They are Lord, this is the day you have made, I will rejoice and be glad in it. Today's a gift. What am I going to do with this day? What have I got? And for me to be serving my lord, my Creator. One thing I have to do is maximize those gifts that I've been given. You know, let's say let's say, let's say Laura, I was gonna I was gonna I was gonna get you a present, right? And I got you this thing. And let's, let's just say for just the sake of this example, I got you a book on an obscure artist. And and you're like, Oh, thanks. You know, you know, Lucien Freud. He's, he's all right. And it's not really my jam. He's kind of cool or whatever. But I got you this book, I was thinking you'd really like it. And and what what would happen if I if I was kind of observed and just going oh, you know, I've got her this book. And I noticed she hasn't actually picked it up once. I noticed. Probably a bad example. But you know, you haven't picked it up once. How would I feel about giving you another gift? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, if you didn't really respond the way that I was hoping that you would now the reason it's a bad example, but just try and go with me here, folks. But the reason I think about that going, Okay, I've been given so many gifts, how appreciative am I of these gifts? am I likely to get any more if I'm unappreciative, I'm not going to receive the gifts because I'm in a place where I'm not grateful for this moment that I've been given. So I try to tap into that gratitude. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a human being I have my moments. But I really try as much as possible to, to just take what I've been given, maximize on it, because I recognize how special it is. And so that that helps me as well find a new identity in that those moments and drop a lot of the stuff that was holding me back a lot of that pain. And so instead of having my painting process, and practice become something that I'm using to heal my pain. Now I'm in a completely different mode, where I'm rejoicing, it's celebrating through it. It's now it's an expression of love. It's now it's something that I have in me that's just overflowing that I have to give. And I'm that way with my teaching. I get to teach. I get to serve other people with what I love to do. I get to share that gift of painting with people. I love this. And a lot of people say It does come through in the teaching, I think when you're on and you're, you're you're coming at it from that spirit of service and you really love people, you really want to help people that does come through. So um, that's just something that I tap into. And I have to reframe, but I did find as well that and I look at it as a bit of a gift. That negative self talk while I was painting was just relentless. So as I'm be paint with my brush, and just, you know, I just got this talk going about, you know, so and so still owes you 100 bucks, or you know that you shouldn't have said that, or what were you thinking when you did that? Or can you believe that they would have the audacity to do such a thing to you back then. And then it just round around, but just around around just constantly, that hamster wheel in your brain. And, and I realized that I needed to drown that out. So I started listening to audiobooks, I couldn't listen to music anymore. So I had to listen to audio. And it that caused me then to realize to stumble on something where, as an artist, I get more time than anybody, I get way more time than anybody. So while I'm painting and working full time making a living, I'm going to university, I'm getting my master's degree in business I'm getting, I'm getting motivation, I'm getting inspiration, I'm learning about things, I'm learning about all these weird and different things all over the place. And the last couple of years since COVID, I got a pretty much the equivalent of a doctorate or PhD in in conspiracy theories. So I had to kind of channel and direct that towards more positive things. So this year, it's been pretty much 99% things that serve me that feed that mindset, I did lose my way for a couple of years. They're just going what's going on here in the world, I got my opinions, I don't want to get your show deleted or canceled. But, you know, I, I started looking into things and it's not the healthiest thing when you're focused on really extreme negative stuff. So now I have to consciously direct my mind to stuff that really inspires me and and moves that, that this ship in that direction towards my goal. And so I have to stay in that zone where it serves me. I feel like I'm giving you the most long winded answers here. But I

Laura Arango Baier: 57:28

know I'm here for the journey. Up BoldBrush We inspire artists to inspire the world because creating art creates magic. And the world is currently in desperate need of magic. BoldBrush provides artists with free art marketing, creativity, and business ideas and information. This show is an example. We also offer written resources, articles and a free monthly art contest open to all visual artists. We believe that fortune favors the bold brush. And if you believe that to sign up completely free at BoldBrush show.com. That's B O LD BRUSH show.com. The BoldBrush Show is sponsored by FASO. Now more than ever, it's crucial to have a website when you're an artist, especially if you want to be a professional in your career. Thankfully, with our special link faso.com forward slash podcast, you can make that come true. And also get over 50% off your first year on your artists website. Yes, that's basically the price of 12 lattes in one year, which I think is a really great deal considering that you get sleek and beautiful website templates that are also mobile friendly e commerce print on demand in certain countries, as well as access to our marketing center that has our brand new art marketing calendar. And the art marketing calendar is something that you won't get with our competitor. The art marketing calendar gives you day by day step by step guides on what you should be doing today, right now in order to get your artwork out there and seen by the right eyes so that you can make more sales this year. So if you want to change your life and actually meet your sales goal this year, then start now by going to our special link faso.com forward slash podcast. That's s a s o.com forward slash podcast. That makes perfect sense. I mean, I struggle with those same exact voices as well have that hamster wheel of voices just going on and on. Since I've been working consciously though on kind of like unique things that serve me. I've heard them less and less, which is really nice. Um, but a lot of that is also like I really love what you mentioned about identifying yourself with these things. Right? And what I love, you know, because I've jumped so much until Eastern philosophy is that in you know, in eastern philosophy, so much of it is about complete and unconditional self acceptance and acceptance of everything around you. You know things are as they are Are and that makes them beautiful, whether they're perfect or not like they're already perfect just as they are. So that also forced me to embrace, rather than, you know, like, reject these wounds that I carry, right? Because we all carry these wounds that create our daily suffering and create these. What I like to call like, dialogues that we tell ourselves every day, every morning when we wake up, right? It just forced me to accept aspects of myself that I had left, like that I had, you know, what would they say like, you self abandon, right? You abandon these pieces of yourself that go rogue, and they start enacting in negative ways in your life unconsciously. And once you re embrace them, it it opens up the doors to what you know, even you would call like, the dark, like, Shadow Work or like, you know, this gift that you get from that darkness, from diving into that darkness. And I think the act of creation is one of the best ways to dive into that. And to dive into that idea of who are you? What do you love? And again, you know, that authenticity of not just who am I now, but who do I want to become which I love that use, you know, these alter egos? Because I was actually reading a book called the alter ego effect, which is all about that. It's all about how do you bring out your highest potential and break that glass ceiling that you have above yourself? Because of these dialogues, and these ideas that you tell yourself like, Oh, I'm not good enough for this, or oh, I can only do that, right. But if you create this alter ego, you can actually completely destroy these things that you've self identified with, and become your highest best potential self, which is really beautiful.

Andrew Tischler: 1:02:02

Yeah, yeah. And who said, who said, like, as you're saying these things to yourself, like, I couldn't do this, I couldn't do that. Or, you know, that's not for me. You know, the thing that comes up in my mind when I was soon as I start telling myself these things, I'm like, says, who says, Hey, I get to decide donate. And there's something that that is really important about looking at examples that are that are put down by others. You know, I'm a big believer that success leaves clues. And if you want to get what they got, you got to do what they did you know, how are the best of the best in any walk of life in any field? How did that how did they get to that level? I listened to a book earlier in the year, called never finished by David Goggins. And there's, there's just after, after listening to the audio version of that book, I just realized Tish, you've got another gear that you haven't even hit yet. You've got more in you, you know, this guy is running ultra marathons on knees without cartilage in excruciating pain, but he's just just one foot after another plugging away, whipping people laughing people, it's amazing. And then I suddenly realized, okay, okay, well, maybe that's a little bit silly and irresponsible, or whatever, you know, he's there, the doctors are telling him, you're not going to run again. You know, we don't even we don't even know about walking, you're not, you're not going to run again, it's over kind of thing. And now he's starting to think I got to get on a bike, you know, just like a different level of human being. And so the way I was kind of relating that to my, my business, to serving others, to even create an artwork of second, what, what, what is still left in the tank, you've got more to give. And so I just mentioned that as a way of just saying, you know, there are examples out there of people that are doing it at a different level. And and find out what makes them tick, you know, that and that for me, that's the beauty of doing my podcast is I get to invite on some of the best of the best. And I talked to Mark majority recently, and I think that guy must have both broken some sort of record with with what he did. I'm sure he did. But seen somebody out there that can walk away from that show with, I don't know, I can't mask but it must have been well over a million dollars in sales from one exhibition, and auction results that were just earth shattering and to keep just that cool, calm demeanor that he's got. He's such a cool guy. But I look at that and go Tish, that's inspiring. You've got more to give. There's more than you. So I think I think you know, again, we can we can start to adjust that identity we can start to find ourselves based on what we're seeing and responding to What to who really inspires us? I used to get insanely jealous. But now I get really excited when I see somebody out there doing awesome doing way better than I'm doing. I'm like, Ah, how'd you do that? Tell me, you know, I want to I want to know, and then you know, you maybe they're gonna give you an insight or something that you can do to plug into to, to your own journey. But there's, there's just so much there. I don't want to go too far off on a tangent there, Laura, but you could pull it, pull it, pull me back here and ask me another question. Because I could I could riff on this stuff all day.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:05:38

It's, it's a fascinating topic. So I totally, totally understand. And I mean, I was already ready to like, dive into any, you know, what any of these topics because obviously, you know, I sent you the the questions ahead of time. But yeah, specifically, knowing you know, that you do go into these really interesting tangents. So I'm all for it.

Andrew Tischler: 1:05:59

I'm sorry.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:06:01

No, I tailored the questions specifically to get the best juices out of you broadly. This is great. I love it. Because it's like, you know, knowing that there are other people, you know, who are first of all, succeeding and doing really well, but are also you know, facing the same exact problems are the same exact form of like, you know, trying to find their authentic voice, you know, like, you know, that being like a life long endeavor for especially for artists, I mean, like, for example, like Titian, he, he lived to be very, very old. And his paintings at the end were like, totally different from what he painted. At first. He was amazing. Yeah, and it that just goes to show like, in terms of honing your craft, that's like lifetimes. And that can be a little bit scary. But that also makes you think, like, well, I have my whole life to at least attempt to as you know, the ancient Greeks did to arrive at truth, even even if I'm just like, getting closer and closer, never really touching that, you know, that tangent where truth exists? At least I can say I, I frickin tried, man, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So I love touching that topic with you. But then also, since you know this, for my questions, I also really wanted to talk about AI art with you. Because Oh, no. Even if it's just a little bit, yeah. You know, a little bit of your perspective on it, because I have, I have friends who I mean, specifically, you know, in the painting world, for us as realist painters. I personally don't feel super affected by it. But I do have friends who either absolutely hate the hell out of AI art, or they are others who use it as a tool, which I think that's the next obvious step for the majority of us. Um, and I don't know if maybe you've also felt this way, where like, you'll see an AI image and you'll have this immediate in inner rejection of it, where you know, it's AI, like, has that happened to

Andrew Tischler: 1:08:14

ya, although sometimes it's a little bit difficult to tell, because I follow a lot of digital artists and, and I myself dabble in digital painting, with coming up with some of my compositions. So it's a little bit hard to tell now, with what's been generated through AI and what's what's actually come through the human mind and hand whether it is using a Wacom tablet or a Cintiq or not, that's still the act of the human generating this thing. But personally, I'm really, really anxious about it. I'm really apprehensive about it on a number of fronts. I, I will not let it into my creative space, personally. And the reason why is because every part of my artistic process is, is an act of taking that thing, which was the initial seed of inspiration or that Aha, whoa, moment out in the environment. And bringing that full circle to a finished painting on canvas. Every part of that that journey is so vital, that I'm there in that space with that original moment, that I cannot delegate that to anyone or anything. The minute I do, it's gone. It's become something else. Now, I don't want to judge other people if they're going to use it as a tool. But honestly, I don't see of a place where I can use it as a tool without losing myself in that and that's just not something I'm willing to do. But I also feel that there's more to this, this whole narrative more to this stuff than we've been told hold more to it than a lot of people realize. And it's my personal belief. And again, people can think I'm out there out with the fairies, whatever. I'm cool with that. I'm cool if people think I'm weird, I've been weird my whole life. But I think that there's something that is, is more of a spiritual nature here. And I find it really weird how there's so many tie ins with what's going on now. And what's going on with, you know, let's just say biblical things, things that have been already foretold, I'm getting a real image of the beast vibe from Ai. There's something here that is just, yeah, it feels extra dimensional. I don't trust it. Now, maybe people will say, well, that's just because you don't understand. And you're okay, fine. As I said, I'm cool with that. And if you can fill libraries with what I don't know, but I just see something here, where out of out of both sides of their mouth, they can say it's based on these processes, and it's just machine learning. But then somewhere else, you'll hear of an interview of people saying it is sentient. What does that mean? Means it's consciously aware.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:11:13

Ha, yeah,

Andrew Tischler: 1:11:14

we are being used here. To train it, it's learning from us from our inputs. So I don't like it, whether it's chap GPT, dolly or mid journey, I don't like it one bit. So it's not something that I'm going to be adopting, and, and, and using, again, if artists want to do that, to tweak a bit of reference material, use that for their compositions that's up to them. And that's totally called no judgement at all. But just personally, I wasn't allowed to enter my space. So that said, though, I am curious about it, I set this up on my show in a couple of different couple of different occasions where I want to make a video where I do experiment with this, and then do a critique at the end and actually do a proper breakdown of my feelings about this. But just for the sake of that video, taking those two different approaches, one where I go through the complete design process, and the two where I plug in prompts, and try and come up with a similar composition using AI. And then we compare the two and we talk about the journey that got us to that point. And then I wrap up with my point at the end of the video, but I'm thinking about that video really intently at the moment just trying to go okay, what what is my intent with with this? Where am I going with this, this video? And what do I want to say? But in a nutshell, that's my my feeling about it. I think art you know, arts a spiritual journey. For me, it's a gift that was given to me by my Creator. And I use that as a way to commune. But if I allowed something else to enter that space and take away from that, then yeah, it takes everything is special and sacred about that moment, and it becomes something else. But then people can be listened to what I'm saying and going, Yeah, hang on a second, but you use digital cameras. But you you've used Photoshop and a Wacom tablet, that no part of the process, even the photographic process got in the way of eyes, seeing something filtering through the mind through the heart to the hand. You know, you still have that chain going through that, that that that those links that go through to create the thing. So even though I'll use photographic reference, even though I'll use digital design, I'm actually drawing it using this Wacom tablet here and a stylus. I'm actually drawing it in Photoshop. So to me, it's not really the same, you know, but I've had people in my comment section, just saying, well, they talked about this, and then people were freaking out about it. When, when, you know, cameras first showed up, painters started worrying about it. But look, it didn't kill painting. And then and then digital, you know, that was something else. And look at that. We still need art and artists. So but to me, this is this is now a paradigm shift. It's something completely different. Where I think that this could be very interesting, where I think people need to be paying attention is what this is going to mean in terms of the economy as a whole. So being somebody that's lost my business twice, God broke twice, and had to rebuild from nothing. I recognize this as a potential catalyst for something amongst many, it's just one part. That could be you know, it's like our economies that Jenga tower and this is just one of these blocks has been pulled out and you know, it's been a little bit unstable. But I see this as something that could rock the boat economically speaking, you know, when I lost my business back in the day, and I again, I mentioned this in so many different videos, but China stopped buying iron ore, this was after the GFC. And the little microcosm where I was in Western Australia r&r was the backbone of the economy. And so you had it tried to just slow it down, it didn't just wholesale stop, but it just slow down operation. Now, now you've got wholesale, you know, you've got executives, upper management, all these people that these mining companies, you know, the fly in fly out workers, people making hundreds of 1000s of dollars a year. Now, they're just laid off overnight, because supply and demand, you know, demand goes down, the supply drops. And now suddenly, you don't need all of these people there to access that, or those were my clients. And so now I went from like a waiting list to cricket. practically overnight, people saying you got to keep our deposit, because we can't pay you. Sorry about that. You know, we tried to do what we could for people, but you know, it was also felt for them. I mean, they lost their job. And I lost my business as a result of that. So I had to pivot at that point. Thank God for that moment, though. Because what do I do? I went into teaching. So then I worked out I loved it. So So sometimes these things Yeah, you know, there are silver linings. If we allow ourselves don't get me wrong, I spent some time there being miserable go, No, it's over. But, but you know, we I managed to pick it up again and find something that would work for me. And then the the original Penny side of things, ironically, came right back. So I just refreshed my camera. There we go. Yes, so So AI, I think will displace a lot of people in the world, that are working in all kinds of industries that are not necessarily art related, but they support the arts because these are the people who have made the money to buy the thing that we produce. And so there's that factor. I talked to Michelle Dunaway, wonderful artists based in New Mexico. Yeah. And awesome person too. And so enjoyed my conversation with her. She had a really interesting take on this. She was saying that as a result of AI, we're going to have to step it up a notch and actually show that we are valid by bringing everything that we have within us and expressing that create better art more heartfelt, put more of that human element and human connection. And then that way we get to say, Hey, do you want this thing? Where as an artist, I was all in and you can sit? You can feel it man? Or do you want that that's vacuous? That's fake. Guaranteed, this is going to bite you in the end. What's it gonna be? You know, and I think that in the end, call me romantic. call me an idealist. But I think in the end people will recognize the difference. Absolutely. You know, people will absolutely so much now we are yearning for that connection. Art is one way that we can establish that connection. Why would we have another thing that removes that connection? All the more doesn't make sense to me. So that for those reasons. I'm out.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:18:08

I hear you. I hear you. I'm honestly, I am quite a bit indifferent to it. I totally understand your concerns about it. I wouldn't

Andrew Tischler: 1:18:19

you need to watch Terminator two.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:18:22

I actually haven't watched the Terminator movies. But I did watch Robocop and that's also scary. But um yeah, to me, I'm, I'm a little bit indifferent. I'm wary of it. I'm waiting for the hype to drop down kind of like with the whole NFT thing when that blew up three years ago, and now it's like mums the word on it. I don't know, no one's talking about it as much, I'm kind of waiting for that shock to you know, settle down a bit. I do think that specific careers like you know, product photographers, they are going to suffer a lot because now apparently you just take a picture of a product and you just plug it in, you tell the thing Hey, put this soda can like in a splash of water and it does it. Whereas before you know, it was practical effects. They would just like literally splash the water behind and have a backdrop and everything now that's that's gonna be lost, which is pretty unfortunate. And it's a I'm sure, you know, on the one side for a company trying to make, you know, save money on that. That's convenient for them. But for people who actually care about, you know, the craft of making things by hand, it will make their love I think even deeper, or at least I hope and I agree with Michelle, I completely agree. I think it will actually create a much stronger love for the handcrafted things. Yeah. And I'm actually part of like a very strange, you know, side of the Internet where I have almost all of my friends want to be like homesteaders have their own, you know, chickens and have their own, like vegetable gardens and stuff. And they're all very much about returning to nature. And the return to, you know, the slow life. I'm definitely a slow, slow life person. So for me, like I see AI, and I'm like, I'm gonna leave that over there. See how that goes, you know, sit this one out for a bit and just see, just see it from the sidelines. So I totally understand. I also completely understand why you wouldn't want to involve it in your creative process, because it's entirely different from a camera camera doesn't think. Whereas the AI, it thinks for you, unfortunately, it's almost like, yeah, because I tried. I tried one of them, I tried mid journey with our, our CEO, Clint, who allowed me to use it because you have to pay for it. Like their free version is like full of people. So you have to like, pay and he's like, Oh, just tell me the prompt that you want. And like, we'll see what comes up. And I did kind of like what you said, you know, I had an idea for painting. And then I told him, Okay, this is a prompt. None of the none of the images look like my my idea at all. In fact, they, they were nowhere near the level of beauty that I imagined for my painting. So that gives me you know, like, okay, oh, man is still better than machine for now. In terms of the consciousness part, that is a terrifying notion. I'm not sure that I think that goes beyond this podcast as a topic. Because

Andrew Tischler: 1:21:40

I mean, listen, listen to some of the interviews with I was some, I think his name is Jordi rose, forgive me if I'm getting that name wrong. But they were he was talking about the creation of D wave quantum computers where they were communing with something else. You know, it's spooky, dude. It's very, it's spooky. Yeah, all you got to do is just scratch below that surface just a little bit, you're gonna work out that there's a different side to this reality than we're being told. Again, I'm a cook, I'm a nut bag, but whatever.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:22:12

You know, it's a strange, strange world. And, you know, in the first place, one of the things that even scientists and no one no one in any, you know, high level professionals, we wouldn't have been able to properly agree, what is consciousness at all. And that is what it comes down to, when it comes to AI. So I also would not be open to allowing a separate consciousness to think for me in that way, because it's, it's just, it's, it doesn't belong in my process, when my process like yours is very deeply spiritual, it's much more set in what I would call an organic sort of, you know, path or an organic way of existing processing evolving. So I'm like you, I'm very much like, No, I'm just gonna sit over here and get ready for the

Andrew Tischler: 1:23:08

times. You know, you know what the really insane part to this though, is that now we have people talking about merging with it. You're watching consciousnesses with it? And I've just like, what the have you not watched science fiction movies in the 80s? Did you not see any of that stuff? Like or even beyond? Did you not? Were you not paying attention? I feel like a lot of those that might be predictive programming, but maybe serve as a bit of a warning No. But you've got things like like neuro link and these these different these different initiatives and and even you know, I'm really gonna get your, your your video and podcast shadow banned. But I, they talk about it, they they talk about it as if it's an inevitability, I don't see it, I see I see a massive revolt, and hopefully, hopefully an awakening of sorts. But I think you know, the, the having the property homesteading and having your own chickens, that's part of the awakening in a way for us it is, you know, we do that, and this is our wave of kind of, yeah, run the business, do all that stuff interface with as many people as possible, but at the same time have that home, that you're you can be separate from all that stuff.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:24:23

Exactly. Yeah, the balance, it's about that, maintaining that balance, you know, not allowing any one thing to basically take over because, you know, even even in terms of like how you were saying the internal external, right, if you allow just your internal voices to dictate everything, you know, that's bad. So you have to have that balance of the external of okay, I'm going to talk to people or I'm gonna go you know, sit outside and listen to the birds to get out of my head or move my body, right. It's about balanced. So I mean, these days, you know, because now I want to talk marketing a bit with you these days. It's almost impossible to exist as an artist without the internet, or at least, you know, exists as an artist making money without the internet, because you could be an artist and you know, just like, do it for the joy of it. But, you know, as we said earlier, most people want to do it and also get paid. So in charge, yeah, it's nice. It's it's all it's, you know, it's, I wouldn't say it's more fulfilling than just painting for yourself, but it definitely feels good when you can pay the bills, and not have to do anything else. Yeah. So I wanted to ask you, you know, if someone wanted to make that jump, right, from quitting their day job, and just full time artists, what would you recommend?

Andrew Tischler: 1:25:51

Yeah, I, because I've talked to a lot of people who've been in the spot. And I might be a little bit conservative in my approach, but it's because I wanted the best for them when I was giving them this advice. But what you're really doing in today's language, is you're creating this side hustle with your art. So you've worked in a job, and you want to go full time into art, you have to get that side hustle up and running, it's gonna take everything you got, and in the initial period, to build that body of work, to learn the craft, and to start making those approaches. Now, whether that's a gallery model, or marketing yourself, or having a social media are finding ways that you can leverage your product with other content that you create, are you the guest on somebody's podcast? Are you creating a YouTube channel, you know, there are so many avenues that we have now to be able to market our work, that what I would recommend doing honestly, if people are just wanting to go into it full time, is first start by just doing it as much as possible. While you're working. If you have to cut back on some of those work hours to open up a bit more time, so be it, that's fine. Wake up earlier, you know, it may be if you have to go to bed, if you're a night person go to bed later, instead of turning on the TV and zoning out if you're tired, great, I hear you you're tired, do it anyway, you know, you've got another gear to to, you know, hit. And another level you're capable of so much more than you realize. And so and I don't want to be insensitive to people's situations, you know, maybe people have got, I've got a really good friend who's got chronic fatigue, go try and tell him that. But so I get it, I get that people have challenges, but it's based on where you're at. Can you honestly say you're giving everything that you've got, and I had a friend a few years ago, he was a builder, he would start building at at 7am. But he wanted to paint for two hours a day. So here he's waking up at half, four. So we can be in the studio and work from five to seven. And then he goes he gets his lunchbox and he goes to the site. This guy's painting, he's getting in, you know, 10 hours a week painting it, which is not a bad little chunk of time. So he's able to build up some work, sell a few paintings on the side start to then he was able to go, you know, I've actually got something here. And it's when I heard that I was like I could I could wake up earlier. I could fit some more time. And I could do that. So that's one thing that I would really recommend is that is that keep both going cover your bases. The other thing that you're going to want to have plugged in is you're going to want to have a target monthly income. What is what does that dollar amount? Just talking brass tacks here? I mean, what does that dollar amount look like? What is your mortgage repayment? What is your rent? What's your food? What are your bills? What amount Are you going to have to have for a little bit of entertainment just to kids, maybe you want to go out on a Friday night and have pizza? Okay, maybe you want to have a beer or have a coffee or whatever, and we got to live our life. Okay. So so what does that look like for you come up with a target monthly amount, you know, are you making that with your job currently cool, you probably are. So if you are right, that is what you're going to have to make with your art. And then what I would do if it was me personally, if I had to go back and do it again, I would go full tilt towards that, achieve that target monthly income and exceed it past what I was working for my job. And then I'd say to the boss, see up. See you later. I'm an artist now and and I would also have something behind me. And again, I was talking to a friend about this years and years ago. You've got to have some savings. If you're not saving some money and it's difficult for people to save I get that. But if you're not saving money, try and just start saving 5% 10% Just start putting some money into account and then grow that account. So you've got six months worth of expenses. That is not there for you to spend. That's your pet or shoot. So have that month, those six months of money just sitting there? What would that do to you psychologically? Right? Now suddenly you can create not from the point where I gotta I need this, I need this external, external, external. You've got that time cushion there. So you can go, I've got some space right now I can just breathe. And then in that moment, you can just go, alright, alright, I can just breathe, I could just chill in this space. What I really love to pay right now. Yeah. Let's say, could I get my I've got six months in the bank, can I get myself a week to do this picture? And if it doesn't work, so what it's a week, you know, think about things in these terms, be smart about this budget, you know, save, come up with a routine as well, that routine man routine saves me. Now I work on my routine constantly, it changes all the time. One thing I had been doing in recent months is I wake up at 3am. And so when I wake up at three, I then spend the first part of the day, you know, and I devote that time to God. And so I spend time in the word I pray that sets my day, right, that gets my mindset set, right? You know, I start the day off with gratitude. If you know, maybe you're not a faith like me, that's fine. But like, even just starting with gratitude, what are you really thankful for? Get yourself in a really great mindset. And then the next thing that I do, that's when tissue arrives, I'm in that great mindset tissue arrives, I start just hosing down everything on my task list that is work like the work work. I don't like doing voiceovers, guess what I do voiceovers first. That's what I get it out the way just do it. It's so so having routines like this. And then after I've done a few hours of work, because I'm well before the sun comes up, then when the sun's comes up, I'm looking at that road going, is it light enough where I can see where I'm putting one foot in front of another, I'm going for a run, and I'm hitting the gym. And so then I get that workout time, generally after that, then I spend about an hour with my son. And that gives his mom time to go and do a workout herself. Go and have a shower, get cleaned up, do whatever she has to do for herself care. But I get this great time with my son, you know, playing with toys, or we go out for a walk or whatever. And then I come back, that's generally when I have my morning meeting. So that's just my, my routine. And then then after my meetings and a bit more of that stuff, then I've got my creative time for the rest of the day, then I'm in bed nice and early. The other thing is well is that, you know, I tried to work out where was my money going just back to the money thing, where's my money going that was on frivolous expenses that I didn't need? Could I get rid of stuff. So that freed up money to be able to put towards things that were really important to invest in camera gear to invest in a subscription to a particular platform or whatever, to now to hire people, you know, so for me, when I invest in my business, I hire another team member, I hire somebody else that's going to help me go to the next level. Work out if you can, you can use technology to do this would recommend I but you can use some outsourcing some assistance or whatever to delegate tasks to to open up that time as well. So I tried to think about where am I spending my time? Where am I spending my money? I also had to work out okay, where is my time actually going? I've got this routine and all that maybe I didn't hit everything on my list. Where's my time actually going? Start a time journal write down. When you wake up? What did you do? And write down a diary, confession time zone and uptime? Where did you spend this day? Now look at that, does that hurt? It should when you look at where you spent your day, then think okay. I spent four hours watching television. I know where what happened in law and order. But I could have taken that for hours and actually done something towards my art career. Now, if we're honest with ourselves, where did we actually spend that time? There's so much time that gets wasted in me too. I ended up wasting time on various things. I found out that I had in my transitions between tasks from moving from my drawing table, to downstairs to my studio to take the cameras from this studio to another space in the house to another studio. I'm blessed to have two studios. But to do that, it was taking me half an hour of setup time every single day. I was thinking what does that add up to after a week? I got three and a half hours in a week. Well, I don't work Sundays for three hours. Right? So what does that do? Well, I could be drawing for that time. What kind of work could I produce? I moved all my painting stuff upstairs. So now it's all in the one room transition time done. I go from task to task immediately. So that as you're doing this as you're becoming aware of where you're spending your time where you spend your money, this is all stuff to do now While you're working full time, and this will help you become that professional artists that you're meant to be. And, and and what does it take? What are the best of the best professional artists? How are they? You know, I think we build up this vision, I certainly did build up this vision of this leisurely lifestyle. It's like I paint when I'm in the mood, I paint when I'm, when I'm here, when I'm feeling it when the stars are aligned, and my inner child shows up, I and I have a latte and I do this and then I go and see Deborah and we we hang out at the cafe or the bar. And then if I feel like painting that, you know it, we're not consciously directing it. Life is just happening. We're circumstantial, we're not intentional. So one thing I realized is that I had to be laser focused, intentional tissue you been circumstantial? Are you the victim of circumstances now? Are you just letting life happen to you? Are you are you intentional about things right now? So it's been intentional. That's my intent. So that would be my recommendation to anybody wanting to do this. Workout, that thing, we talked about authenticity. So we don't need to cover that again. But work out that thing that you really love? Maybe Can I just mention one thing about that? The world, the world has got plenty of people that that there's so many people out there that are willing to cater to an audience, let them go and do that. Don't let that be you. Do that thing that you love. All. But what if nobody loves my paintings? have, you know, water lilies and water lilies? I'm afraid I really love to do them. And that's what I really want to do. But what if nobody really likes them? Who cares? Do it anyway, what happens is when you're authentically you, your authentic audience shows up. Do you think people that love abstract, I could go and get a market right now painting abstract, I could paint a painting up a storm paint some beautiful abstract paintings, and get that market of people that love to abstract painting? Guess what's not authentic? I'm doing it for them. Who cares? Do the people that love abstract love what tissue is doing? No, they don't know. They don't like my stuff, fine. It's not for you. That what I'm doing is for the people that are want to consume what I'm producing. And so let them have what they love. If you do what you are authentically inspired to do, what you your best work, when you're on when you're heart centered, when you're focused on that thing that you've got in you. And that's got to get out the people that will love it will show up, build your business on that. Then, coupled with that the discipline the routine. Now a lot of people would be thinking, Well, I'm just not that structured. I'm not that disciplined. Do you think I am? I might look that way. But I'm disciplined. And I'm structured because I am a mess. I am a flake. I am all over the map. I lacked structure. I lacked discipline. So I had to force it into my life. And go no, no, no, no, we need to level up. The best of the best are this. You've got to find that. And that guess what? The more I started to do it, the more it started to show up. And now people when they hear that I'm not disciplined or hey, I'm lazy. Right? They're like, you know, yeah, yeah. And so as as these tendencies, or even even lack of discipline, like because right now, like, I'm all in on my diet, the exercise back in the gym, lifting the weights early mornings, you know, there are times where I want to eat the thing that I shouldn't be. And it's just like, Shut up, bitch, what are you doing? Pick it up again. What are you doing? You know, and it's like, Oh, that's right. Yeah, tissues here. Let's go where we go on what's the mission? You know? So again, I have to play these games with myself with these identities and just helped me stay on track. But I really recommend people. If they want to go into that transition into full time art. It's gonna take a gear that you haven't even reached yet. But you can absolutely do it. I'm not here to say it's hard. It will it is. But you can absolutely do it. How do we know that you can do it? Because success leaves clues. There are so many people out there. I'm talking to dozens of people out there. You know, there are hundreds 1000s Potentially over a million different people out there that are doing this. And they are killing it, crushing it living their dreams, right? What are they doing, figure it out and apply it? So I heard a quote recently that I'd love to share with you. And it is if you do what's easy, your life will be hard. But if you do it hard, what's hard, your life will be easy. So now, I'm magnetized. I'm a magnet for that hard stuff. I want to know where's the hard stuff? I'm getting into it? That's it. Because I want people to look at me from the outside part of this part of what what It fuels me, and I chuckled about this. But I love it. I want people to look at what I'm doing a go. How are you doing this? That's your freak. How are you getting all this stuff done? You know, it's a structure. It's the discipline, the more you do it, the better it gets, and took me wrong. I'm still human being. All right, I crash and burn sometimes. But then I learned a lesson from it. So yeah, hope that helps to anybody wanting to make that leap. You can absolutely do it. One more thing. Can I mention one more thing? Yeah, we have right now at our fingertips. So many different platforms, so many different avenues that we can reach people. Now you might be thinking, well, the market saturated, no one's gonna buy my art, no one's gonna find me or whatever rubbish. They will. You also have to be willing to play the game, a lot of people will make a post on Instagram, make a post on Facebook, put up a YouTube video. And they'll put up this piece of content, which they think is great. And they'll be like, Why aren't I viral yet? Why isn't this got 1000 likes yet? You know, I see Mark majority got 5000 likes on his posts. How come? I didn't get that? How much time did you put in. And the other thing as well is recognize that the people that are doing it really well. And I'm not saying this is me like with Instagram and other social media and even YouTube, I'm not saying this is me. But recognize that every single platform is an ecosystem. And it has a particular set of parameters or rules that work within that ecosystem. What you do on Facebook is not going to work for tick tock or Instagram. What you do on YouTube is not going to work for Facebook, you know, you've got to learn each of these things as a professional artists and work out how to best reach those people on that platform, and then be prepared to put out content to cricket. Guess how many subscribers I had when I first started my YouTube channel? None zero, zilch, nada. Not no one was there. Good. That's the way it shouldn't be. But then as you start to do this thing, and as you put in yours, as you show up. Now, granted, I haven't been the most consistent. But just because I haven't uploaded a YouTube video in a few weeks doesn't mean that I stopped working. People don't know what we're about to drop on him, you know, and we're building up backlogs of videos, we're working on really huge projects. I'll upload a video when I'm ready. Doesn't mean I stopped. But how did we get from zero subscribers to over half a million Now granted, you know, Stan Prokopenko has got me whipped and a lot of other people on YouTube. They're amazing artists out there that are just running phenomenal businesses that have got so many subscribers, so I'm not getting a twisted about that being the most there is. But for me, I never would have thought that I would ever reach that level on YouTube. But what did it take? It took showing up consistently as consistent as I could for years. So I had somebody tell me this ages ago, and he asked me, it was actually it was a doctor, Dr. John Demartini. And he said, What do you want to enter? What do you want to what do you want out of life? What do you do? And I said, I want to be a master? They said very good. Are you willing to pay the price? I said, What do you mean? He said, are you willing to pay the price of mastery? Because he said every master I've talked to has paid a hefty price to get to where they got. And I had to think about that. And I was like you know what? Yeah. Yeah, I'm willing to pay that price. Whatever it costs. Yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 1:43:41

yeah. That's the other side of it. You know, it's like, if there is someone out there, who has, you know, this desire to become an artist. And maybe right now they're doing it as a hobby, if you have also the possibility of not having to monetize it. And you could just keep it as a hobby and enjoy it for yourself. That's also fine. You know,

Andrew Tischler: 1:44:10

that's fine. That's totally fine. Ya know, again, no judgment doesn't mean doesn't mean you have to do that. But most of the people that I talked to, they want to get out of that full time work and start working on their art business and and so that seems to be where my focus is with a lot of the content that I put out, particularly with the with the podcast, but yeah, if you want to be a hobbyist and and just paint because you love it or just sculpt because you love it, then that's you that that's that's awesome. No judgement at all. Oh, yeah. No judgement at all. But I would I would just really encourage anybody to be take that moment. Really take a look within and be absolutely honest with yourself about what do you want? and whatever that is, whatever answer comes back, that's okay. No one has the right to judge you for those things that you really want to do. Me personally, what do I want to do, I want to serve, I want to create the best work that I can possibly produce, I'm not interested in producing the best work ever. I don't want to be the best at painting that's ever lived. To me, that doesn't mean anything. I want to be the best I can be. And, and and serve others while I'm doing that. And so for me, I just had to go, you know what, that's okay. And I want to run a great business. I want to employ lots of people, I want to provide opportunities, you know, I want to provide for my family. I don't want to have to worry about my bills ever again. I'm not there yet. But but that's okay to want that. That's okay to want that. I'm really honest with myself about what my intention is. And then I just go for that. And I'm not ashamed of it. You know, and so whatever that is for you. It's okay. It's okay. But be honest with yourself about what that is, and then go and get it.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:46:07

Absolutely. Very wise words. I love it. Yeah. Well, it's been quite a conversation. No, I love it.

Andrew Tischler: 1:46:20

It's been fun. It's been fun. Yeah, um, I feel like we didn't cover all the questions. Oh, but that's fine.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:46:27

I feel like, um, you know, round two, we could do a round two. But normally, like, you know, even in like, when I send out the questions for the podcast to do also mentioned, like, it's possible to skip questions. Because I have, like, you know, a preference over organic flow of conversation, like I do have, you know, the guideline of the questions, but I love, you know, seeing just where the conversation can go, you know, I still like to leave that room for the potential of, you know, hearing something that I wouldn't have expected because obviously, you know, talking to basically a stranger, you, I don't really know how your brain works, right. But I want to do it. Exactly. So I want to allow your, you know, without caging you and I want to allow you to express yourself and take things wherever you feel like they need to go because like, it can be surprisingly interesting or are just like, makes you think in ways that you wouldn't have expected I like, I like unexpected conversations on the podcast. So yeah, I love it.

Andrew Tischler: 1:47:36

Oh, no, it's it's a pleasure. And thank you so much. What a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. And thanks for interviewing me. I, again, it's just it's a blast to have a chance to connect with somebody else and talk about this stuff. Because I just think it's so awesome to be to have the opportunity to connect with somebody on the other side of the world and talk about art and art business and all this stuff that we've been talking about here. It's just been a real blessing. So I thank you for the show. I thank you for the interview. Thank you for taking the time.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:48:10

Thank you as well. I I mean, it's kind of topsy turvy, because it's almost midnight for me, but it's like very early in the morning for you and you're literally in tomorrow.

Andrew Tischler: 1:48:21

Yeah, if you want to ever want to know if there is going to be a tomorrow than just check was already there in New Zealand. Just about just about gets there first. Yeah. Yeah. So roads, clear, folks. There will be tomorrow.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:48:33

That's good to know. And then also, the other thing that I think our listeners would probably want to know is, you know, where they can find more of your work. Of course, we'll include all of your links in the show notes, but you know, you want to promote anything's going on.

Andrew Tischler: 1:48:48

Well, okay, I've got well, my website first and foremost, Andrew tischler.com. We are building another website. I think they're linked, but it's tishler.in Zed, and so are ya in Fanelli Zed for zebra. But I've got the main website there. You can find me on all social media by just searching my name on Instagram, and I'm also on Facebook. Not as active on Facebook. It's mainly Instagram, but also YouTube. If you just search on YouTube, Andrew Tischler, it's going to pull up my channel there, I think the main thing that I've got going on, I've been all in on Tisch Academy, just building that to what it could be. And I'm really excited about the next phase of that. And I've got a great bunch of students that are following me there. And it's, it's growing, which is awesome. And so basically what we're doing is we're moving from from where we are now on Patreon across to a new platform, we're building our own thing. And that's really exciting. And so what's on the cards for the rest of 2023 and onwards into 20. 24 is, is courses. So I'm putting out there more courses that are in a course structure. So it's basically going to be the art school that I wish I had, where we take students through the fundamentals of oil painting. And then they can just pick and choose what courses they want to do. They want to learn how to paint trees go for you want to learn portraits, go for it, you want to learn still life, go for it. And so we're starting to flesh this out with a bunch of different courses. And of course, it takes time to build this, but we're, we're nearly ready to launch. So that will be available, hopefully very soon. Right now, if people want to get in now they can find me on Patreon. I think for the amount of content that I put out, the price is pretty darn reasonable. I got two tiers a $5 tier and an$18 tier. But I still have students just saying I just can't believe I don't have time to watch all the content, you're putting out Tish, you're putting out too much so which is good, that's a good problem to have, we're putting out so much painting content and instruction. And people are coming back saying that that's made such a difference to them, their journey, their career, not only from the business chats, and I've uploaded there, but just to the painting instruction. You know, there's been a few people there that have gone pro as a result, and a lot of hobbyists do that have taken their work from one level to another level, and they want to go pro. So that's just awesome to have a community now and to be part of something that's just grown into something beyond what I could have imagined. And and long may continue. I feel really blessed to have that. And, and I'm really excited about the next phase. But I couldn't do this without without my team. And so shout out to Olivia, my editor, and also to Benjamin who works with me. And those guys have been amazing. So having people that know what they're doing that can help produce this stuff, because it takes a lot and we're all working practically, you know more than full time hours on the business side of things, just making sure that we could serve everybody. But that's wonderful. We look forward to expanding the team too. So that's what I got going on. So check it out. If that people are listening to this at some point in the future, just go to Tisch dot Academy and Tisha spelt t i s c. H, and you can find it there and jump on board and try it out.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:52:30

Awesome. That's so exciting. Damn. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you again. This was such a wonderful conversation, you know, from one end of the world to the other.

Andrew Tischler: 1:52:44

Oh, thank you so much for having me. What a pleasure. Yes.