Jeff Legg: 0:00

Don't look for a style. Just paint. Just paint all the time, and draw all the time, and you will eventually become your work. Will become you. It's like a signature. You don't think about how my you know, what do I want my signature to look like in your handwriting? It just happens because you practice it and do it.

Laura Arango Baier: 0:23

Welcome to the BoldBrush show, where we believe that fortune favors bold brush. My name is Laura ankle Baier, and I'm your host. For those of you who are new to the podcast, we are a podcast that covers 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 her in careers tied to the art world, in order to hear their advice and insights to start off the new season, we sat down with Jeff leg, an accomplished artist whose journey began with an innate passion for art, nurtured by an inspirational mentor who recognized his exceptional talent from a young age, after mastering classical techniques through rigorous training at Atelier lac in Minneapolis and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Jeff demonstrated remarkable entrepreneurial spirit by successfully running a bicycle business before courageously pursuing his true calling as a fine artist. His paintings are characterized by a profound symbolic depth, metaphysical beauty and an extraordinary ability to capture mystery and emotion through luminous, transparently layered techniques that set him apart from his contemporaries. He advocates for working from memory and imagination, encouraging artists to break free from rigid techniques and develop a unique voice by consistently creating with his mantra being to just paint and trust that your individual style will naturally emerge. He also stresses the importance of pursuing art that one loves, rather than trying to create something purely original or market driven. Finally, Jeff tells us about his upcoming solo exhibition, alchemy of light and shadow at the Spiva Center for the Arts, showcasing this remarkable artistic evolution through a stunning collection of paintings that represent the pinnacle of his creative journey. Welcome Jeff to the BoldBrush show. How are you today?

Jeff Legg: 2:10

Hi, Laura. I'm doing well. Thank you.

Laura Arango Baier: 2:13

Yeah. I'm excited to have you because I absolutely love your work. Your work has this sort of symbolic, metaphysical beauty that I think I don't see very often, especially with still lifes. I feel like still lives, when they have a soul and they have a mood to it, like your work does. It is such a treasure for me, because it's your eye just can't stop looking at the work and all of the beautiful details and how it's composed. So I'm really excited to talk to you about your work and how your process is. So thank you for being here. Well,

Jeff Legg: 2:53

thank you so much. And yeah, thank you for having me. Yeah, this is going to be fun.

Laura Arango Baier: 3:00

Yes, it is, yeah. And, of course, you know, I'm very curious also to hear about when you started to follow the path of the artist, because I've met, you know, I've had people on the podcast who maybe they started really late, maybe in like, the 40s, 50s, some people who started as early as they could hold a crayon. So what was that like for you? When did you first begin to follow the path of the arts?

Jeff Legg: 3:29

Well, actually, since I was like five years old, I was so tuned into being an artist. I know that sounds crazy, but yeah, at a very young age I was, I kind of just knew that that's what I was so and then I was always just sketching and, you know, having fun with ideas when I was a kid, you know, sketching people and war scenes and all sorts of things. But yeah, as I got older, you know, I probably the, really, the turning point for me was that I had the good fortune of having a friend of my parents when I was in junior high, like seventh grade, I think, had they had a friend that knew an artist in town, that it was actually a college art professor, And he took students into his studio, like private lessons and and I kind of got interviewed by him, and that was the beginning of, like a four year mentorship through my junior high and high school years. And it was just pivotal time for me. I was I was eager to learn. Learn and and he was a beautiful, amazing teacher, so enthusiastic about art, and all the students loved him, and he just really took me under his wing, and I just soaked it all up, and unfortunately, he died at a pretty young age before he actually saw me have a career in art, but I truly owe him 95% of what I know As an artist. So yeah, so I felt like doing art is almost like a calling for me. I don't think I could do anything else. It's, you know, something that just really feeds, feeds the soul. And if I don't create, or doesn't even really have to be painting necessarily. I could just anything, you know, working with my hands. It fills that, that need. It's almost like food, the need to create. So,

Laura Arango Baier: 6:19

yeah, yeah, it's food for the soul.

Jeff Legg: 6:22

Food for the soul. Yes.

Laura Arango Baier: 6:25

And then after, you know, you studied with this wonderful professor, When was the moment where you said, Okay, I want to study with more people? Or how was that, I guess, early art, student life. Was it? What was it like for you?

Jeff Legg: 6:45

Well, what happened? I went through that four years with my mentor. Learned so much and went to art school. Right after high school, I attended the Minneapolis College of Art Design. I was living in Missouri at the time, so But I spent my early childhood in Minnesota, and my sister lived in Minneapolis, and my mentor wanted me to go to New York, to the to the Art Students League at that time. But, you know, I didn't want to go somewhere where I didn't know anybody. So I chose Minneapolis because my sister was there, and I was familiar with that town a bit. And so I attended the College of Art Design, and found out pretty quickly they weren't really teaching what I what I needed to know or wanted to know. I had a couple of good teachers, but that was a time when, you know, art schools were just very touchy feely and kind of avant garde and, you know, whatever feels good, do it sort of thing, and I wanted more of the, you know, classical Atelier experience, and which I didn't even really know about existed at that time. But I bumped into a to a young man in the museum. There it was, near my college, the art museum, and he was sketching a sculpture, and he was, it was really a nice sketch, and I'd never seen him before, I said. I just started talking to him. I asked him, where he, you know, did his good school here? Whatever he said, No, he goes to Atelier last and I go, what's that? And found out, you know what, the Atelier system existed. And I was just like a radar. It's like, Yes, that's what I'm looking for. And so I ended up introduced me to Richard lack, the man that started the Atelier, and basically, kind of got interviewed. He looked at my sketches and drawings and things, and there was a waiting list to get in. But I was fortunate. He liked what I did and or at that point, decided that he would let me in to the school. Kind of put me up, push me forward in line. And so yeah, I was very fortunate to get in to that school and sort of a shorter stint. I didn't go through the whole program. That's a whole nother conversation, really, but, but anyway, after I left there, I got I learned a lot there. I learned some very important classical techniques, and I really learned what's possible. You know, there were some amazing teachers and students doing dispute. Work, and it was an eye opener, and I learned how, you know, although I knew drawing was really important, and my mentor really stressed the need to know how to draw, they took it to another level of accuracy, you know, to learn to see accurately and draw accurately, and so that was a big takeaway for me. But then, you know, after leaving art school, I went home to Missouri and didn't want to move back in with my mom and dad. You know, I was, I was 19, and so they don't teach you how to make a living and art, you know, most of the art schools, they don't have classes on, how do you make a living as an artist? So although that's what I that was, my heart's desire was to be an artist. I had no clue how to, you know, start monetizing my work. And you know, actually, I wasn't good enough at that point to really start selling but So, long story short, I started a business. I was really into cycling at the time, bicycling, and did a lot of bike touring, a little bit of racing, and I started a business. I started with $400 in my pocket. I started a bicycle shop, and it was meant to just kind of get me by for a year or two until I kind of figured out how to make you know how to be an artist, or how to make a living as an artist. And, you know, a year ago, two couple years ago by, you know, the bicycle shop actually started to grow and make me, you know, decent money for my age at that time. And then I, you know, I one thing leads to another. I met my wife, we got married, we started having kids. I'm still doing the bike shop needed, needed to make money to, you know, sustain a family and and so that ended up, you know, being like a 10 or 11 year business, and it actually grew into the largest bicycle shop in that area. And I had two stores at one time and employees and I sold, you know, fitness equipment and to the hot local hospitals and got involved in all kinds of cycling events and things. But, you know, I was kind of like I turned 30, and I thought to myself, Wow, I'm not doing art, you know, that's that was not my plan to just to have a bicycle shop, you know, I, I liked retail, like owning a shop that retail is, is really difficult, and I kind of burned out, and I truly wanted to pursue art, and ended up deciding I was just going to sell the business and jump feet first into painting. I hadn't really even done oil painting to speak of. Let me back up for a second though I before I decided to sell the business, I took a road trip to California in my 1987 Land Cruiser, which I bought new and stopped it. I painted along the way. And I stopped at galleries along the way to see what the market or what you know, what the gallery world is like and and I went into these galleries, and I looked at the work, and I saw the prices and the quality of the work, and I just thought, I can do that. You know, that's not a big deal, and if they're making it as an artist, Yes, surely I can do it. So that was kind of an eye opener experience to just to be able to see what, what you needed to be able to produce to, you know, get into the gallery circuit. So I sold the business and started painting and but I will, I will say it took a while to really for one thing to learn. You know, to master the craft took years actually, but they say 10,000 hours you need to really master anything. And, but eventually it all came together. I got my first gallery and started selling some work. And, you know, I mean, it wasn't gangbusters. I still, you know, we still lived sort of, you know, a very frugal lifestyle, and sometimes had to rely on her credit cards to get by, but, but just kept pressing on and trying to learn and and, and then there were some doors that open, you know, with shows and other galleries and things which definitely helps. So, I'm talking a lot. You can, you can,

Laura Arango Baier: 15:46

no, no. I think it's, it's really fascinating, because it's, and I think a lot of us go through that, which is after, if some of us have studied in Natalie, right? I think that's actually one of the hardest transitional moments for an artist is finishing art school, and it's a oh no, now what? And it could be oh no or Oh yes, depending, because it is one of those time periods where it's like, okay, I probably need a day job, or I probably need something to help me support myself. And of course, you had your family, so that's even more pressure. But I think it's amazing that your bike shop lasted for so long and it was so productive and it was so big. But it's also that, you know, I also really relate to that side feeling of like, but I'm an artist, and I haven't been doing the thing that I've set out to do and the thing that I've always loved, and it's, you know, it's fascinating to also see you took that chance. You said, You know what, I'm inspired. I see some people painting something that I feel like I could also do or do better, of course, and then you just pursue that. And, you know, it's, yeah, it's that transition after art school that I think, personally, can be really, really challenging for a lot of people. But I like that, you know, you, you went for it, you still had, of course, this bike shop that kind of happened, and then helped you realize I've strayed a little bit from where I want to go. Even though it was productive, it was helpful and it was a great

Jeff Legg: 17:20

sport, right? Yeah, I have to give my dad a lot of credit. He was very much an entrepreneur all his life, and he always encouraged me to make my own job, you know? He said that's really the only way to find fulfillment and also really make a decent living. So he gave me the risk taking genetics, I guess, to to do that just I had little kids at the time, you know. So it was a pretty big decision to go go full time without any track record at all, but I will say that I was pretty confident that I could produce the work. It was the marketing of the work that was probably the most difficult part. But having the experience in the retail business, even though it was a bicycle shop, not art, it taught me a lot just about, you know, being disciplined and marketing, bookkeeping and, you know, all the nuts and bolts and you know, we're moving parts of running A business. So there's just definitely an advantage to to have having gone through that. And I really, truly think if I had started trying to be an artist and selling my work in my early 20s, let's say that I probably would have failed and maybe not be an artist today, perhaps out of discouragement, so gaining the confidence through owning a business and running a business and some maturity. You know, I was 30 years old when I decided to pull the trigger on painting full time. And so, yeah, it was still not, not easy at all. Lots of hours painting, lots of hours painting, and, you know, trying to to master the craft and always having a mindset of 100% you know, wanting to do my best work, not compromising, not not thinking thinking about quantity, but always thinking about quality. You. Yeah, and, and, you know, being true to myself and truth, you know, seeking truth and beauty was always my goal. And, you know, trying to communicate. You know, what I saw as beautiful, I suppose was just really key for me. Yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 20:27

yeah. And you mentioned a couple things there that I think, you know they're worth noting, which is that, of course, it's awesome that you have this, like you said, you had this bike business, and that gave you so so so much experience in terms of, you know, having a business, which I think a lot of people, especially when they're young, they want to be artists. They Oh, they don't. They don't see the reality of having a business, having to file your taxes, having to, you know, form your LLC, or making sure that you have your bookkeeping up to date. I think those are all things that once someone decides I'm going to be a full time artist, that's like the one thing that they don't really consider. So I think you having, you know, your father's spirit of entrepreneurship, and also, having had your own bike shop, you already had that discipline and independence to be able to pull off the more mundane but important side of being an artist, which is the business side. Of course, like you said, marketing for art is very different from marketing for bikes or marketing for other objects that are, you know, not as unique as paintings. I feel like paintings, you know, there's only one, unless it's prints and then someone takes it versus, you know, having 10 of the same bike, very different thing to sell. And then, of course, yeah. And then, of course, there's that complex time period I think we all go through as artists, you know, once we're done with art school and we decide, okay, this is it. I'm going to do this, that building of your process around what you see as your vision as an artist, I think that part can also be so challenging. And again, you know, when you're a young person, it's like, oh, I want to get that done now, and I just want to sell. And I think it's okay to slow down and to take your time building that process, especially if you do have some sort of economic support on the side, whether it's a side job or save up money. So actually, I did want to ask you a bit about how your process evolved over time, from like when you first began to now.

Jeff Legg: 22:36

Yeah, just before we go there, I wanted to just say that, you know, this all from my career, just it all started, like years and years before the internet and digital photography and social media. So it was all kind of would be considered old school, you know, methods at that time. And I truly, although there's so many advantages right now to having getting your work out in front of people with social media and things like that, it's also creates this feeling that everybody out there is an artist, you know. So in a sense, the competition is, is, it's not really competition, but it's, it's just a different world from when I started. So I think a lot of the same principles would apply, that I would find it very, very challenging in the world that we live in now, to do it the way I did it. You know that I'm not sure how. I'm not sure I'm articulating this very well, that I it. There's just, you know, you go on Instagram and you know, there's 10,000 artists, you know, that are posting work well that didn't exist, you know when, when I was starting out so, so now, just it, there's this appearance that everybody is an artist, you know, they're not all, you know, they're not all equally doing the same thing or equal quality or anything. But that, I think that really does play into the strategy that you would use today. Um, again, that's probably a whole other conversation. So we can, we can move on to,

Laura Arango Baier: 24:51

oh, well, actually, I will. I will actually note something on that, because I agree. I feel like today it's very easy to get lost a little bit in the. Ocean of people and Instagram, which is, I think, in terms of strategies, since you did mention, you know that it does require shift in strategy, which I agree, I think at that point, you know, the strategy then becomes a lot more about networking, you know, talking like, putting yourself out there, going to exhibitions and meeting other artists, and not just staying online, which I know is tempting, especially for the younger artists today, to not come out of the studio, but the art world, despite, you know, the times being a little different, more technological and all of these things, there's still forever going to be an emphasis in one on one contact in person. That's inevitable. Yeah, very

Jeff Legg: 25:49

good point. I really are any any business, but art in particular, it's very relationship driven and and making those relationships personal and in person, you know, is a really key thing, you know, like one piece of advice that I would give, and the calories might not like me saying this, but I when I approached the gallery, I didn't mail them my portfolio. Or, you know, at that time, there wasn't digital so I would have had to physically mail my portfolio to them, but or make an appointment even I just walked in cold, you know, and had my portfolio under my arm, and, you know, hopefully I would catch them at a time when they could talk. But you know, the lot of times you hear the advice, oh, you got you need to make an appointment, and, you know, send your images digitally or your portfolio at that time physically. But I always felt that if you did that, you would end up being on the bottom of the of a huge pile of portfolios. And maybe never get looked at or, you know, so I wanted to do that in person thing where I just walked in the door and said hello and shook their hand and looked them in the eye and and, you know, hopefully they you would find out I was a serious artist, and that worked for me. I'm not saying if that would work for everyone, but yeah, that personal contact was really

Laura Arango Baier: 27:30

important. Oh my gosh, yeah, yeah. And actually, I think these days galleries, I mean, I know no galleries appreciate you know, someone just walking in with their portfolio, because even today, they don't like that. But I think having that point of contact in person is definitely important. And then maybe, you know, I guess today it's a little easier, because if someone does say, like, Oh yeah, you know, I love your gallery, oh, I'm also an artist. And then there's this benefit of like, oh, well, can I see your work? So you can pull up your website on your phone, or you can pull up your Instagram on your phone, and that's a little easier than carrying around a whole portfolio, right? Yeah, which I think it's different, but yeah,

Jeff Legg: 28:09

I would say, yeah. And I would say you got to be really sensitive to the you know, if you walk into a gallery poll, you know, you don't want to interrupt them. If they're in the middle of talking to a customer, you always want to be sensitive to their time and and just let, let it flow naturally. You know, if the door opens to talk, it fine, if it doesn't, then come back, you know, at a different time. But anyway, so, yeah, they definitely, you know, galleries, from my experience, they don't like that, but if you do it in a way that's where you're just polite, you know, and and not interruptive to them, then I think they're open to it,

Laura Arango Baier: 28:55

yeah, yeah. Anyway, they all have the complexity of personal relationships for sure, that social aspect, for sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah. And then in terms of your process, right? Because I find artistic process to be so fascinating, because, of course, last time we spoke, you showed me your incredible studio, which, of course, if someone's watching the video, I will be inputting a video that you actually posted on your Instagram of your studio, because I think it is any artist stream studio, to be honest. You have all these gorgeous like pieces, right? You have, of course, your paintings. You have a cozy couch, you have your fireplace, but then you also have all of these beautiful still life objects that, oh my gosh. How many easels Do you have? I think you have, like, three. Oh,

Jeff Legg: 29:45

yeah, remember, yeah, yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 29:49

So, of course, I wanted to ask you a bit about, you know, how your process evolved over time, like, do kind of work in the same way that you began? Or do you maybe start out with thumbnail scale? Touches. Do you find an object and fall in love with it? Or do you have a vision? How does it all develop?

Jeff Legg: 30:05

Yeah, it could be. It really could be any of those things. I think usually it's, you know, as far as the still life work, it's inspired by an object. So I'll have a particular object that I like, the form or the shape, you know, the form, or the color or the texture, the patina, whatever. And so then I'll be thinking about, you know, how, what kind of a composition could I use that in? And so I'll start with just, just little thumbnail sketches, very abstract, you know, not even getting into any detail, just sort of positioning of shapes, and they're just tiny, you know, like two by two inches, maybe. And I'll work up some ideas for compositions. The first the number one thing is your idea, you know, what are you trying to convey in the in this painting? And, you know, could be very simple, like you love the blue color, you know, in this painting here, I just love that blue. So I wanted to build a painting around that color. It could be, you know, anything from how the light moves through the painting, or, you know, the juxtaposing shapes large and small. Or it could be anything, but, yeah, start with a thumbnail, typically. But then again, sometimes I just go straight to the setup, and I'll put that object, whatever it is, on my table, and light it and start adding other elements and just go from there. So I just try to say, you know, I don't want to be locked into a really rigid procedure, so that way, no if the creative inspiration hits me, I can just go right to a painting, or I can do More of a planned thing where I scoot some sketches. But I think more times than not, I just don't wait for inspiration. I put something up there, you know, that took that I'm attracted to, and I just start painting. I don't do any pre sketching on the canvas, I just go directly to paint, which is not what they teach you at the atelier. What I do. I always felt like if I drew the composition on the canvas ahead of time, you know? I mean, that's okay, but I'm going to paint over that anyway. I can make all those drawing adjustments with paint. So it's sort of a redundancy, or in a way, kind of a waste of time for me to spend a lot of time drawing on the canvas just the paint over that, and then it kind of feels like paint by number, if I'm trying to follow my drawing that closely. Does that make sense? It

Laura Arango Baier: 33:30

does. Yeah, I was actually gonna gonna mention how. And again, if anyone listening has gone to an atelier, they understand that, like the transitional phase, which I mentioned earlier, after the Atelier, is so much about finding your process, but then also kind of unlearning, a little bit kind of unlearning all the little things that could be holding you back from yourself or from what your soul might be calling To, right? So, like, it's a little bit of rule breaking in some ways, right? Maybe someone does like the paint by numbers, sort of approach, but then they shift something else in their in their process. Or maybe someone is like, you where, okay, I built my base. I know how to draw. I know how to do the thing. Now it's just okay, I'm gonna play with values, or I'm going to play with color and value, or I'm just going to focus on monochromatic, like there are so many different roads, right, all these different roads that lead to Rome, and it's good to remember that the Atelier system is fantastic, but it could be a crutch if you're not allowing yourself to step outside of it, You know,

Jeff Legg: 34:40

yeah, and I, I tend to think that if you follow the proper, you know, quote, the proper techniques and and methods that you could end up just looking at, you know, producing really beautiful, finely crafted paintings that looks like everybody else is beautiful. And finally, craft. Crafted paintings. So I guess I fly by the seat of my pants a little bit more, and that comes from my mentor, who was very into inspiration and just letting things flow. And one philosophy he taught me, which I think is really important for me, at least, is that painting is not just a visual a visual experience, it's it involves all of our senses in a way that the things that are coming into us, visually, audibly, you know, the smells, the sounds, the crunch of the leaves under our feet, wherever we are. You know, it's all one experience that we're having, and that that experience of all all of our senses, plays a part in what comes out of this, in our artwork. So it's not just, you know, it's not just a visual, static visual experience where you look at something and you copy it. So I guess, you know, we're getting into, like, the self expression part of painting. You know, how much of it is craft and, you know, observation, and how much of it is what's we're feeling, you the emotional element, or how we, you know, how we see whatever we're looking at. And there's sort of a fine line. I mean, that can go either direction. I mean, it could turn your work very abstract, or it could turn it super hyper realism. But I get the question oftentimes from, you know, younger artists, you know, how do you develop a style that's recognizable? And the answer to that, and I had that question early on, the answer isn't, is actually, just don't look for a style. Just paint. Just paint all the time, and draw all the time, and you will eventually become your work. Will become you. It's like a signature. You don't think about how my you know, what do I want my signature to look like in your handwriting? It just happens because you practice it and do it. So that's, that's how I look at it, that you whatever we our worldview is, and our love for you know, the work and the world we live in plays a really significant part in who you become as an artist, and that will express itself over time the more you practice the craft. So, yeah, don't, don't look for a style. I tried, I tried looking for a style, and I didn't find it. It only happened when I just kept painting all the time, and you know it, I would say it took, took six or seven years of painting before I really started having any kind of thing that looked like my work. And now I don't even think about it. People say they can recognize my work across the room. I mean, that's really the artists that you remember are those artists, because there's something about it that just is their signature. And most of the time, I think those artists didn't like go looking for that. It just it just happens. So yeah, that's a really interesting subject.

Laura Arango Baier: 39:06

It is absolutely because there's, there's a benefit to, you know, the ateliers, of course, the foundational stuff, the getting the discipline. Because, of course, in an atelier, painting eight to 12 hours a day, every day. But then, of course, once you're out, like I said, that transitional phase of finding yourself is interesting because it's like you said, it's you find yourself and you stop looking right. You just right. Kind of just do the thing, find what you're led to, and then it just, it just happens. It just appears. It manifests on its own. So I also used to ask that to the artists I've had on the podcast, like, how do you find your artistic voice? And everyone has said basically the same as you, which is, it happens? Like, it's not something you can force, it's not something you can plan. It's just about allowing yourself to, you know, go towards the things that you most love, and again, just to bring back, you know, social media. I think that's actually one of the difficulties of being an artist today, is the extreme amount of influence that we have because of social media, right? Like, it's so easy to get lost in looking at other people's beautiful work, and to allow that to influence you when I think it's kind of important to put your phone away or, like, stay away, maybe grab like, an old book with, like the old masters, if that's what you love, or, like a specific artist that you love, and just like, stay off the internet and let yourself exist in the moment with, yeah, you know, you know the original influences maybe, that we may have seen without The Internet, right?

Jeff Legg: 41:00

It's, yeah, it's, it's really life experience. I mean, that's what art is. It's your you know, you have to have things coming into you to produce. You know, have something come out of you. And like you say, Get being overly influenced by images see on Instagram or Facebook or wherever. I would just highly recommend not looking at so much stuff. I mean, you should look at the really good stuff and aspire, you know, to to be on that level. Be very selective, and don't try to copy anybody you know, like man, you can copy other artists to learn that you know, eventually you don't want to be known as the artist that looks like so and so. But I, what I would recommend is, is spending time in nature, outdoors, because it's all everything is in nature, all the beauty and inspiration is there. And looking at other artists, you know, old masters and such is good, but when I'm feeling kind of dry, dried up like I don't have anything inspiring me, you know, I go outside, I go on a hike, I spend some time out in nature and observing, and that does the trick, sure.

Laura Arango Baier: 42:28

So yeah, I totally agree. If you've been enjoying the podcast and also want to be able to ask our guests live questions, then you might want to join our monthly BoldBrush live webinars, where our guest artists, discuss marketing tips, share inspiring stories and answer your burning questions in real time, whether you're a seasoned painter or just starting your creative journey, this is your chance to connect, learn and spark new ideas, and whether you're stuck on a canvas or building your creative business, this is where breakthroughs happen. Don't miss out. Ignite your passion and transform your art practice by joining us. Our next BoldBrush Live Webinar is coming up on July 17, with our special guest, Noah buchannen. You can find the sign up link in the show notes at 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 too. Sign up completely free@boldbrushshow.com that's B, O, L, d, b, r, U, S, H 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 artist 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 F, A, S, o.com, forward slash podcast, because as artists, of course, the original source is always nature, right? It's almost like we see all these beautiful paintings, of course. And. These beautiful things that humans have created over time, and all of them are derivative of nature, right? So going back to that source is, of course, one of the biggest things that will hopefully inspire people, especially people who love nature, which actually it makes me wonder a little bit more about who your influences have been in your work.

Jeff Legg: 45:24

Well, I mean, you can't beat the old masters, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Rivera, Waterhouse, buchareau was a really big one at art school, at the atelier. I really love the why it's all three of the Wyatts, Jamie in particular, because, well, I love Andrew's work too. Well. I love all three of them for different reasons, but I love Jamie because he's very fearless, and he'll do some really strange, quirky stuff. And we both share an interest in nerd drum. I I think Bob Nerdrum is a very amazing painter. And David LaBelle, I took, I took a couple workshops with David back in the early 90s. He was kind of the first still life artist that I really discovered, you know, and and he was a big influence on me, I would say, having gone to those workshops, I learned a lot, but, and then my my early training, you know, with my mentor, we did watercolor. So I was introduced to Charles Reed, who some of you may be familiar with, very loose watercolor, figurative painter, and that was influential. And I think you might know this, that you know, a lot of my work has transparent passages in it, in them. And I think that love for transparency in oil comes from my experience in watercolor. Yeah. I mean, there's so many great artists in the world, it's hard to think of all of them, but I mean, the Impressionists too were, I don't paint really impressionistic Well, I take that back out outdoors. I tend to paint more impressionistically, you know, looser at least. And I don't know if it's technically Impressionism, but, but the Impressionist had had an influence, you know, Van Gogh Monet that, you know, classic names that you know. But I think by and large, it's more the the era of Rembrandt and Michelangelo and Pierre Chardon, and it was, you know, very Drew, you know, drew me in more the more the light and shadow, school and drama, dramatic lighting.

Laura Arango Baier: 48:07

So, yes, yeah, and I can see it, especially in the painting behind you of the blue, blue object. It's really cool. It looks kind of like the Earth, because it looks like,

Jeff Legg: 48:19

right? It's almost like a it's a vessel, that within that vessel is like, it's a portal. I don't know, it's hard to explain, but I wanted this to have sort of a mystical feeling to it,

Laura Arango Baier: 48:34

all right? It definitely does. I can't stop looking at it like, every so often I'm just looking at it, and I can, yeah, I can definitely see, you know, those influences in your work. And funny enough, la fell is actually one of the very first painters I came across when I started buying oil painting books, when I was trying to teach myself, he there was one book written by one of his students with all of her notes from his class. I can't remember what it's called. I think it's like oil painting secrets from a mask.

Jeff Legg: 49:01

Yeah. Linda, amazing book. Yeah, that was the first one I had. Yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 49:06

yeah. So I can totally relate. There's a and, of course, the dramatic lighting, which, of course, I see in your work. It's very like Dutch Golden Age style, but also a little bit of Caravaggio in there. It's, it's kind of hard to, oh, it's it's hard to not somehow be influenced by the past. Because I think, of course, when you go to natelier and you're becoming an artist, we're standing on the shoulders of all of these past artists. We're like continuing their legacy, of all of these things that we've learned to do with our hands and with paint. It's just absolutely incredible. So I agree it's really it's kind of annoying when someone says, Oh yeah, you know your work is like, so and so, and it's like, oh no, yeah, it's tough.

Jeff Legg: 49:52

I purposely didn't study with David too much because I didn't want to become. Um, you know, carbon copy of David. I mean, obviously people say they see the influence. I'm not ashamed to admit that. You know, they're, you're influenced by somebody, someone, and he's a good influence. But at the same time, I, you know, I've tried to let my early years of painting and watercolor, and just let my own way, you know, I do. I have my own way of doing things, and hopefully that sets me apart from that influence. And I think people see that, you know, that I'm not just trying to copy another artist, so trying my my own self,

Laura Arango Baier: 50:50

yeah, yeah. And actually, that's actually a this is a good moment for me to ask you a little bit about. Do you have any recent aha moments in terms of technique.

Jeff Legg: 51:05

Well, let's see. I wrote down some things that I think might help. Yeah, I guess probably the biggest thing was that, realizing that you can't really copy color. I mean, color is very relative. It looks, we know, one color looks different next to another color, next to another color, and the color is so relative, you could paint anything in any color, and it would as long as the value relationships were were good and correct, that the color doesn't matter. So I don't get real hung up on trying to reproduce an exact color. In fact, I will push colors where I want them to be. I mean, after all, we're dealing with paint, and you can only do so much with paint. Sometimes you have to exaggerate things just to get across the emphasis of a certain color that you want to focus on. So, you know, I put a lot more, a lot more practice into value, you know, relationships, because that's really the most important thing. So that was a, that was a pretty big thing to realize I didn't have to be, you know, I'm not a I'm not a camera, you know, I'm not even trying to be a camera. I'm trying to, you know, paint something that looks I want to paint whatever I'm painting to be more than what it is. You know, it's be more than what a camera would capture. So that means taking some liberties, which is a good was a really good segue to one thing that's I've done for about the past 15 years or so is I paint quite often. A lot of it's from imagination, or a combination of, you know, what I'm looking at and my imagination. So I find a lot of freedom in doing a work from memory imagination. And I really, really recommend highly that people work from memory is you know more than they do. You know working from your memory or your imagination, that's sort of the same thing you are forced to you're you're going to force yourself to find out what you really know. Because what you really know is you know should be able to come out as a memory or as your imagination. And the more you practice and exercise your imagination, I think the better artists will be. We're, you know, as a child, our imaginations are much more pliable, and I think we use it more often. And as we get older, we sort of, you know, lose our childlike ability in that way. So I try to practice that. I've done a lot of paintings. Still, I, uh, totally from made up, and you would never know him. Uh. Yeah, and it shouldn't matter. I mean, really, in some ways, those paintings are maybe more truthful than trying to, you know, exactly copy what I'm looking at, because they're, they're from me, you know, they're not locked into just, you know, what I'm looking at, your kind of an expression. Then the another thing, as far as technique, that was a discovery that has helped me a lot, is I'm in love with surface texture. I a painting isn't a painting unless it has beautiful surface texture, you know, so in my that's just my opinion, but I like to build up textures and patina and glazes and using regular oil paint. Oil paint, even if you add mediums that you know, to help speed the drying, they still it takes a day or several days to really be thoroughly dry, if not months. And you certainly can't really glaze a painting that's not thoroughly dry. So I discovered alkyd oils, which was a fast drawing oil paint, and depending on the humidity level and and the thickness of the paint, everything, it'll dry, you know, anywhere from it'll be pretty darn dry in two or three hours or or overnight, for sure, three or four days it's it's completely cured out, so that has helped me speed up my process a lot. Then the cool thing about alkyds too, is they they all dry at the same speed. They can be mixed into regular oils. You can start a painting without good and end it with regular oils. Or you can do the whole thing with alkyd. It's just a beautiful for me. It's a beautiful balance, because I can, I would say I would speed up my process by weeks by using alkyds, at least in the beginning stages, if not you know the entire painting. These paintings are all alkyd, and it is, it's, don't misunderstand, it is an oil paint. It's just a fast drying oil paint. It's not acrylic. Acrylic drives too fast for me, and it doesn't have the same feel as oil paint. So anyway, yeah, the using alkyd oil, since I know it's unconventional, there's not a lot of artists that really do that, but that's been a big thing for me, I can, you know, I can do a painting, you know, average size, still life, do all the glazing, everything I want to do to make it that surface quality, the texture and everything, let that dry, say, A week, and then it's dry enough to varnish, you know, get it framed and send it, send it off to a gallery, whereas, if I were using regular oils, I might have, you know, that might be more like a three month process, if not longer. So,

Laura Arango Baier: 58:40

I mean, that's another one of those things where your personal process, of course, builds in part, around, you know, the materials you have, right, the limitations of those materials, kind of like how you said there's, there are limitations for that oil paint, of the colors we can achieve and how accurate they are, because color is so relative that, of course, values are the biggest thing, because Sure, the spectrum of light is much bigger than the spectrum of values you can get with paint, but you can get a really good approximation visually, but color is a whole other beast that I don't think any kind of Cad Red could ever actually achieve the red of certain objects in reality. So you just have to make do with what you got. And then I think it's awesome that the alkyd oils work like that too. Because I think there's nothing more frustrating than when I don't know, like when I was a student, I would take some ivory black, and then I would mix it with maybe a little bit of romber, or romber with a little bit of ivory black. And of course, that's going to make the paint look like very strangely opaque, and it always ends up drying visually a few values lighter until you oil it out. So there's a little more frustrating than like the separate drying times of. Of different pigments and how it can visually make it difficult to oil paint, because, of course, you don't want to use too much oil, because if you oil out too much, then suddenly your canvas doesn't take any more oil. And then you run into a bunch of other issues that, if you can avoid them altogether, that's awesome, because, like you said it, if you are an artist who's trying to get paintings done in time, in a timely manner, or you have a deadline knowing things like, you know, alkyd oils is very important, because then it's like, oh, I just saved myself weeks of, you know, kind of fighting with my own paints or making sure that I can actually complete things. So I think that's really great advice. I hadn't heard those.

Jeff Legg: 1:00:42

Yeah, the alkyds, they dry at this they all all the colors dry at the same speed, and they all dry matte. So they're always they look the same together. You don't have that problem of sinking in. Now, if you add a medium to the alkyd which you can you can add an alkyd medium, like, like this, couple different types of medium I use, but then the paint will tend to dry with more of a shine to it, and you might have some variation of shine versus matte that, that all, of course, evens out on You varnish it. But interesting that you mentioned red, that's, that's a color that you're right. You can't, it's very difficult to get a really vivid red, like you see with your eye and and come up with a color that looks that vivid, and, you know, in paint. And I discovered through, you know, through glazing, you can get closer to that. So you paint a red base, more of like a orangey red, or almost a pink, and it's lighter value than maybe the finished what you want the finished value to be. But then you let that dry, and you glaze it with, say, alizarin crimson or some other red. And that transparency of that glaze, it's like a stained glass window. The light bounces through it, and it looks completely different than if you had done it with opaque paint, it'll, it'll look very luminous and more intense. So that's another, yeah, red is, is a color that's very difficult to achieve, that those sort of kind of luminosity without glazing.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:02:38

I agree, yeah. And I think, of course, like you said, there's, I think glazing in oil paints or playing with transparencies, I think is so underrated. There's so much beauty and variety that you can get in oil paint just with transparencies like you don't have to paint everything opaque. It's okay to leave something somewhat transparent, and not everything has to be perfectly finished, right? You also want to have that little bit of mystery in there, like it's, I think that's really important, yeah,

Jeff Legg: 1:03:11

yeah. Mystery is, I'm a really I'm always striving for mystery. That's such a key thing for me. See, I was going to say that, and I forgot what it was. But anyway, yeah, the mystery element. I love paintings that I look at them and I might see something in the painting and go, you know, what the heck am I looking at? But there's something about that ambiguous form or shape. It's just really intriguing, especially if it's, you know, combined with something that is recognizable so and having really dark passages where you have to look into the shadow and try to figure out what it is back there. And feels very mysterious. And I love that. I don't, I don't think I do it very well, but I that's one thing I really strive for in my work, and I'm still definitely learning how to do that.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:04:15

Yeah, yeah. I think painting is the gift that keeps on giving, because it's, we're always still learning. I mean, even Michelangelo in his 80s was saying that he was still learning, because it's, it's a medium that transcends, I think, span of anyone's lifetime, which, again, is why, you know, I feel like we're still picking up the work that the old masters left for us, and are all past artists have left for us. We're still continuing their work, so to speak, which is very inspiring.

Jeff Legg: 1:04:49

Yeah, that's really it's really amazing to think about that. I don't know if you've heard of fractals, but basically, uh. Basically what science knows is that any shape can exist in nature, in reality, it's it's infinite. I mean the possibilities of combining shapes and making shapes, which is all what painting is all about is infinite. And so anything we produce as artists today, even though maybe it has resemblance to something in the past, still different painting. There's an infinite number of combinations of way to ways to put things together. And that I kind of feel like, you know, Captain Kirk, you know, going into the universe and just infinite possibilities the painting. But, yeah, mathematically, you know, fractals is a mathematical equation that was discovered. And basically, if you zoom in on a fractal image, which is an amp, kind of an abstract image, you can zoom in infinitely and see different shapes forever, never, never with this mathematical equation, it's really an interesting thing. There's some documentaries out on that this, I would recommend. But, yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 1:06:31

yeah, I think also, you know, to piggyback on that. I think that's the other interesting thing about humans as individuals as well, because, of course, we each have a totally new experience and a totally new combination of all these things, but at the same time, it's still technically, all of these things that have already existed, that have happened to us, and we're just kind of re like, not reinventing it, but we're remixing it right, which I think is why, like, I think that takes a lot of pressure off of, like, oh, how dare I paint a beautiful sunset on the beach that's been done a million times. Like, who cares? It's not going to be done the way you did it, and it's not going to be done by your hand if you don't do it right. So I think there's too much pressure, especially in, like, the modern sort of art schools that think everything has to be new and unique and never before seen, it's like, no, it doesn't. There's nothing

Jeff Legg: 1:07:28

new. Yeah. I mean there. There really is nothing new. So, yeah, so why even think that there might be Yeah? But the other thing, one other thing I wanted to mention, that I get the question, you know, from students in particular, or people make a comment, you know, you're just so talented, you know, and there's a conception that you uh, artists walk into a room, they wave a magic wand, and, you know, a painting appears that it's it's essentially just all talent, and there's no discipline or work that's so far from The truth. In reality, talent is like here, and desire is way up here. So yeah, I mean, there is an element of talent I think that is very helpful. But unless you really, you know, love to do it and have the desire to do it, that talent really doesn't mean a whole lot. And I, I knew guys in, you know, in high school that were, like, just super talented, like, way more talented than me, but they did, they didn't become artists, because they just didn't have the desire to do it. So anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there that I don't think at all that, you know, you can have just a thimble full of talent and take that extremely far through discipline and hard work and some training. Yeah, and I totally agree with you what you said, that you know, there's way too much emphasis put on originality, you know, because I don't think there really is anything that's original. It's pretty much all been done. But so I have no problems with doing something that's been done, but just do it my way, or do it, you know, do it better than what has been done in the past. I think it's really important to think about,

Laura Arango Baier: 1:09:48

yeah, totally, totally. Because I think in part that's, you know, by limiting the things that you can paint just to the things that have never existed. You've limited things to zero. You can't, there's, there's nothing, right? But if you have that, like, desired, like, Oh man, I really, really love painting horses, go paint horses. You know, like, it's okay if it's what you love, it doesn't matter if it's quote, unquote original, it'll, it'll just be your hand that makes it unique in its own way, but not the subject itself. You know, I

Jeff Legg: 1:10:25

think it was Andrew Wyeth has a quote that your art is only as great as your love is. I really like that. So, look, you know, seek the things and do the things that you love. That's what's important. Absolutely, I saw the Prita West is this past weekend. It's a big Western art show in Oklahoma City. I have a lot of artist friends in that George Carlson is an artist I really admire. He's known for his sculpture, but more so now for his paintings, and I think he's one of the top painters in the country, and he had this beautiful painting of just trees, and I think there was a hawk. And just so simple. I mean, think a subject that's been done, you know, millions of times, but he did it in his way, and it's just absolutely, you know, amazing. So, yeah, you have to pursue the things that you really love. Don't try to paint for the market. I've tried that doesn't work. If you love it, and you do it well, someone else will love it, and you'll probably have, you know, you'll find your buyers that way by just staying true to your own vision, your own heart and and your love for your subject, whether it's portraits, landscape or still life or whatever, I've been kind of stereotyped, I guess, as a still life artist, it really my early training was in portraiture and figurative stuff, and I I'm in the process of kind of going back to doing more of that. So I'm going back to what I love. You know, I mean, I love still I'm not saying I don't love still life, but that's not the only thing I can do or want to do. So I think you you might have seen a painting I did of the prodigal son. The painting is called my son, and it's two figures embracing kind of influenced by Odd Nerdrum, admittedly, but I love his work, and I'm learning from his work. Yeah, so I'm, I'm beginning to what, whatever years I have left in this life I want to do more portraits and figures. I have a solo show coming up this this year opens in August. August. 22 is the reception. So I got like eight weeks, but it's going to have a combination of work over probably stretching as far back as maybe the mid 2000s up until current work. And the reason it has older pieces like that is I have had the good fortune of selling everything I do, and, you know, raising a family and everything I needed to sell, everything that I did, and I don't know, probably 10 years ago or 12 years ago, I decided I need to have a solo show, but I could never gather enough work together, because I had to Put it in the gallery and get it sold. So I just started slowly accumulating work. I, you know, I do a piece, I go, Okay, I really like this piece. I'm going to keep this and then hopefully do a solo with it in the future. So the work, I'm going to have probably 40 or 50 paintings in the show, and it's going to span, you know, maybe close to 15 or 20 years. So it's almost a retrospective, but it's not it's going to have current work, a lot of current work, but it's going. To have everything from figurative, still life, landscape, divergent stuff, symbolic stuff. Anyway, I think it'll be interesting. And that that's going to run it's, it's in my hometown of Joplin, Missouri. I was born just about an hour from where I live now, at a beautiful new art center called Spiva Center for the Arts, and it'll run from August 22 through October 25 if anybody wants to come out to see that. Anyway, I'm excited. It's the first solo show in 35 years. So kind of scary,

Laura Arango Baier: 1:15:46

awesome, though. I wish I could go, because it would be such a treat to see your work in person. I think obviously, you know, just seeing your work on your website, it's beautiful, it's breathtaking, but there's nothing better than seeing paintings in person. So I really wish I could go, and maybe one day I'll visit your studio, because I think it's absolutely incredible. But yeah, and then, actually, if someone does want to see your work, what is your website

Jeff Legg: 1:16:15

that? Say that say again.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:16:17

What's your website?

Jeff Legg: 1:16:19

Oh, it's just Jack leg.com Awesome. So yeah, and then if you want to find out about the show, it's by the center, or, I think it's just five.org s, p, i, b, a, Art Center, our Center for the Arts. I think you can Google that for the show, but I'll have that on my website too. I don't think it's on there yet, but yes, I still have water. I have to, I'm looking around here. I've got like, five or six paintings to finish, lots of framing to finish, and I've got to get get my act together here, get that finished. I'm going to have a catalog for the show, and it's in conjunction with, I don't know if you've ever heard of watercolor USA, but it's big national watercolor show is in the same building. Actually, the reception is the same evening as my reception, so there's going to be a ton of people there. So you know, anybody who wants to come, it's kind of a two for you get to see my show, and also the watercolor show, which should be really good.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:17:39

Well, I don't envy the stress of having to prepare for the show, but at the same time, that is still such an amazing opportunity, and so it's I'm sure it'll be extremely fulfilling when you're out there with all of your work and seeing everyone. So I wish you the absolute best of luck finishing up, because I know how stressful it can be just getting closer and closer to the deadline. So thank you so much, Jeff for giving us some of your precious time for this interview.

Jeff Legg: 1:18:09

Oh, you're welcome my pleasure.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:18:11

Yeah, this was so great. Yeah, yeah.