Tina: 00:00:01 I actually need ... Okay, he's on. I actually need far and near, because I have opposite astigmatisms, but I refuse.

Karlenne: 00:00:11 That's [inaudible 00:00:12], okay.

Tina: 00:00:14 Happily in my mess.

Karlenne: 00:00:17 [inaudible 00:00:17].

Tina: 00:00:18 Did you look at any of the other artists that are participating?

Karlenne: 00:00:22 That's when I said, "She's crazy. I'm not at this-"

Tina: 00:00:25 You're perfect for it. Perfect. Perfect. I have a good spectrum of ... It's been the coolest thing I've done in my adult life is to talk to you guys. The coolest thing. The interviews have ranged from four hours to an hour and a half, so anywhere in between. We'll fall in that space, I'm sure. Larry [Anderson 00:00:45] has, and you can't see his walls because he has art, that was the four hour one. He took me through his whole house. Everywhere ... A student, got that, got that, got that, because he's older than me. Then Joe [Mannous 00:01:02] took me on a boat to talk.

Karlenne: 00:01:05 I'm not exciting.

Tina: 00:01:10 He's like, "The way to see the world is to look at it through ..." He was trying to do this whole thing. We did. It was cool. It was great. But it's just been really interesting to see how people become ...

Karlenne: 00:01:21 [crosstalk 00:01:21].

Tina: 00:01:22 ... how you go from ... Right, because what I was thinking about it, this all came about, I was talking to Jay, and he painted ...

Karlenne: 00:01:30 Jay? Is that one of the artists?

Tina: 00:01:32 Yeah.

Karlenne: 00:01:32 Okay. I can't remember all the names.

Tina: 00:01:33 No, no, no, it's fine. Why do you make that stop? Stop it. I just want to turn my phone on. He did this bear painting.

Karlenne: 00:01:43 Oh yeah.

Tina: 00:01:43 It is eight foot by five foot. It looks real.

Karlenne: 00:01:51 Detail.

Tina: 00:01:52 I was at his opening, and his wife, through the opening forum, she's an event planner, she'll probably do our release, all of us, because I'm gonna have everybody come in. It'll be so much fun, I think. But I'm gonna probably have her do it at the [Salarium 00:02:06] and have maybe a couple of works from everybody there and let you guys meet one another. I think it would be amazing. He came to Atlanta. He's a painter. Had work and everything, sent it to the galleries with the slides and the letters and did all of that, and no bites. He has an opening, about 10 years ago, sold everything. Had another opening, sold everything. Now the galleries are like ... and he's like, "Okay." [crosstalk 00:02:36]. Yeah, yeah.

Tina: 00:02:36 But at that opening, I was like, because I know him around the neighborhood as a dad. He has three kids. He's a dad. I'm like, "How do you find the time for this? You both work." He goes, "I get up at 4:00 AM."

Tina: 00:02:50 I was like, "What compelled you to get up at 4:00 AM to start painting bears with birds at a couch?" We just talked most of the night. I felt bad, because I [inaudible 00:02:59] at his opening, but we talked most of the night, and I went, "There's a story here for people who got their Crayons taken away you were four, five or six and couldn't pick them back up again but wanted to." Then I was talking to this art therapist, awesome woman who happens to live in Marietta. I didn't look for one in Georgia, I just got referred to one in Georgia, so I'm gonna go interview her Friday. But she said the medium-

Karlenne: 00:03:25 Is that for Elizabeth?

Tina: 00:03:25 No, for this.

Karlenne: 00:03:26 The book?

Tina: 00:03:27 Yeah, she's gonna write the forward. She said the medium that you're drawn to, the material of it is what you're working through or where you best communicate. If it's clay, it's something this. If it's pencils, it's this. She said, "Nine times out of ten, whatever the material is, 'Oh that person's working through this, or experiencing this, or ...'"

Karlenne: 00:03:49 That's really interesting.

Tina: 00:03:51 I know. So I just keep learning. I asked 12 artists, 11 said yes. The one who said no, she's super famous. Her name's Maggie Taylor, she's world famous. She is the mentor of one of the people that I picked, didn't know. I didn't know that. Then there was another person I picked, and a guy, and they did their first show together. No idea. It's weird.

Karlenne: 00:04:20 Wow.

Tina: 00:04:20 They're at a Nashville gallery, so I'm thinking, "Okay, four hour drive, that's Nashville." They both live here. It's getting weird. But so far, I've been to San Francisco, New York, Tucson, Rising Fawn, Georgia, Chattanooga, just interview. So now I'm down to three left. Charlotte, you, Charlotte, North Carolina, and somewhere else here in town too.

Karlenne: 00:04:46 Where do Periscope come from, and what ...

Tina: 00:04:49 Periscope is what they ... to look down and look up, and it's really, honestly, the opposite of Periscope. We're coming from the surface and looking under, but I just like the idea of, "Let's go deep within the artist and see how they ..."

Karlenne: 00:05:02 Look at the [crosstalk 00:05:04].

Tina: 00:05:03 Yeah. Even that term "artist," we'll talk about that, people shy away from even though clearly, clearly. But it's that word, and that what I want to dispel is when we're four, five, six, seven, anything we draw goes on the refrigerator. It's celebrated. It's encouraged. Whatever it is. Sometime after that, 10, 11, 12, you start having to make it good. It has to follow a technique, or you have to draw this thing this way. Then by the time we get old enough to want to do that again, we're so afraid because of all the stigma. Most people say this, "I can't draw a stick figure." Very few people do. It's [inaudible 00:05:52] a stick figure. But so many people, "I'd love to draw if I could. I'd love to if, if, if." Some of those ifs are society.

Tina: 00:06:02 Some of those ifs are lifestyle, some of those ifs are ... So I found all you guys, and you're really, really unique and important because you had power career, and yet you're still this really talented painter, and how you figured that out. I definitely want to dig into that, because a bulk of the other people made the switch earlier, different paths, and I want to show power career ... Very successful professional career, because somebody's gonna be looking for that story in all these stories, because I have drug addict. I have mom was an artist. I have dad was a woodworker. I have guy so shy he had to have his bird while we were talking. There's all these stories. "Oh, I can't, because ..." Oh really? Well, you're just like Calvin. "Oh, I can't because I've got this ..." Oh really? Well, you're just like [Karlenne 00:06:56]. So just giving that permission, and so that's what I'm hoping we've got in this.

Karlenne: 00:06:59 You had this idea, and you contacted a publisher.

Tina: 00:07:05 No. I contacted the artists. Then I have friends who ... Luke Sullivan who runs [Stead 00:07:13], publishes workbooks, because I got to figure out the genre. It's not an art book. It's a book about creativity that happens to ... It's a weird ... Then a friend in my neighborhood published and he's on Amazon. My children's book went up on Amazon here in a couple days.

Karlenne: 00:07:29 Oh, I didn't know about that.

Tina: 00:07:30 Right, right, right. I'm using it as grease the wheel, understand what I'm doing. What I'm gonna do is write a sample chapter, send with the photographs and that's how you get somebody interested. But what I wanted to do is have all the fodder. I'm down to three interviews, and then I've got everybody's. What I do is, we interview, I send it to a place called Rev and they give me the transcripts. Then I also have a sound designer, who I take the transcripts and we'll cut up our interview into sound bites, so they'll be podcast and stuff on the website too, if someone really wants to dig in.

Karlenne: 00:08:04 So cool.

Tina: 00:08:06 It's awesome. I'm so excited. But it came right out of my butt. I don't have a job right now, so I'm just doing this. Eventually, I hope that that spend will ... But if it doesn't, I'm trying not to pray with an end in mind, because that's what I'm telling everyone else to do. It doesn't matter if it ends up in a gallery or whatever.

Karlenne: 00:08:25 I know. Yeah.

Tina: 00:08:27 Because you can't ...

Karlenne: 00:08:29 [crosstalk 00:08:29].

Tina: 00:08:29 The thing that, to me, this came out, [inaudible 00:08:32] Scott Hill, I think it was his mom, their whole life had an artist table, everything set up. The paper, the pens, the colored, everything. Never touched it. But it was set up, because some day-

Karlenne: 00:08:45 It's waiting.

Tina: 00:08:45 But she never touched it, her whole life. I was like, "That's who I want to talk to, because everybody has that table in their heads somewhere." Let's go wherever. Do you want to walk around?

Karlenne: 00:08:56 Well, we can go to where I work. [crosstalk 00:08:59]?

Tina: 00:08:59 Yep, because I think that will give you a little bit of buffer before I start digging into you.

Karlenne: 00:09:06 I have water here. Do you want a Coke, or you probably are healthy and you don't drink-

Tina: 00:09:09 Water's fine.

Elizabeth: 00:09:10 [crosstalk 00:09:10].

Karlenne: 00:09:10 Hey.

Tina: 00:09:10 I just got out of Orange Theory.

Elizabeth: 00:09:13 [crosstalk 00:09:13] is adorable?

Karlenne: 00:09:13 I know. She's really friendly.

Elizabeth: 00:09:14 She reaches out.

Karlenne: 00:09:15 And she touches you. She goes like that.

Elizabeth: 00:09:19 She pats you.

Karlenne: 00:09:19 Yeah. Roy told me this, when you go to sleep, she goes like this.

Elizabeth: 00:09:24 Touches her nose.

Tina: 00:09:26 She making sure you're breathing?

Elizabeth: 00:09:27 Yeah, and then also she does the little thing Waffles does. She puts her nose up. She reaches out. You'll pet her, and then you'll talk, and then she'll be like ...

Karlenne: 00:09:38 "Okay, more please."

Elizabeth: 00:09:39 Yeah.

Roy: 00:09:40 [crosstalk 00:09:40] just stays under the bed.

Karlenne: 00:09:43 Yeah, that one's mine, stays under the bed.

Elizabeth: 00:09:44 Her eyes are like ...

Karlenne: 00:09:44 Big.

Elizabeth: 00:09:44 So huge.

Tina: 00:09:50 Well, I'm glad you're having a fun tour. If you have to do things, you can just set that in front of the TV and it will be fine.

Roy: 00:10:01 Does it need to be fed?

Tina: 00:10:01 If you can get anything-

Roy: 00:10:01 Can I take it to lunch or something?

Tina: 00:10:02 ... to go in the mouse hole, that would be great.

Elizabeth: 00:10:03 I'm allergic to peanuts.

Karlenne: 00:10:11 That's [crosstalk 00:10:11].

Roy: 00:10:15 If she was hungry and [crosstalk 00:10:15].

Tina: 00:10:14 She'll say no.

Roy: 00:10:15 Because it's lunchtime and-

Tina: 00:10:16 Elizabeth?

Elizabeth: 00:10:16 Yes?

Tina: 00:10:19 Are you hungry?

Elizabeth: 00:10:27 Maybe.

Karlenne: 00:10:28 Maybe?

Elizabeth: 00:10:28 Yes.

Karlenne: 00:10:28 Yes.

Tina: 00:10:28 Maybe [Mort 00:10:29] can get you to eat. Maybe.

Roy: 00:10:31 Would you like to go to lunch with me?

Elizabeth: 00:10:36 Could I do the rest of the tour house?

Roy: 00:10:37 You can do the rest of the tour. There's no hurry.

Tina: 00:10:39 Food avoidance, yes. That's a good one.

Elizabeth: 00:10:41 I want [crosstalk 00:10:42].

Roy: 00:10:42 Okay. Well, I'm gonna go down and work on the tour. I don't have anymore cats, so it's gonna go downhill quickly.

Tina: 00:10:53 She's fine. Oh wow. This is where Angela will come to take pictures. You painted that?

Karlenne: 00:11:01 I did. That's a John Singer Sargent. One of my teachers, his method was to copy masters. [inaudible 00:11:14]. He painted society ...

Tina: 00:11:17 People.

Karlenne: 00:11:17 ... people.

Tina: 00:11:18 She has the [inaudible 00:11:19] with no trouble. [inaudible 00:11:22] this.

Karlenne: 00:11:20 Yeah.

Tina: 00:11:20 I love her face.

Karlenne: 00:11:21 This is a John Singer Sargent over here.

Tina: 00:11:30 He's somebody that-

Karlenne: 00:11:31 Yeah. He's really important in the world of art.

Tina: 00:11:37 Right, right, right. Wow, so this is where ...

Karlenne: 00:11:44 That's the ballet picture.

Tina: 00:11:47 Oh, I see. That's where she came up and set up. These are-

Karlenne: 00:11:51 These are ready to go to the gallery, in the gallery in Birmingham. These two, not this one, that one, that one-

Tina: 00:12:06 Are all going?

Karlenne: 00:12:09 ... are all going. There's six.

Tina: 00:12:09 I love these snapshots. It seems like there's motion, but there's a moment. I don't know. It's interesting.

Karlenne: 00:12:21 Exactly. It's what ... on my website, I said [inaudible 00:12:25].

Tina: 00:12:34 Oh yeah, we'll have to turn that down because mic will pick it up.

Karlenne: 00:12:38 You want me to turn it off? Would that be best?

Tina: 00:12:39 You can turn it down, it's fine. It's really nice, though. [crosstalk 00:12:48] music three. Oh yeah, that's fine. Do you take a picture?

Karlenne: 00:12:52 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Tina: 00:12:53 And then you-

Karlenne: 00:12:53 This is from [Ponte 00:12:54] City. There's a whole little process. I have the one I use, which was the one I just had, and then [Notan 00:13:17], it translates "Everything in either black or white." You really get a sense of direction and where your darks are and the highlights. I shifted it a little bit. This takes it into four values. But it takes color out, so you really can concentrate on composition. I really want this diaganol line to be strong, and those guys to be-

Tina: 00:13:48 And it is.

Karlenne: 00:13:49 ... a unit.

Tina: 00:13:53 That's cool, because they work like that in that small space.

Karlenne: 00:13:57 They work in that small space. I just love it. I want the eye to come in this way and go around.

Tina: 00:14:03 Totally works.

Karlenne: 00:14:05 This is a little bit more rendered than I want anything else to be. I think I'm gonna call it Noodle House or-

Tina: 00:14:12 Pho.

Karlenne: 00:14:12 ... Bowl of Noodles.

Tina: 00:14:12 Pho.

Karlenne: 00:14:18 Yes. Then grid is when I'm drawing it. Then I use this thing called Paint Can when I'm trying to decide if I think I might like it, likening [crosstalk 00:14:35].

Tina: 00:14:35 Oh, I see, yeah, whether you actually want to make it.

Karlenne: 00:14:36 Because it makes it look [inaudible 00:14:38]. Some people paint from these, but I don't. I go back to it.

Tina: 00:14:42 You just want to see what-

Karlenne: 00:14:43 It's testing the waters before I'm convinced.

Tina: 00:14:46 To see if your eyes ... Yep.

Karlenne: 00:14:52 That's what I'm working on right now.

Tina: 00:14:56 Seeing them on Roy's phone is different than seeing them in real life. You can feel it moving. It's really cool. There's something about that. There's a sharpness to that that is, but then there's the ... It's phenomenal. Why not that one? Because you said this one, this one, not that one.

Karlenne: 00:15:24 They didn't like the angles I had.

Tina: 00:15:25 This?

Karlenne: 00:15:25 They liked the brushwork and the composition, but they didn't think the mirror images worked. That's great. It's already framed and it'll be ready for whenever I tackle Atlanta, or try to.

Tina: 00:15:38 Yeah. That's so funny that that's what I ... I can't stop looking at them.

Karlenne: 00:15:43 I liked it too. I liked it too. It was in Ireland. That's [Babette's 00:15:52].

Tina: 00:15:52 Oh yeah.

Karlenne: 00:15:53 And OK Café. This is a barbecue place in Riverside.

Tina: 00:16:00 My favorite is his feet, the crossed guy, because that's how you sit like that [crosstalk 00:16:07].

Karlenne: 00:16:06 That's how you sit.

Tina: 00:16:09 You captured their bodies. That's really cool.

Karlenne: 00:16:14 They have three great sauces.

Tina: 00:16:24 Oh, there they are. Oh, there they are. I see them.

Karlenne: 00:16:24 A peach, a hot, a vinegar that's just really [crosstalk 00:16:26].

Tina: 00:16:28 Where would you like to sit?

Karlenne: 00:16:31 You can sit there or there. We [inaudible 00:16:31].

Tina: 00:16:32 I'll sit right here, because that looks like where you sit. Here, I love Roy, he painted [crosstalk 00:16:44]. I love it. That's so him. He does sit like that, prepared for whatever. We just did a quick walkthrough of technique and where things are going with you with the gallery. Let's talk about that, because we're gonna go backwards. We're gonna get into ... How did a gallery see your work?

Karlenne: 00:17:09 Well ...

Tina: 00:17:10 Well. Always starts with well. Well.

Karlenne: 00:17:17 I have no idea where I was going with this, but in a little dream, a gallery was out there, a notion of could I ever get the gallery. I started researching on how do you approach a gallery. There's all these rules in giant type, "Do not come to the gallery. Do not talk to us. Do not bring your work." All these things. You have to submit it. It has to be low res. Totally weird, which says their inboxes are full of other artists. You go, "Okay, all right. That's how the game is played. I just have to learn the rules and then I can figure it out." But I was in Birmingham. Roy and I were. We had a bunch of family stuff going on there. That's where I grew up. My niece was there from Sweden, my favorite person. She and Roy and I were gonna go to lunch. We were early so we had time to kill.

Karlenne: 00:18:29 This gallery happened to be on the way to the restaurant where we were going. Roy and I go there all the time when we're in town. His old boss, Leo ... Did he ever talked about Leo?

Tina: 00:18:43 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Karlenne: 00:18:43 Shows there, and Rodger, one of my old bosses, shows there. Both creative directors and are painters. [crosstalk 00:18:55].

Tina: 00:18:54 I was gonna say, "Will you turn that ..." was just getting ready to tell you.

Karlenne: 00:19:06 It was the gallery we'd been around. They knew of us coming from Atlanta and driving by and we chat. But anyway, so we were killing time. The director and I started talking about John Singer Sargent, and that I was surprised that Birmingham Museum had two John Singer Sargent paintings. Anyway, we were chatting and we were going to the website and looking to see which ones they were and we were talking about that. Roy comes in and says, "You know my wife paints?" I just started walking away. Yeah, and he hovers over her. Yeah, "With a K, two Ns. You can just type it in right now, here."

Tina: 00:19:49 Oh, pulling up your site?

Karlenne: 00:19:50 Pulling up my site. She started liking it, so then I came back. She liked it. She said she'd love to see more and represent us, represent me. The next step was then to ... at that point in time, I really didn't have any that I was willing to give up. It was this effort of creating an inventory of quality that I liked, I thought was good enough.

Tina: 00:20:22 But that you were okay handing over.

Karlenne: 00:20:27 That I was okay handing over. Then I call her up and say, "Hey, I could come by. I'm gonna be in Birmingham." I brought over six or seven, and then I had a sheet that had some in the works that were just kind of like this is. It's not finished, but it's in the works, so they could see what was going on. From the sheet, and from what I brought in, they picked six.

Tina: 00:20:58 They picked six? Tell me about that process. You're standing there while they're looking at your babies, and they're saying things, or just looking, or "hmm," or what?

Karlenne: 00:21:08 I think gallery ... Well, I don't know. I don't have a lot of experience. This particular gallery owner is very nurturing and very encouraging. She knew that I was a new artist that had no track record, because that's a whole different thing, because when you don't have a track record, you don't know how to price your work. You don't know that people will like it, or they may like it, but will they ever buy it?

Tina: 00:21:34 Buy it, yep.

Karlenne: 00:21:35 And then, at what price point? But yes, it's like, "Oh gosh, I really love that," and the ones they don't really like, they don't say.

Tina: 00:21:47 They just go over.

Karlenne: 00:21:48 They just go over. How I discovered ... Said, "I'm surprised that this one didn't catch your eye."

Karlenne: 00:21:56 She goes, "Oh, I love it. I love the brushwork. But I think that the heads don't line up, and I can't get past it."

Karlenne: 00:22:01 I go, "Okay."

Tina: 00:22:03 That might be the one thing in a-

Karlenne: 00:22:05 Uh-huh (affirmative), that just stopped her on that one. She wanted five or six. She needed to eliminate some that I had to choose from. Then we started talking about pricing. I go, because I had been looking around at some of the prices, but I go, "I have no idea." She goes, "Well, what do you want out of it?"

Karlenne: 00:22:29 I said, "Well, at a minimum, I would want X." They take 50%, so that would mean-

Tina: 00:22:37 Twice.

Karlenne: 00:22:38 ... twice that, and then you got to frame them, and that's your expense. I'm fortunate in that it's not about the money for me. But I want it to have value. She goes, "It's just funny. We just have to test the waters. For an artist that is new, that doesn't have a track record, what we do is have a soft launch, and you come in, bring your work. We get it installed. I send out a notice to my customer base and say, 'Hey, got a new artist, come by and look at the work,' and hopefully if they start moving, they get feedback. What do they like about it, what don't people-"

Tina: 00:23:26 That's good, so they have a little-

Karlenne: 00:23:28 Little focus group-y. Also, the price point. Does it go too fast, and it's just cheap? Or is it struggles for the value or the size, because size matters. But we agreed on what the price range would be, prices for each one, and because they're varying sizes, different ranges. Now my next step, it was to come back and have them framed and ready to go.

Tina: 00:24:01 You had the ones that they picked in a done enough state that you weren't panicked-

Karlenne: 00:24:06 [crosstalk 00:24:06].

Tina: 00:24:06 ... like, "Oh my gosh, I had to ..." because some of the artists, they were told, "Have X number of pieces, and they didn't have the pieces and they had to create ...

Karlenne: 00:24:13 Well, I'm new that if you're gonna get started, you would have to have at least a-

Tina: 00:24:20 A body of work.

Karlenne: 00:24:22 ... a body of work, and you would have to have some that they would eliminate. I didn't know the exact number, but I felt like to go, I had to have in the direction of 10-ish, was my goal in my mind. But again, that I'm willing to let go, not just to show the quality. I brought the OK ladies, it's called Aprons and Bows, was only in my under painting. I don't know if you've seen that.

Tina: 00:24:57 Mm-mm (negative). You said ... Oh I see. It's part of the process of what-

Karlenne: 00:25:21 Yeah?

Elizabeth: 00:25:21 Before. I'm gonna go see the cage one last time, so if you want to see the ...

Tina: 00:25:28 I'll see them in a little while, baby girl.

Roy: 00:25:30 See the kitties.

Karlenne: 00:25:31 Okay. That sounds great, Roy.

Tina: 00:25:36 Right, so it's a step in the ...

Karlenne: 00:25:38 It's kind of like the Notan that I did. It shows value, placement, because [crosstalk 00:25:47]-

Tina: 00:25:46 It was in that state when they saw it.

Karlenne: 00:25:48 When they saw that. But I had a printed one. I did it a 12 by 12 first. They knew, so yes, in answer to your question, once I brought it in various states. Some of them were completed that I thought were ready to go, and then some was, "This is one I would be willing to sell," but I just hadn't finished it yet.

Tina: 00:26:15 Were you nervous? Did you feel validated? Were you excited, or was it just happening and it was just ...

Karlenne: 00:26:22 Well, all that.

Tina: 00:26:25 All of it, right.

Karlenne: 00:26:27 Because as you know, Tina, I'm a bit focused and goal oriented. As I progressed, I had been working. I got the business cards and I'd buy the things that they had said on all the different research that I'd done from the different gallery. You had to have an artist statement and you have to have a bio and you have to have a ... So I'd been working on-

Tina: 00:26:51 Check, check, check, check, check.

Karlenne: 00:26:52 Check, check, check, check. By the time I came, and I had the [inaudible 00:26:56] papers that they had.

Tina: 00:26:58 You did the whole game.

Karlenne: 00:26:59 Yes.

Tina: 00:27:00 You did [crosstalk 00:27:01].

Karlenne: 00:27:01 Oh yeah. I just followed all the rules. It was this tunnel vision going toward this moment, and to see if they really ... Once they saw it, because it's one thing to see on a website. But it's another thing to see it in person.

Tina: 00:27:22 It really is.

Karlenne: 00:27:23 Because it could have been thin paint.

Tina: 00:27:27 Just didn't have the ... Yeah.

Karlenne: 00:27:31 Impact. You just never know.

Tina: 00:27:34 I think these, looking at your work, when you see them, there's such a greater impact than when you see them on a screen. There's a sharpness to them that almost makes you pay attention to the ... You take it all in, but then you start seeing the detail and it's just super cool. I love that.

Karlenne: 00:27:54 Thank you.

Tina: 00:27:55 Yeah. You said a lot. I want to stop you for a minute. I want to go all the way back when you first started. I loved what you said. You said, "What was a little dream that maybe one day there was a gallery out there." That sentence is exactly why I'm here. So let's talk about that sentence. There was always this little dream that a gallery was out there. Dream from when?

Karlenne: 00:28:20 Really the gallery dream came later. The dream probably was, "I think I could paint. I want to paint. I wonder if I can."

Tina: 00:28:35 That's where we start. That's where we start our story, really, is ... Karlenne is four, five, six. You're coloring with Crayons, or whatever it is you're ... and that's the normal thing to be doing at that age. Then that changes into whatever else was next. Did you feel it all the way back then? Did you come back into it later?

Karlenne: 00:28:58 There's a part that I don't remember, because my mom took me to ... I took an art class at Birmingham Museum of Art. I was probably Elizabeth's age. How old is she?

Tina: 00:29:16 11.

Karlenne: 00:29:17 No, I wasn't ... Yes. I was probably more like eight or nine. It was Saturdays, it was newsprint, I remember. It was just ... I did it for a few times. It wasn't years and years. I worked with paint and I remember really liking that. But then I don't have a really memory ... and I always colored, but coloring books where I had the lines. It was more of focused attention rather than creative, I think.

Tina: 00:30:01 Well, because you're goal oriented.

Karlenne: 00:30:04 I guess, maybe. But I did like the 64 box of Crayola Crayons. I hated them when they broke.

Tina: 00:30:16 Let's talk about [inaudible 00:30:17]. Personalities, I've found this out, personalities of artists are reflected in their work. If you look at your studio space, it is very organized. This happens, then this happens, then this happens, then there's trash, then they're lined up and that's what happens. And others are different, based on-

Karlenne: 00:30:39 Who they are.

Tina: 00:30:40 ... that's right, that's right. Mom took you. Did you ask Mom, or did Mom think you-

Karlenne: 00:30:44 I don't remember.

Tina: 00:30:45 You don't remember. It just happened.

Karlenne: 00:30:46 Well, I do remember this one thing, my mom had a best girl friend. Her name was Ruby. Ruby's house was very different from our house. Ruby's house had pottery and different colors and-

PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:31:04]

Karlenne: 00:31:01 And different colors, and paintings, and so she was very ... Hi. Boots did she come back out?

Roy: 00:31:12 No. She went away.

Karlenne: 00:31:13 She did. You know they're funny. You're new. You'll have to come back again.

Elizabeth: 00:31:19 I like that one.

Karlenne: 00:31:19 You like that one?

Tina: 00:31:20 Of course you do.

Karlenne: 00:31:21 Well thank you. I have about two-

Roy: 00:31:24 She takes ballet.

Karlenne: 00:31:25 Tina told me. I took dance all my life, and at this one studio that I grew up in I asked them if I could come back and take pictures. So it was in their senior class, and I have about 200 photos.

Tina: 00:31:44 Wow.

Karlenne: 00:31:44 So I was thinking this might be a series of paintings that I do.

Roy: 00:31:47 Great inspiration.

Karlenne: 00:31:50 I kind of done restaurants, and this is kind new-

Tina: 00:31:54 I love these.

Roy: 00:31:54 The kind you self assign yourself.

Karlenne: 00:31:56 Yeah. I self assign myself.

Tina: 00:31:57 Of course you do.

Karlenne: 00:32:03 It has to be some logic.

Roy: 00:32:05 You have to have a reason.

Karlenne: 00:32:07 So.

Elizabeth: 00:32:08 I know.

Roy: 00:32:09 She likes that one.

Karlenne: 00:32:09 Oh you do?

Roy: 00:32:10 Yeah.

Elizabeth: 00:32:12 Their backyard is huge.

Karlenne: 00:32:13 It's really kinda skinny. It's long.

Elizabeth: 00:32:20 It's skinny. Yeah it's long.

Karlenne: 00:32:22 Long.

Elizabeth: 00:32:22 It's like so you walk out. You see like this little fountain thingy with water, and then rocks around it, and then like little stones with rocks around it, and you keep walking down there's like a little indent where you go, and there's like a little birdhouse thing, and then there's flowers, and it's so pretty.

Tina: 00:32:47 I'm glad you like it.

Karlenne: 00:32:48 Our goal was not to have grass.

Tina: 00:32:52 I do love my nuts, and my yard-

Roy: 00:32:57 Never have to cut grass.

Elizabeth: 00:32:57 Their little ... they have a little house too where people-

Tina: 00:33:00 A guesthouse?

Karlenne: 00:33:04 Um-hum

Elizabeth: 00:33:04 We should get one of those instead of our basement.

Tina: 00:33:11 We have an apartment in our basement.

Roy: 00:33:11 We'll go down to Walmart and get one.

Tina: 00:33:11 I need that basement apartment.

Karlenne: 00:33:14 So where do you all live? Remind me.

Tina: 00:33:15 Well we live in Oakhurst, which is a little part of Decatur. A little Norman Rockwell progressive thinking kind of-

Roy: 00:33:22 That's where the little coffee shop is.

Tina: 00:33:24 Kavarna?

Elizabeth: 00:33:25 Kavarna?

Roy: 00:33:26 Yes.

Tina: 00:33:26 Yes.

Roy: 00:33:27 Jan and I work there.

Tina: 00:33:29 Oh yeah, I bet you do.

Roy: 00:33:31 Well I don't anymore, but we used to.

Tina: 00:33:34 He got his car stolen at some coffee shop there.

Roy: 00:33:36 Really?

Tina: 00:33:37 Yeah, somebody-

Roy: 00:33:39 The big one?

Karlenne: 00:33:40 The big one?

Tina: 00:33:41 He-

Elizabeth: 00:33:41 Wait who did?

Tina: 00:33:44 I think he was in coffee shop, and somebody grabbed this laptop. That's what it was grabbed-

Roy: 00:33:48 Oh yes, stole his laptop.

Elizabeth: 00:33:49 Who?

Tina: 00:33:50 Yeah, and ran out with it. Somebody you don't know.

Elizabeth: 00:33:51 But who?

Tina: 00:33:52 But it'd be funny for you to meet him-

Elizabeth: 00:33:54 Who's that?

Tina: 00:33:55 It's a friend of Roy's he can tell you about it.

Elizabeth: 00:33:56 Roy what happened?

Roy: 00:34:00 Someone just grabbed his laptop and ran, and I don't think he caught him.

Tina: 00:34:05 I don't think he did either. I think he did something, but didn't catch him.

Roy: 00:34:09 Yeah. He got frustrated. Gene does that. Alright well.

Elizabeth: 00:34:20 She's giving you the eyes. She was giving you this.

Karlenne: 00:34:21 Me?

Elizabeth: 00:34:21 Yes.

Karlenne: 00:34:21 Oh. It's just my face.

Tina: 00:34:29 She was giving you the eyes. Okay you're going to eat something a little bit?

Roy: 00:34:32 Would you like to have lunch with me?

Elizabeth: 00:34:35 Wait where?

Tina: 00:34:35 He has a convertible.

Elizabeth: 00:34:35 Yes please.

Tina: 00:34:42 But we're in the momma car. Well we could go to a neat little place that has chicken salad, or we could go to a burrito place up the street. I don't go to it very often I don't know if they have, or we could go to a Thai place.

Karlenne: 00:35:00 What'd you like to eat?

Elizabeth: 00:35:03 Are you guys coming with us?

Tina: 00:35:03 No. We're gonna stay here.

Roy: 00:35:04 No. They've gotta work.

Elizabeth: 00:35:05 What are they doing?

Tina: 00:35:07 Art. She's an artist. I'm interviewing her for the book ding-dong.

Elizabeth: 00:35:10 I thought-

Tina: 00:35:11 And all this will be in the transcription, which is hilarious.

Karlenne: 00:35:13 I know.

Tina: 00:35:13 What?

Elizabeth: 00:35:13 I thought interviewing was more serious.

Tina: 00:35:17 Interviewing was ... well this ... it is its just that you're standing here so.

Elizabeth: 00:35:23 Oh.

Tina: 00:35:23 Bye.

Roy: 00:35:23 So if-

Tina: 00:35:24 Does anything come to mind?

Roy: 00:35:25 You'd like to I've got two errands I could run, and then we could grab some lunch if you'd like to.

Elizabeth: 00:35:31 Where are the errands?

Roy: 00:35:32 Well they're nearby.

Tina: 00:35:34 She was just curious. Alright so do that.

Roy: 00:35:36 One is to ship a little package, and the other is to drop off a tape to have some MP3's made of an old friends of mine's-

Karlenne: 00:35:48 Cassette.

Roy: 00:35:48 Cassette.

Elizabeth: 00:35:50 What is a cassette?

Karlenne: 00:35:51 Yeah. I know.

Roy: 00:35:53 I'll show you.

Karlenne: 00:35:54 It was before CD's.

Roy: 00:35:56 What's a CD?

Karlenne: 00:35:58 Before streaming.

Elizabeth: 00:36:00 What's streaming?

Tina: 00:36:01 Before you could pull it down off the phone.

Karlenne: 00:36:02 Download.

Tina: 00:36:03 Download.

Roy: 00:36:04 Before downloads. I'll show you.

Tina: 00:36:07 That's sad isn't it?

Roy: 00:36:09 Is that okay?

Tina: 00:36:10 It's totally fine. It's not necessary, but yeah sure if you want-

Roy: 00:36:13 We don't have to have a special seat or anything?

Tina: 00:36:14 No.

Roy: 00:36:14 Okay.

Elizabeth: 00:36:14 I'm just throwing this out there TV's huge.

Karlenne: 00:36:17 TV's huge.

Elizabeth: 00:36:17 I watched it, and like-

Tina: 00:36:17 She wants a bigger TV.

Elizabeth: 00:36:20 I'm not saying out TV isn't huge, cause it but like-

Tina: 00:36:26 It is huge.

Elizabeth: 00:36:27 This ... so I walked across it for about five seconds, and it still wasn't done.

Tina: 00:36:33 I see.

Roy: 00:36:33 That's crazy.

Tina: 00:36:34 You can look a picture on it later. We're going to go back to our interview now.

Roy: 00:36:44 Okay. They're going to interview. We're going to run a couple of errands.

Karlenne: 00:36:45 Elizabeth I'm so glad you're here.

Elizabeth: 00:36:45 Thank you.

Karlenne: 00:36:45 Okay.

Roy: 00:36:46 And could we bring you guys anything?

Karlenne: 00:36:50 Do you want?

Tina: 00:36:50 I'm good.

Karlenne: 00:36:51 Okay. I'll be fine.

Elizabeth: 00:36:52 Mom, I'm going to unlock the car, and get a T-shirt it's getting hot.

Tina: 00:36:57 Okay. The keys are in the kitchen I believe.

Roy: 00:36:59 Okay, and then we'll re-lock the car, because we live where people take cars.

Karlenne: 00:37:07 Right.

Tina: 00:37:09 So we were ... Did Mom take you? Didn't you know I'm just trying to get back where we were.

Karlenne: 00:37:14 Yeah, I mean her friend Ruby. I don't know that she said you should take her or what. I have a feeling that that may have been an influence.

Tina: 00:37:24 So one thing I want to make sure you described Ruby's house, and you said it was very different from yours.

Karlenne: 00:37:32 Well our house was ... my mom's sister painted, and we had some of her paintings, and she did more abstract. My father was an architect, and she did these angular things that were ... so we had original art. Not a lot, but it wasn't fluffy and soft, and I don't know it was just a different house. I remember.

Tina: 00:38:01 Alright. Right. It was angular and purposeful. Great.

Karlenne: 00:38:05 And so it was just-

Tina: 00:38:07 So Ruby's house resonated with you more? That environment? And maybe she picked up on that and was like-

Karlenne: 00:38:12 Maybe our ... I don't know if she ever saw me color or draw, but I think Ruby probably had an influence on my Mom to get me there, and I don't remember asking like something I begged for.

Tina: 00:38:27 Right.

Karlenne: 00:38:27 Like a bicycle or something. I don't think it was just, but then I don't remember anything until like high school I took art, but that was mainly not to take Home EC.

Tina: 00:38:39 Right. Mine was not to take math, but right it didn't work.

Karlenne: 00:38:45 And in college I wasn't focused there, and-

Tina: 00:38:52 On art?

Karlenne: 00:38:53 On art. When I would take vacations I would always try to buy a piece of art where I went to remember it by, and then I went to college, and in my junior to senior year between that in college I'd saved all my money to go to Europe, and that's when I was probably the most immersed in architecture, art cause it was this tour where we went 55 day, 13 countries, and-

Tina: 00:39:33 Wow.

Karlenne: 00:39:34 It was so Louvre, and I really started being introduced to art, and the variations and the kinds, and when I graduated I realized, I go I want to know more about art, and so went to UAB in Birmingham, University of Alabama Birmingham. I audited art history, and I took classes just to learn about who they were.

Tina: 00:40:04 So there was just this drive? You were just interested in it?

Karlenne: 00:40:07 Yeah. I just I was irritated that I would look at paintings, but I didn't know who did them, and I wanted to know. I wanted to know who they were, and so then gosh got married. We moved to Atlanta, started our own business with my business partner, and I always again this little dream of hey I think I want to paint, and of course I'm terribly intimidated because my husband Roy who can do anything, paint anything, but he doesn't like to. I mean if we have an empty space on the wall, and we need a painting he's always painted something because he's cheap.

Tina: 00:41:00 Right, right, right.

Karlenne: 00:41:02 He can afford the art-

Tina: 00:41:04 I'll paint it.

Karlenne: 00:41:04 Yeah, I can just paint something. So-

Tina: 00:41:07 So let's stop there for a minute. I love so there's this I took an art class here, I was really interested in it here, I wanted to know who painted, so you have this, and maybe someday I want to paint.

Karlenne: 00:41:19 Hunger. Um-hum.

Tina: 00:41:20 So it's in there, and why paint?

Karlenne: 00:41:24 Well I don't know.

Tina: 00:41:27 Which is a perfectly fine answer.

Karlenne: 00:41:29 I don't know. Drawing seems harder and boring, but I figured you probably need it to draw in order before you can paint, and that was the complication that I hadn't figured out yet, but I didn't want to draw. Three-dimensional felt messy, complicated-

Tina: 00:41:52 And having architect Dad kinda more angular, structured that was kinda ...

Karlenne: 00:41:57 It just I couldn't imagine how I would pull that off in my life. A kiln, or all this stuff.

Tina: 00:42:05 It just wasn't your-

Karlenne: 00:42:07 Physical, and I didn't see me as being that kind. You know I have a friend who does found objects and welds and makes ... she does incredible work, but it's just I couldn't-

Tina: 00:42:21 It's not your-

Karlenne: 00:42:22 I like color.

Tina: 00:42:22 It doesn't resonate with you. You like color, right?

Karlenne: 00:42:25 Um-hum, and I like gooey, and I like color.

Tina: 00:42:31 I like when you move, and you're talking about it. That's what happens.

Karlenne: 00:42:35 Yeah, I do. I mean my current teacher his thing is tells all of his students don't pet the canvas. You know, which is kinda what I was doing, and petting the canvas means you kinda go over it, and you overwork, and overwork, you're small, and you're not using your arm, and ... but anyway.

Tina: 00:42:53 So you got married, you have this company open-

Karlenne: 00:42:56 And you know working what a hundred hours a week.

Tina: 00:43:01 On a light week. I remember, so that just took off. And you're goal oriented, and that was what you were going to do, and you threw yourself into this work.

Karlenne: 00:43:11 Um-hum.

Tina: 00:43:12 What happened to the painting stuff?

Karlenne: 00:43:14 Well it's things, I would go to shows, I would look, and buy books, but I started looking around for classes, and Atlanta you know really doesn't have a lot of good choices. Things like SCAD I thought should have ... surely they have continuing education component? No. I found at the art institute that used to be you know Woodruff Art Center. I took two different sessions, and it was a continuing adult education continuing education-

Tina: 00:43:54 So marry that up with where you were career wise. Company started, and 100 hour weeks, and how many years from college to art institute class roughly?

Karlenne: 00:44:07 Oh I'd have to do some math on that. Let's see if I graduated from 77 in high ... no that's college, so got married in 84, 90 is when we moved to Atlanta, no 84 yeah, and sorry this is like five years, so just for easy math say 20 years.

Tina: 00:44:54 Right, so this little fires been burning, you know just keep it, buy the book, learn a little, but on the other side I don't want to discount what you were doing. You didn't just have a job you were building a company, and you were spending an inordinate amount of time doing that.

Karlenne: 00:45:09 Right.

Tina: 00:45:10 But you still had this little bunsen burner of a-

Karlenne: 00:45:14 This nagging-

Roy: 00:45:15 Okay we're off.

Karlenne: 00:45:16 Okay guys have a great time.

Elizabeth: 00:45:18 Thank you.

Roy: 00:45:18 We're going to Acoustech, and the UPS store, and maybe to get a bit to eat.

Karlenne: 00:45:29 That just sounds like a great day.

Roy: 00:45:32 Alright.

Karlenne: 00:45:33 Okay.

Roy: 00:45:34 Bye.

Elizabeth: 00:45:35 Bye.

Karlenne: 00:45:35 Bye-bye.

Tina: 00:45:37 I love you.

Elizabeth: 00:45:37 Love you.

Karlenne: 00:45:42 Um-

Tina: 00:45:44 I actually have good days on sad days-

Karlenne: 00:45:47 Yeah good moments within a sad day.

Tina: 00:45:49 So-

Karlenne: 00:45:52 So at this art institute it was painting live models, because I thought I wanted to do portraits, and so I walked into this class never have taken really formal training, and that's what I thought this was, you know it was going to cause it's art, and it's got a live naked model in the middle, and there's 20 people around, and everybody brings their stuff, and there all pallets you could just tell that mine was clean and new, and everybody else's was used and loved. So I found out painting people are pretty hard, and maybe I shouldn't have tried that first.

Tina: 00:46:45 Right.

Karlenne: 00:46:46 What can I do, and how-

Tina: 00:46:47 So this class was on a week night, weekend?

Karlenne: 00:46:50 Week night.

Tina: 00:46:50 So after work, and you get home-

Karlenne: 00:46:53 And you'd rush after, so I could leave my car parked where it was, because Bright Eye was close to where the class was, and I would carry my stuff down, go to class, and then have to go back, and yeah I wouldn't get home til, cause it was a three hour class, so say it started at seven, eight, nine, ten, yeah.

Tina: 00:47:21 So you'd get home ten thirty, eleven.

Karlenne: 00:47:23 Yeah.

Tina: 00:47:24 One time a week?

Karlenne: 00:47:26 Yeah, one time a week, but that's when I got home from work anyway.

Tina: 00:47:29 Right, and you were staying sometime ... you were going back to work after class?

Karlenne: 00:47:36 Yeah.

Tina: 00:47:36 Yeah, and this is important, because this is part of the-

Karlenne: 00:47:39 Working it in.

Tina: 00:47:40 Yup. Figuring it out. Getting up at four, sleeping all night if need be, and this was once a week?

Karlenne: 00:47:46 Um-hum.

Tina: 00:47:47 So that was the class once a week. Were you also painting?

Karlenne: 00:47:49 Not then.

Tina: 00:47:50 Just you know-

Karlenne: 00:47:51 Not then, cause it was a live model, so it was kinda real time, but then I quit because the instructor I didn't think she wasn't a good teacher. She could observe, she could critique, but she didn't really have a method for teach-

Tina: 00:48:08 Instruct.

Karlenne: 00:48:09 Yeah.

Tina: 00:48:09 Right?

Karlenne: 00:48:13 And I think most of the people had some kind of experience, and they were really needing a studio, and a model available.

Tina: 00:48:24 Right.

Karlenne: 00:48:24 So I was in a different place.

Tina: 00:48:26 Yeah.

Karlenne: 00:48:29 And so that didn't work out, and so then I started saying well what else can I do if I can't do people, but that would help get me to people, so I said well what else is round, and I said fruit. So I stated painting round fruit, so let's get up and go look at this-

Tina: 00:48:45 Yup.

Karlenne: 00:48:46 So this is when I would do round fruit.

Tina: 00:48:50 Fruit. Oh yes you did.

Karlenne: 00:48:54 And all had to be like above art, you know I couldn't do bananas for some reason. I only could do round fruit, and I-

Tina: 00:49:02 I could only do round fruit that doesn't make sense.

Karlenne: 00:49:08 And I'd only have like five in between this one or that one, and they were hideous you know, and I couldn't ... I had no way to ... I didn't have a method, so I had no way to replicate good.

Tina: 00:49:21 So you were in the dark just painting fruit.

Karlenne: 00:49:23 I was just painting. I would just either find a picture in a magazine, or I would set up ... buy pears at the grocery store, and just try to figure it out, and so I did this for a while, and this is when Deb Dewitt, and Evelyn, and I we there was a school, a charter school in-

Tina: 00:49:49 Renfore?

Karlenne: 00:49:51 Yes, and they had an art show, and so I got in, and they did too, and we ... so I did my round fruit, so I had a show then, and I sold like five pieces, four pieces, but I wanted to continue, but I couldn't replicate, and I was really irritated and frustrated, because it was just a waste of time to do one okay that I liked, and they're all very different.

Tina: 00:50:28 Yeah they really are. That is so different from that one in just the cherries-

Karlenne: 00:50:34 And this was like one of my first primitive.

Tina: 00:50:36 Right, right.

Karlenne: 00:50:37 Round, stem, that must be a shadow, you know this is very flat it looks like cardboard.

Tina: 00:50:46 And this has ... it's interesting how in that these are so different.

Karlenne: 00:50:52 But every ... so I was learning to blend. This is probably a later one and this one, but now I know that you don't find every single edge. You lose edge, because in real life not everything 100% clear all the time.

Tina: 00:51:16 Uh. That depends on how you're looking at it.

Karlenne: 00:51:23 You know it's ... so his shoulder here goes ... it's what's called a soft edge.

Tina: 00:51:29 I see. I see what you're saying, because it goes, because it doesn't stop it goes there's a depth behind it, and-

Karlenne: 00:51:35 There's a depth, and there's darkness behind it, and your eye just doesn't ... it's not like a painting-

Tina: 00:51:39 Yeah like the front of her dress, and-

Karlenne: 00:51:43 A photograph would capture every edge, but that's the beauty of photography, but a painting should be different, or I mean some people who want to paint photorealistic that's a style.

Tina: 00:51:53 That's different yeah.

Karlenne: 00:51:56 But that's not what I wanted to paint, and so-

Tina: 00:51:58 No I love that. I can see that in a lot there's-

Karlenne: 00:52:01 That's just something that I didn't know what I didn't know.

Tina: 00:52:05 Yeah.

Karlenne: 00:52:07 So then I started looking for a teacher that-

Tina: 00:52:12 So you had the art show with the school-

Karlenne: 00:52:16 And by that time-

Tina: 00:52:17 You sold some.

Karlenne: 00:52:18 We'd sold our business to this global PR agency, which my job was this North America role, and so I would go to New York, and-

Tina: 00:52:28 So what was your title at that time? Is it important for-

Karlenne: 00:52:32 Well, I mean like I had several titles.

Tina: 00:52:34 Head of North American ... yeah right.

Karlenne: 00:52:37 Chief Client Officer, sorry Chief Client Engagement Officer for North America. That was my last one. I was Chief Growth Officer, but I wore like five hats within that, but-

Tina: 00:52:55 Right, at the same time.

Karlenne: 00:52:55 Yeah, at the same time. Chief Client Engagement Officer were our largest accounts typically global accounts, so multi-country, and I worked with the account teams to help make them better to service our clients, to get more money from our clients, to make them happier, and retained.

Tina: 00:53:16 So you're running a business that you started, sold it to a bigger conglomerate who then wanted you to continue the success you did with the company while you're trying to paint fruit.

Karlenne: 00:53:25 Yeah.

Tina: 00:53:26 Right, cause that's an important, you know like this fledgling thing that you've been carrying around the kind of passion thing you've been fanning the flames of as much as you could fit in doing this other thing, but you did fit it in cause now we're sitting in your studio, right? So let's keep going with-

Karlenne: 00:53:44 So by the time when I left that art institute before I could find a teacher that was probable a pretty big yeah, and-

Tina: 00:53:55 You just stayed interested, but you didn't have hand to brush to canvas, right?

Karlenne: 00:54:00 Not no, but I would ask Roy like this easel, I said I want an easel, and it would be but when are you going to paint? You don't come home at night, you're consistently working you know it's just like ... I want an easel.

Tina: 00:54:14 I just want the hope of an easel. The promise of an easel, yeah?

Karlenne: 00:54:17 It's my mind works in that in order to that little dream there were things that would have to happen. You'd have to have a space, you'd have to have equipment, you'd have to know things like a method and a technique, you'd have to have what's my favorite brush. I don't know. There's a ca-gillion manufacture brushes. What's your favorite-

Tina: 00:54:39 Did you feel you had to have that-

Karlenne: 00:54:41 I had to figure that out.

Tina: 00:54:42 Before you painted? Or you just-

Karlenne: 00:54:45 I just knew that those steps had to come, and-

Tina: 00:54:49 And that structure came all the way from Dad as architect?

Karlenne: 00:54:55 I guess.

Tina: 00:54:56 All the way through to-

Karlenne: 00:54:58 And dance. I mean-

Tina: 00:54:59 That's right.

Karlenne: 00:55:01 I danced all my life, and I guess-

Tina: 00:55:03 There's a method to-

Karlenne: 00:55:04 I'm a linear thinker, but it also can paralyze you or me in that you can see you can go to zero to sixty, and you see this path. I mean to get to that path all what all has to happen, or you can imagine what it might be just logically, and you could go well shit that will never happen.

Tina: 00:55:28 Right. You looked down the road, and say I'm not going down it.

Karlenne: 00:55:30 Well you just go how can you make that happen, because of you know lifestyle.

Tina: 00:55:37 12 hour days, 13 hour days, and have-

Karlenne: 00:55:40 Travel.

Tina: 00:55:41 Right, I forgot about that part.

Karlenne: 00:55:43 You know cause airports will suck the life out of you when you ... cause my job was really out of New York, but I wouldn't move, but I would go there probably you know leave on the 7:15 flight on Mondays and come back Thursdays, and sometimes it's three days, or I have to go to Chicago, go to the different cities that have the largest accounts, you know because we have several out of Chicago, out of Seattle, San Francisco-

Tina: 00:56:18 Yet you want an easel.

Karlenne: 00:56:20 But I want an easel.

Tina: 00:56:22 Since San Francisco, like I want to make sure I said that cause that cross coast, which is much different than a quick New York trip. So you wanted an easel. Were you happy with your company in all of that?

Karlenne: 00:56:37 I like what I did. I think my company, a colleague and I would talk about it, make really bad decisions, and have self inflicted wounds. Went through like four presidents, and in the midst of our industry completely transformed because of digital. So the industry was very confused, imploding, competition increased within the disciplines, everybody-

Tina: 00:57:14 Which demanded more of your thought time.

Karlenne: 00:57:16 Which demanded more, and I was the real driver in saying content is really critical. PR as much as I hate to talk about PR, and I would never say that I even worked, sold to a PR firm, but PR could really be in a great place, because it's always been about conversations.

Tina: 00:57:35 Right.

Karlenne: 00:57:36 So we have to just change a little bit in order to be really competitive in this new space, and what's happening to consumers, but the inferiority complex of PR, the budgets' availability, and who our clients are were bigger complications than say for the ad agencies.

Tina: 00:58:04 And so that outlines what you were facing in your professional part, and you said I think at the beginning of that you were happy.

Karlenne: 00:58:11 I like to solve problems.

Tina: 00:58:12 Right.

Karlenne: 00:58:14 And so because the industry was changing, because-

Tina: 00:58:19 Big problem right in your lap.

Karlenne: 00:58:21 It was a big problem, so how are we going to approach content? What's our method, what's our approach, do we have a name for it, do we brand it? So I took that on, and-

Tina: 00:58:33 Industry changed. Then company changing with, and all of that and you're taking that on, and want an easel. So were you happy?

Karlenne: 00:58:41 Yes. I loved-

Tina: 00:58:43 You seemed it to me too, because we worked together.

Karlenne: 00:58:44 Yeah, yeah I loved clients, I loved solving problems, and I do think that when I ... the Karlenne that liked that, and the Karlenne that likes this, it's really the same thing in that I enjoy as much thinking about what image I might do, how would I design it, how would I ... you know figuring it out, doing the notan that I showed you, doing that paint can app, and thinking through, and how do I organize my photos, so I can be better at it, and how do ... so it's solving different kinds of problems, or figuring things out that I don't know.

Tina: 00:59:36 And it's still taking the skill set that you honed, and crazy developed over here, and applying it to, because there's a method, and you said there's an order, and there's thing that you're checking off, so-

Karlenne: 00:59:47 And I was always satisfied my job had a huge amount of creativity that satisfied that along the way. I was always around designer and creative people. I was often times just in the companies that I was in mainly PR that didn't really know what an ad agency ... didn't know what an art and copy team, and the creative process they didn't know it, so I became ... I assumed that role a lot of times, and I had a great husband who helped.

Tina: 01:00:22 Right, who's in their anyway.

Karlenne: 01:00:24 Who's in the business, so my need for creativity, and design, and aesthetics, and color was satisfied a lot. You know it was like little bits of crack cocaine along the way.

Tina: 01:00:38 Right, yeah you had a little bit ... yeah right that's funny. Just here's an M&M.

Karlenne: 01:00:43 Here's ... exactly.

Tina: 01:00:45 So what I like about this it wasn't like you were, because I've talked to other people who were horribly miserable, and hit bottom, and because they were so frustrated, and didn't get [crosstalk 01:00:58] and you're so like I said you're so unique in this story, cause your perspective you were happy doing this. You just knew that along the way-

Karlenne: 01:01:06 I really was, but and then you get older, and your husband retires at ... how old is Roy. He was 60 I guess, but he retired, and he called me one night from LA, and said I just can't go back to the office after this month long shoot of being out of town. He goes I just hate it, and I go absolutely. That's fine. Quit. I still got it in me, so I still want to work, and I said I'll work two more years, and so two more years came and went, and we had a couple new presidents, and then I had to you know content wasn't quite finished yet. I wanted to hand it off-

Tina: 01:02:01 Still not painting?

Karlenne: 01:02:03 Still not painting.

Tina: 01:02:03 Right.

PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [01:02:04]

Karlenne: 01:02:00 ... finished yet, I wanted to hand it off.

Tina: 01:02:02 Still not painting?

Karlenne: 01:02:03 Still not painting.

Tina: 01:02:03 Right. Did you have your easel?

Karlenne: 01:02:05 Yeah, I had my easel. But then, when I started seeing retirement being a real thing-

Tina: 01:02:16 You saw the dot on the horizon?

Karlenne: 01:02:19 ... I didn't know exactly when I was gonna pull the trigger, but it was there. It was closer than it was farther away. That meant available time, because I am a workaholic. Where was I gonna put that energy?

Tina: 01:02:37 Right, because you were wound up all day.

Karlenne: 01:02:41 All day.

Tina: 01:02:42 Rise to bed.

Karlenne: 01:02:42 Up, and get on a plane.

Tina: 01:02:45 Redline.

Karlenne: 01:02:46 You don't travel during the work hours, you travel before or after, because you got to have the full day there. I eat room service in hotels, the burger, I know every burger at every hotel in New York.

Tina: 01:03:02 Some good.

Karlenne: 01:03:05 Or what's worse, is I wouldn't get back to the hotel after room service was closed and I didn't eat. It was full throttle. But when I started seeing that retirement, at some point I was gonna need to make my husband a priority, because I really hadn't. We don't have children. He worked and loved his work too, for a long period of time, most of the time, til the end. So we both were focused, intense work people. But ... I can't remember where I was gonna go with that. But what was I going to do-

Tina: 01:03:50 With all your time, that's where you were.

Karlenne: 01:03:53 ... with all my time when I pulled the trigger and said ... So I started, and I had always said that I was a switch and not a [inaudible 01:04:04] in the fact with work, that I would just walk out one day. I was gonna be a switch.

Tina: 01:04:09 It wasn't a ... Yeah.

Karlenne: 01:04:11 I could never wind down. Well, when I got close to [inaudible 01:04:14], I think, "Well, maybe I can." What I started doing is if I could cut my work week to four days a week, start eliminating these five hats, getting it down to one or two hats, and using the time to take classes during the day and find a teacher.

Tina: 01:04:36 It was in queue waiting for this.

Karlenne: 01:04:38 It was in queue. Then when I went to four days a week, I took one class. When I went to three days a week, I went to two classes a week.

Tina: 01:04:48 You're winding down and ramping up.

Karlenne: 01:04:52 Winding down and ramping up. During this time period, my mom got really sick too, and so I had to stop and refocus on that, and I couldn't do ... But anyway.

Tina: 01:05:03 But you were used to shelving it for a minute.

Karlenne: 01:05:08 Uh-huh (affirmative), and then going back. This teacher that I found had a very structured method, and that met a lot of needs.

Tina: 01:05:19 It probably was comfortable for you, because you're used to structure.

Karlenne: 01:05:22 I could see the, "First you work on this painting, you do this painting and then you do this painting." And, "This painting, we're gonna learn these different things, and with this painting, we're gonna learn these three things." So okay. All right. Know what's next. I was focused.

Tina: 01:05:38 It resonated with you. How did you find that teacher? Because you had-

Karlenne: 01:05:41 Website. I just Googled and looked.

Tina: 01:05:46 But that's important. Sounds insignificant, but it's very significant. If you want to do it, you will figure it out.

Karlenne: 01:05:51 Right. You had to read their body copy and you'd go, "This is how they teach." He talked about ... his tagline was something about learning from the masters.

Tina: 01:06:06 Oh, so that's ...

Karlenne: 01:06:11 I knew the kind of genre that I wanted, the Impressionistic. I wasn't pointillism or I wasn't that ... But this-

Tina: 01:06:22 Pollock, and I hear you.

Karlenne: 01:06:23 Not Pollock and not the one that begins with an S. But the use of color and how it blended.

Tina: 01:06:36 Seurat. Sorry.

Karlenne: 01:06:37 Yeah, not him. I thought that maybe that would be a good fit, so tried him. I really didn't like him as a person. But I appreciated the program, and so I stuck with it for almost five years. Then when I-

Tina: 01:07:03 This is two days a week-ish?

Karlenne: 01:07:05 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Not for five years, like the last three. Then when I did retire, then I could paint on other days. But during retirement, when I was still working and taking his class and doing these masters, I had this hunger of, "Well, I want to apply and test it."

Tina: 01:07:28 You were ready.

Karlenne: 01:07:28 I was ready. So then I started painting my own things. This one here was one of the ones that I did on my own.

Tina: 01:07:36 I love that.

Karlenne: 01:07:40 [Mesat 01:07:40], the one in the kitchen that you liked, I did that one on my own before I finished the program, but still started.

Tina: 01:07:52 What did that feel like? You've been doing what you're supposed to do, almost parallel to your professional life. You're doing exactly what you're supposed to do for years, have everything structured, and then you painted your own and it's good.

Karlenne: 01:08:11 It felt great.

Tina: 01:08:14 Did you know it was good? Did you see it and go, "I'm actually pretty good at this"?

Karlenne: 01:08:18 Well, that one was ... I did the one in the kitchen first.

Tina: 01:08:23 The music one.

Karlenne: 01:08:24 And I really liked it. This one wasn't looking good at-

Tina: 01:08:30 This one?

Karlenne: 01:08:31 Mm-hmm (affirmative). One night, I probably didn't go to bed til 4:00 because I ...

Tina: 01:08:37 Just like your ... right?

Karlenne: 01:08:39 Just like work.

Tina: 01:08:41 [crosstalk 01:08:41].

Karlenne: 01:08:44 I had a breakthrough when I got freer. It's so easy to get tight.

Tina: 01:08:52 You're used to being ...

Karlenne: 01:08:53 And I'm used to being tight.

Tina: 01:08:54 To the second tight.

Karlenne: 01:08:57 It's really hard for me to not get ... sit here and lick the canvas with this little tiny brush and make sure that line is perfect. Then when you get away and you go, "Well, that looks like crap, if I'd seen the whole thing, because that's not even the important part." But I didn't have those skills, and my teacher was a licker. He could do incredible, perfect portraits. If you're looking at your face and your nose coming forward and the shadows and the ears going back and how the color wraps, he can absolutely capture the likeness and the tone of skin unbelievable. But that's not how I want to paint. I don't want to paint perfect. If a flesh tone is like this guy, he's in a dark space, and that's not a pretty flesh tone. But it's accurate for him. It's moving and blurry and I like motion.

Tina: 01:10:20 Our skin does pick up colors.

Karlenne: 01:10:21 One of the things was trying to absorb and get as much as I could from this teacher, and he really pissed me off because we did not align politically at all. It was during the election period. Oh yes. Majority of the room in this north Atlanta place where I had to go, it was hard. But I stuck it out and finished the program, and I'll never ... He got me, I think, further along faster. I will never deny now-

Tina: 01:11:10 Which is cool, because ... and this is another thing that could have stopped you, or anyone, is, "Well, I don't like the teacher." You stayed focused on the thing you were needing to get, which is the instruction.

Karlenne: 01:11:26 From him. I needed technique. I needed to understand color, how the color worked. I needed to hear what people talked about, the brushes. I didn't have opinions about what turpentine to use. Do you use paper towels or do you use rags? There's so much stuff that goes with it, and I didn't have a point of view. I always have a point of view.

Tina: 01:11:53 Right? And you've always been expected to walk into the room and guide everyone else's point of view.

Karlenne: 01:12:01 And know it.

Tina: 01:12:02 Well, your whole career, you were the one that had to have all the answers, because you were in charge. Then you're in this world where you know. But what's interesting is, you've been educating yourself, reading books about this subject, but not the tactics.

Karlenne: 01:12:18 Yeah, the technical stuff to get you there, because I wanted to absorb it, and I also have this ticking clock in my head. How long will I have a good eyesight? How long will I have a steady hand? How long can I stand up? If standing up is the best way to paint, how long can you stand?

Tina: 01:12:44 That's your brain that's been trained to assess an entire situation and put it in order and the risk, and they you applied that over here, but to a great success, because you're organized and it's probably, that's your comfortable path to get there.

Karlenne: 01:13:02 It creates a really ... I have a sense of urgency. The people that were in the class would go, "Gosh, how can you be this far along?" Because I would start, he had 15 different paintings you had to do, and I started out with somebody and they were still on painting three and I was on seven.

Tina: 01:13:24 Seven, right.

Karlenne: 01:13:27 I could do it fast, and if I only had to learn three things, then what were the three things? I was good about learning what to learn.

Tina: 01:13:36 And shutting the noise and all of that out.

Karlenne: 01:13:39 And not worry about, "Is it a great painting or not?" It wasn't about the painting. It was about I was gonna learn how yellow worked, or how the red apple worked. How do you make a red apple look red, but in the shadow it's purple.

Tina: 01:13:58 You got out of your own way so you could just do what you were told. Yeah, yeah. That's interesting, too, that you had such, I guess, a clear path focus to it, that you did shut out all the noise, inner noise and external noise, and just learned what you needed to learn and then, "Peace, I'm out. I'm gonna go make amazing art with what [crosstalk 01:14:27]."

Karlenne: 01:14:26 Oh, and I just had this impatience, but, "When can I apply it? When can I start applying? When do I flip the trigger to exercises versus my art?"

Tina: 01:14:41 Yep. The compulsory, right, right. It's like in gymnastics, they have to do a certain amount, but then they get to go free. What would have happened, because I think this is an interesting experiment for your path, what would have happened if [We LifeWorld 01:14:59] would have set you in front of a blank canvas and a bunch of brushes and just paint, and you hadn't had ... Would you have ever ...

Karlenne: 01:15:12 I don't know. I don't know.

Tina: 01:15:14 Because you said it intimidated you because Roy painted, and you needed to know technique before. Is that what creates a safe canvas for you? Is, "I know how red turns into purple in a shadow, and I know not to do this but to do this," is that what-

Karlenne: 01:15:30 It helps and hurts. It helps in the fact that I have confidence that I've been exposed to it. But I'm still don't have confidence in knowing my choices.

Tina: 01:15:47 I see.

Karlenne: 01:15:47 Because I have voices from different teachers, and Pinterest has been great.

Tina: 01:15:55 How so?

Karlenne: 01:15:56 And online. Well, with Pinterest, I was able to create a board and it was art. I was able to, when I would find things, pin it to that board and then I could go through that board and I could start really seeing what I was drawn to, the style. I have this whole book that I printed out the pictures of the ones that I liked, and I've-

Tina: 01:16:31 The ones, what?

Karlenne: 01:16:32 Of the paintings that I like. Then I started seeing that the majority of them were one or two painters, or three or four painters, and then I would find them online and I would go to their website to know, "Oh, they have workshops." I started taking workshops too of painters that I liked. There's this one in Nashville that I really have adopted a lot of her technique, so I have that voice in my head, and then I have Chris, the first Chris. I'm taking from a second Chris now. But Chris One would talk about ... Tell me when not to get too detailed, grays are really important. He had this one approach to grays, and most of the rest of the world have a different approach to grays, and also paint.

Tina: 01:17:25 But you're dying to learn this, right?

Karlenne: 01:17:27 I want to absorb. Again, do I have to be one or the other, or what is my style? I knew that when you go into a gallery and you have five or six artists, and you see this corner is Artist A and this corner is Artist B, and you know it's Artist A because the body of work is similar. There's a thread that runs through it, either style or color or paint. I didn't have one. What's my style?

Tina: 01:18:02 Right, and as you self-assigned, these are voices that you've been gathering purposefully to teach you, so you have a cacophony of different-

Karlenne: 01:18:13 By self-assigning these subjects, the first thing was restaurants. Roy and I go here. Take a picture.

Tina: 01:18:19 Right. You've been foodies. You took a cooking class in Italy. [crosstalk 01:18:23]?

Karlenne: 01:18:22 Yeah. That's where it had light and shadow and people and patters. I like patterns. It was an environment or a venue that captured a lot of the things that I like, and so I assigned myself that while I was finishing up Chris's program to, started applying.

Tina: 01:18:52 You're becoming your own instructor at this point, because you feel like you have enough ... I'm putting words in your mouth, because you have enough fodder to create your own voice and-

Karlenne: 01:19:02 I was very impatient to start applying and to start figuring it out, because I was becoming good at copying brushstrokes.

Tina: 01:19:14 Technique.

Karlenne: 01:19:16 Well, yes. But when ... This was a beautiful painting, this beautiful [Agnue 01:19:25], [inaudible 01:19:25] we're listening to.

Tina: 01:19:25 It's right here.

Karlenne: 01:19:29 But he had already made the decision that her hair was going to bleed out and be a very soft edge against the dark background, whereas this was a lighter background so that it could create drama. But yet this created ... But this went away. But he had to make that decision. I wasn't making the decision.

Tina: 01:19:56 I see. He was following.

Karlenne: 01:19:56 I was copying.

Tina: 01:19:57 Yep, yep, yep.

Karlenne: 01:19:59 This was gonna be this long, sweeping, a lot of gooey paint with a lot of medium and make that stroke, but these were short.

Tina: 01:20:09 More crisp, yeah, yeah.

Karlenne: 01:20:10 But I could copy it, but I wasn't making the decisions. So when I sat in front of an image that I thought might be fun, what edge am I gonna lose? I don't know.

Tina: 01:20:24 You could start to interpret your own.

Karlenne: 01:20:28 I needed a situation where I was making my own decisions.

Tina: 01:20:32 Which is interesting, because if you take that whole process and apply it to how you did professionally, that's how you ramped up a business, sold it to ... and were making ... Learned enough, did this. Learned enough, did this. Now you're doing it over here. It seems like you're getting to the point where, "I got this." Training wheels off, almost literally. "I'm ready to have my own and create my own voice." The question that sparked this was what would you do in front of a white canvas? I think you would have probably done the same thing you did do, which is until you learned ... Not followed, but ...

Karlenne: 01:21:14 Well, I guess the [inaudible 01:21:16] might be an example of that, because I didn't have an imagination. It was really hard to imagine me painting elaborate scenes, because I knew what I liked, but I just didn't really know how to get there.

Tina: 01:21:34 Right. But then you figured it out.

Karlenne: 01:21:36 Yeah.

Tina: 01:21:37 "I want to go here. Ergo, teacher, teacher, grays, Chris, Chris, there." Now you're painting, I would say, some of the most elaborate scenes you could possibly paint. Those are ambitious.

Karlenne: 01:21:53 In fact, Roy will say, "I would have never picked that. It's way too complex."

Karlenne: 01:22:01 I went, "Oh really? I had no idea this was complex. I just liked it." But it is.

Tina: 01:22:04 There's depth. There's light. There's edges. There's people.

Karlenne: 01:22:13 There's people.

Tina: 01:22:14 I don't know how you could get more complicated.

Karlenne: 01:22:16 I know.

Tina: 01:22:20 And yet, there you are.

Karlenne: 01:22:21 I know.

Tina: 01:22:24 And you pretty much nailed it.

Karlenne: 01:22:26 I really want it to be simpler. I tried. I go, "Okay, I'm gonna do this one simple." Look at all that stuff going on in here.

Tina: 01:22:36 But that's what I think is so super cool about your work is that's two guys sitting on a bar stool. Crazy complicated. But simple. You made sense of the ... That's so complex, but it's simple if you look at it.

Karlenne: 01:22:54 It's just three ladies trying to get through morning rusk at the OK Café.

Tina: 01:23:00 But you see all of that, and that's what I was gonna ask you that might be cool is, I'm looking at that picture of Roy you did, are you starting to see life in ... When you walk into a restaurant, do you see the vignettes that could be? Are you starting to-

Karlenne: 01:23:13 Oh yeah. On Facebook, you see friends. This is a shot of a friend of Roy that he used to work with, his wife. They were in Italy for a wedding, and she's walking down a street. He posted it on Facebook and Roy showed me and said, "This looks like a painting you would do." I go, "Well, ask him [crosstalk 01:23:39] paint it." He did, and I did.

Tina: 01:23:44 And there it is.

Karlenne: 01:23:47 There's one that, it's not successful yet, in fact I've redrawn it and I'm gonna start over, I don't even remember where ... Oh, it's back in the closet, of my friend's husband sitting in front of a food truck and it's a little bit different colors. It's a lot of blues. In fact, it's one of the one that the gallery liked and wanted, but it's not good enough. I'm gonna redo it.

Tina: 01:24:20 You have your own. I was gonna say, that's another super complex one.

Karlenne: 01:24:24 It is.

Tina: 01:24:25 Mirrors and bodies and bars.

Karlenne: 01:24:27 Legs.

Tina: 01:24:28 You bit it off on that one.

Karlenne: 01:24:29 I know it, and I'm going, "I had no idea it was ..." and one of the ladies in my painting class, when she saw the photograph, she goes, "I would have never imagined that that photograph could look like that."

Tina: 01:24:47 Do you feel like now, especially when people don't see it as readily as you do, do you feel like you have your own voice, eyes and everything now?

Karlenne: 01:24:54 I do.

Tina: 01:24:57 That must be huge.

Karlenne: 01:25:00 That's the photograph.

Tina: 01:25:01 Yeah. If you told me to paint that, I'd say, "There's no way." Then look at it here, though. What I love is that picture, because I've never ... that picture's stark, and this you have the ...

Karlenne: 01:25:17 Atmosphere of it all.

Tina: 01:25:18 That's the right word.

Karlenne: 01:25:26 I really wanted ... This is very monochromatic with regards to the wall, the reflection in the mirror, and the floor is all the same color.

Tina: 01:25:35 That's right. I called it stark, but you're right, it's that.

Karlenne: 01:25:38 I didn't want that, and so, again, grays I think are really important and pretty. Then I also wanted the movement. This is [Tandoos 01:25:47], and so you're constantly going out, out, out, out, [crosstalk 01:25:53].

Tina: 01:25:53 You know what else you've captured that I think is really cool? Is some people are there because their moms are making them. Some are into it. Some are, "I want to do it, but my mind's somewhere else for the moment. I'm not paying that much attention." Somebody else is ... you know what I mean? It's interesting how you've-

Karlenne: 01:26:09 Mm-hmm (affirmative). I love all the leotards are all different, so even though they're ... To be in this class, you had to wear pink tights, black leotard and hair in a bow or you couldn't come in. But yet, she's got pink and hers is round. That's a v-neck. She had a necklace on, but I took it off. This is flowers. This is lace.

Tina: 01:26:28 I see.

Karlenne: 01:26:29 I think that's [crosstalk 01:26:31].

Tina: 01:26:31 Elizabeth's gonna be in royal blue and pink tights.

Karlenne: 01:26:34 You have to ... You get discipline.

Tina: 01:26:38 Right, and I love it's also you, because it's very disciplined and you have your iPad up there, and Angela will capture all that. You have your method, but then it comes out so visceral, and that's cool. You have your house and Ruby's house right there. I love it. I love it, love it, love it. Are you, now that you don't work anymore in that, and you're ramped up here, same kind of happy, different kind of happy?

Karlenne: 01:27:20 Well, I really like it. I like having a productive use of my time when I'm not working, because I would need something. I don't want to shop. I don't have children. I don't have to take care of aging parents anymore. I can only be around Roy for so long.

Tina: 01:27:57 Right, right. You're a productive person.

Karlenne: 01:27:59 He stays down there. I stay up here and [inaudible 01:28:01]. I like producing things. One of the things that I liked about work was solving problems and creating products, creating stuff. Producing.

Tina: 01:28:14 I did this.

Karlenne: 01:28:14 I did this. See this book? See this presentation, this pitch?

Tina: 01:28:19 Or this company running well. I did that. Yeah.

Karlenne: 01:28:23 I like producing, and I like, again, the solving problems. I like having something to think about to go, "What am I gonna do next?" And "What did I do wrong there? What should I have done differently?"

Tina: 01:28:40 Processing. You're Six Sigma-ing your paintings.

Karlenne: 01:28:42 That's right. I am happy. I am cautious, because I don't want this to become a job, and I could do that so easy.

Tina: 01:29:00 Because of how you're wired.

Karlenne: 01:29:01 Because of how I'm wired.

Tina: 01:29:03 Do you fight against what you know the [inaudible 01:29:06], because you know the game of that, do you fight against what you think the gallery's looking for, size, colors and all of that, against what your Carlene voice, free of all that, untethered from that sees?

Karlenne: 01:29:18 No.

Tina: 01:29:18 Good.

Karlenne: 01:29:18 It has nothing to do about the pressure of a gallery. It is all self-imposed, producing more and better, at the expense of sleep, eat, doing anything else, showering. It's a bit obsessive.

Tina: 01:29:39 It's funny about showering. But you know, a lot of the people that were considered masters or greats did exactly that.

Karlenne: 01:29:49 Weren't quite right.

Tina: 01:29:51 But they did exactly that. I was reading Ben Franklin's autobiography, and he said, "I had a family out of necessity, but it was truly just a distraction from my real work." He had a separate house he would go and work, because he didn't want ... That's just a micro example. Macro-ally, though, I think people that are heralded as mac get like that about the work, because it's their work.

Karlenne: 01:30:20 Well, you can't produce body of work without focused attention and time. But I can be absorbed, and I lose time. I am so lucky, because Roy, he's always been the cook of the family, so I don't have any expectations of wife stuff that most people do. Not only ... Most people burdened with work, but family and children, especially for women. There's a lot of things that I don't have.

Tina: 01:31:03 What I love that you have, that you're a great example of is, this wouldn't be un-ordinary if you were a guy. It would be, "Oh, he needs to be supportive, and I will do this to enable that."

Tina: 01:31:18 And your showing, "But wait. I need to be enabled to do this." That's great.

Karlenne: 01:31:26 In my job, financially, Roy and I both were able to retire a little earlier and not have to work at the Burger King to support ourselves.

Tina: 01:31:40 Right, you're fortunate in that way.

Karlenne: 01:31:42 We're fortunate in that way. Having the financial security, the help, and putting all the things in place. Any one of those things could have been a barrier to where it didn't happen.

Tina: 01:31:58 To seeing ... right, these beautiful simple, highly complicated, technically painted ...

Karlenne: 01:32:03 Well, they're not five foot by six foot bears.

Tina: 01:32:08 I walked up and I was like ... But it's interesting, all the different techniques, too. You're, I would say, more classical in your approach. Then other people take photographs and put it in and paint around the photograph of a rhinoceros or an elephant. It's interesting how broad it can go, but you took lone path. Look, now thinking, because we just did this fun romp back through your past to get you to sitting here in this chair and your cool picture, is do you look at that and you see that it's good.

Karlenne: 01:32:59 Yes. It excites me.

PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [01:33:04]

Karlenne: 01:33:01 It excites me.

Tina: 01:33:03 That makes me happy that you said that. Good.

Karlenne: 01:33:06 And I get really worried, and when I'll go through ... Because I still don't have a winner every one I do.

Tina: 01:33:18 What does that mean?

Karlenne: 01:33:19 When I talked about the [inaudible 01:33:23], and I would go five would be horrible, in between. So I still don't have a guarantee home run every time yet. And I don't know if you ever do. I don't know.

Tina: 01:33:37 So far, no one ... Everyone says there's things that they just paint over, or it didn't translate what they wanted it to come out like.

Karlenne: 01:33:48 But when it happens, it really excites me, and I get excited.

Tina: 01:33:53 Well, what would make you stop?

Karlenne: 01:33:57 Health. It would really be a struggle if Roy, for whatever reason, couldn't be as supportive for whatever reason. If he just got really pissed off and irritated. But he's my biggest fan. But I mean, I know couples who have to choose between the couple and hobbies, our other things, other choices, and that would be a tough choice if I had to do that.

Tina: 01:34:37 I will say ... disclosure after the answer ... 100% of all of the artists that I've interviewed, 100%, supportive partner. And to the point of ... Like the effusion you just had, that point. So there must be a thread or a difference of that, because 100%, they're either their business partner, do the gallery stuff for them, put on the shows. They're supportive to the point of being a participant.

Karlenne: 01:35:07 Being a participant.

Tina: 01:35:07 Yes.

Karlenne: 01:35:08 Well, Roy's a participant in that, because he did go to art school. I mean, he had in his visual design for advertising, had a big bucket of art classes he had to take. He had to take painting. He had to take water color. So he knows perspective. I suck at perspective. No, this bowl. I couldn't get the oval of that skillet. There's a couple things downstairs. I'm dyslexic, and I think sometimes it translates visually too, that I just can't see it. He goes, "Can't you see it? It's skinnier over here, and it's got to get wider over here." Or, "Your front lip of the skillet is too low. I mean, it's higher." And it's hard for me sometimes to see perspective, so he'll come by and ... I've been out here for three hours and he goes, "Gosh, that skillets the wrong shape."

Tina: 01:36:18 So helpful, but ...

Karlenne: 01:36:19 He's helpful, and he's worked on giving me feedback in a more constructive way. As you know, Roy can be quite brutal.

Tina: 01:36:26 I do. Roy used to be my boss at one point [inaudible 01:36:29]. Yes, he can be very forthright.

Karlenne: 01:36:34 Very forthright. And so sometimes it's hard to hear. So he's very much a participant, and a participant in the sense of ... Well, I wonder ... I'm trying to think about surfaces. Do I like linen? Do I like cotton canvas, linen canvas? Do I like a stretch? Do I like it on a panel? Do I like board? And so we'll go over here, is a lot of my blank canvases right now. But I've got some boards. I've got other kinds. I've got different manufacturers. And so there's a ... Having a buddy to go and just discuss it and think about it is really nice. So he's supportive.

Tina: 01:37:22 And for you, I think it would have to be a buddy who has the credentials to back up being a buddy.

Karlenne: 01:37:28 Yeah, it can't just be an empty opinion. It is an informed opinion.

Tina: 01:37:34 So let me go back to something you said when you said first you were intimated because Roy paints. Is Roy intimated because Carlene paints? And does Roy still paint?

Karlenne: 01:37:48 Well, I can show you when we go downstairs. There was a guy-

Tina: 01:37:52 I remember the headache. He painted the headache or something.

Karlenne: 01:37:54 Yeah. Guy Tucker.

Tina: 01:38:02 Yeah, his retirement, didn't he?

Karlenne: 01:38:06 Guy is a recruiter, a head hunter. So Guy learned about this Mad Men art show that was gonna be at Moda, and it was art directors from the sixties and seventies. Roy's a little younger than that. But they donated their art and it was for a cause or something. And so Guy talked Roy into doing paintings for that, and he did three. And they were portraits. So he still paints, but he doesn't have the need. He doesn't have the need and obsession to be busy.

Tina: 01:38:53 That's interesting.

Karlenne: 01:38:54 He likes to accomplish chores and be productive.

Tina: 01:38:59 Like painting three paintings for that. Check them, done.

Karlenne: 01:39:01 Done.

Tina: 01:39:02 He's not gonna be here til 3:00am.

Karlenne: 01:39:03 No, he wouldn't do anything. He didn't work that way either, which I did. But retirement for him and work and that obligation and weight, he doesn't want anything like that now.

Tina: 01:39:28 He shed that, and you just transferred it to something that he-

Karlenne: 01:39:30 I transferred it to something else. He completely let go of it. And if a nap takes him at 3:00, it's really fine.

Tina: 01:39:38 Right, right.

Karlenne: 01:39:39 He doesn't want to be overbooked ...

Tina: 01:39:46 Put upon, right. He wants the release of it.

Karlenne: 01:39:49 He wants the release.

Tina: 01:39:50 And you are still fine with the self-imposed confines of-

Karlenne: 01:39:54 Of delivering stuff.

Tina: 01:39:59 I took this on. People are like, "Oh, you must enjoy the time." I'm like, "Totally do. I'm busy, but I'm completely booked." I'm definitely wired like that too. I can't be bored.

Karlenne: 01:40:14 I can't be bored.

Tina: 01:40:17 There's no such thing for me. I will fill it.

Karlenne: 01:40:19 I would be fat as a house, because what else could you do but eat? So I just couldn't not do something.

Tina: 01:40:31 I can't sit-

Karlenne: 01:40:31 And I needed my own room too, because with Roy retired four years before I did ... So he had established routines. He went to lunch with the girls. He shopped for groceries. He didn't buy in advance. He goes everyday. Please shoot me dead.

Tina: 01:40:53 Because the efficiency is so ...

Karlenne: 01:40:58 And if he expected, which I didn't know ... Did he expect me to sit downstairs? Because he just will be on the internet and just do things and research best salt to use for a recipe or something. I mean, I go, no. And I want my own room. I don't want to have someone observing in my space. And so that was one of the things that had to happen too before I retired, was this was a different room. And what was my cart gonna be? Or how was it gonna be? How would I arrange it? And what kind of table did I need? What kind of easels?

Tina: 01:41:46 So you really did plan this.

Karlenne: 01:41:48 I did.

Tina: 01:41:49 I mean, years in the making knowing it was coming. I mean, carpet, room, easel, learn, classes, boom on the binger.

Karlenne: 01:42:00 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Carving out the time, and yeah. I did, it's just an obsession of I wanted to figure this out and see if I could do it. I don't know why.

Tina: 01:42:13 So here's a question, and I think this is important for our dear readers hopefully, most of them.

Karlenne: 01:42:23 I'd want us to read it.

Tina: 01:42:24 Yeah, right. At least your chapter. At what age would you say you became a painter?

Karlenne: 01:42:34 Well ...

Tina: 01:42:35 It's not a trick question.

Karlenne: 01:42:38 I would say 63, and I'm 63. Because I got a business card. Not that artists don't. I'm validated.

Tina: 01:42:56 Of course you did. Of course you did. And I love it. That says it right here. But what I love is, it's been your life in the making. It's always been in there, from Ruby's house visits, all of it, to you're about to ... When is this going up? And are you gonna be okay with letting these go ...

Karlenne: 01:43:18 Oh yeah.

Tina: 01:43:20 I mean, that's hard.

Karlenne: 01:43:23 No. This is still tacky right there. I had to redo the edges, so as soon as that dries, I can varnish. That dries, I got to the framer. I think in two weeks, because all of the ones ... Everything else is ready to go. One, two, three, four.

Tina: 01:43:45 And then the gallery takes it. Birmingham Gallery?

Karlenne: 01:43:50 Mm-hmm (affirmative). The name, Santos.

Tina: 01:43:53 Yeah, I love ...

Karlenne: 01:43:54 Sweethearts goes.

Tina: 01:43:56 The balloon is insane.

Karlenne: 01:43:58 I know, but it's the only thing that's good.

Tina: 01:44:00 What?

Karlenne: 01:44:00 There's not enough depth. The faces look cartoon. Oh, the cakes are good.

Tina: 01:44:05 Oh, I see. Yeah, no.

Karlenne: 01:44:09 The balloon's good. Roy and I, I mean, it was so funny ... We were trying to decide, because I asked his opinion, which one should I take? And we thought Lemonade, and that one really shouldn't. It's just not gallery worthy.

Tina: 01:44:27 And they took them.

Karlenne: 01:44:28 And they took them. And this one of course would be the first one they would choose, and they didn't take it.

Tina: 01:44:33 It's funny, because I was like, "Oh, wow."

Karlenne: 01:44:35 I know, it's that hysterical?

Tina: 01:44:37 So what becomes of him, our man in the mirror?

Karlenne: 01:44:40 I save it for another gallery.

Tina: 01:44:41 Oh, I see. Okay. Yeah, one of the other artists, Larry Anderson, who's been painting, the one I told you, doesn't have any wall space. Like head to toe, every room. There's no wall space. I love him. His whole basement is his gallery. He has rooms of his work.

Karlenne: 01:45:05 Does he sell his work?

Tina: 01:45:07 Oh yeah, he's in the [Kaylynn Gallery 01:45:09]. But it's just from phases and styles, because he's-

Karlenne: 01:45:14 That makes me feel better.

Tina: 01:45:16 I mean, he'll open a closet and go, "Oh, that was my so-and-so period." And it's stacked. He'll open those skinny drawers of architect files and pull out canvases and shove them back in there.

Karlenne: 01:45:35 He's been at it a little longer than me.

Tina: 01:45:36 Yes, yes. He is interesting. He got Parkinson's, so he couldn't paint. And he went to Emory and things put in his head to steady his hand again so he could paint, like electrodes that counter the Parkinson's.

Karlenne: 01:45:50 Wow.

Tina: 01:45:52 That's his [inaudible 01:45:53]. But what's interesting is when he had Parkinson's, he's like, "I'm not letting this stop me." He was raking leaves in his yard and he found a stick he liked, and he would dip it in brown paint and paint rabbits, because their fur was ... So he used that as part of ... I thought that was kind of really cool, because he used it. He was like, "I'm just gonna use this."

Karlenne: 01:46:14 I mean, it's just something that ... It's a compulsion.

Tina: 01:46:19 But it's a wonderful one. It feels good.

Karlenne: 01:46:22 Yeah, it's healthier for me, because I had a similar compulsion about work, but I think that was out of much more insecurity. I mean, I was ambitious, but not ... I don't know. I don't know what it was. But it wasn't as healthy as this obsession.

Tina: 01:46:52 Well, that seems external, and you were worried about ... And there was other levers outside of just your own self looking at your own work.

Karlenne: 01:46:58 Oh, yeah. You have employees. You have jobs, and there're mortgages. I absorbed all of that.

Tina: 01:47:05 You carried it. So I'm gonna ask you one other thing, unless other things spark. You talked about your dad was an architect, but your mom took you to the art class. But then you haven't mentioned mom at all other than that, except for when she got sick. Was mom traditional? Mom stayed home? Did mom work?

Karlenne: 01:47:26 Both. She worked for my dad at times. He had his own architectural firm. She would do books, or she headed the PTA for the Southeast or Alabama. She did that kind of stuff. She opened her own business probably when I went off to college, right before I went to college, and it was a dance supply store.

Tina: 01:48:04 Did mom do this?

Karlenne: 01:48:10 Kind of, sort of. My dad, there were nine children in my father's family. Seven boys, two girls. All the nine children went to college. All the nine children married people who had college degrees. And Mother didn't, except for Mother. She always, I think, struggled a little bit with that. But she opened her own business. She went to UAB and she took some classes around running a business and management. She got a certificate about those little classes. But she always made ... She sewed. She made my clothes, and she made all my costumes for dance.

Tina: 01:49:02 Ballet, just to clarify for [inaudible 01:49:05].

Karlenne: 01:49:05 Yes, well tap, jazz, and ballet.

Tina: 01:49:08 Okay.

Karlenne: 01:49:08 And I took a lot of classes, so there was a lot of dance costumes. And at that time, this was before the aerobics craze hit. That kind of came maybe two, three, four years after she started, so there was no place for leg warmers and shoes in Birmingham. Not a lot of good places. It was like this one place you could go buy ballet shoes. And fabrics were geared for gingham check little girl dresses, but not necessarily satin stretch for ballet classes.

Tina: 01:49:47 Ballet classes, right.

Karlenne: 01:49:49 So she opened a dance supply shop, where it would be Danskin and [inaudible 01:49:56] and shoes and fabric. And she would work with the people who were needing costumes a certain way, and because her sewing and the materials, she could help advise. So she was creative in that way through music and through ... She played the organ ... And through sewing.

Tina: 01:50:23 So how many brothers and sisters do you have?

Karlenne: 01:50:25 I have two older brothers. I'm the baby.

Tina: 01:50:28 You're the baby.

Karlenne: 01:50:30 Very different from my family. They're very Republican. I'm not. They are just different, but I love them to death.

Tina: 01:50:48 Right, right, right, right. So it sounds like mom had that same kind of drive and vision.

Karlenne: 01:50:55 And certainly my father did running his own business.

Tina: 01:50:58 Right, so you were around that, and it was probably genetically passed down a little bit too. So I just wanted to kind of cover ...

Karlenne: 01:51:05 Mm-hmm (affirmative), nurture and nature.

Tina: 01:51:05 Yeah. And figure it out. Was there a rigidity to schedules and stuff at home, or was that just innate?

Karlenne: 01:51:17 No. I would get out of ... certainly in high school, get out by 1:00, and then I went to UAB to take master at this higher level dance ballet class. And then I would go teach to pay for my classes, and I taught at different studios across the city. And then I would have to come home and do homework.

Tina: 01:51:46 So you had this built from ...

Karlenne: 01:51:48 I mean, I didn't get home in high school til 10:00 usually, because then you would rehearsals for shows after classes.

Tina: 01:51:58 So that helped you when later in life you had this big power job and this hugely successful career. To take a class at night, that didn't daunt you, because you'd done it already.

Karlenne: 01:52:13 Yeah, I always did extracurricular activities.

Tina: 01:52:13 Right.

Karlenne: 01:52:13 I wouldn't go home.

Tina: 01:52:17 Right, then what do you do? Research salt? No!

Karlenne: 01:52:24 But also, the obsession with work, and maybe it kind of applies to this, I studied in college speech pathology. So if you stuttered or ...

Tina: 01:52:35 Yeah.

Karlenne: 01:52:36 So that's what I studied. And at Auburn my junior year, I was the Horizon director, which that's what the name of the program was for speakers. So you decided what speakers to bring to campus. And the next year, I was the UPC director, so University Programs. So that's when you were overall of the student activity money, so a kajillion dollars. And that was what bands to bring, what concerts, what speakers, what movies. And then you had to promote, and you had the publicity department. And so they put up posters on the wall at the student union, and people came to an event. I thought that was so cool that it worked. Advertising, promotion, and this whole thing. I thought that was-

Tina: 01:53:28 And so you just took it ...

Karlenne: 01:53:30 I just thought that was kind of fun, so I decided I didn't want to do speech pathology. Unfortunately, it was my senior year in college.

Tina: 01:53:38 Which is when it usually happens.

Karlenne: 01:53:40 Mm-hmm (affirmative), and I was doing my internship. So I decided that I needed my ... I wasn't gonna change my major as a senior. I couldn't imagine having that conversation with my father. So I said I would get my Master's, my MBA, because you didn't have to have a business degree. But I had to pay for it, so how was I gonna pay for it? So I got a job with my sorority at Clemson. I went to Clemson, and my sorority paid for school, and I started that.

Tina: 01:54:14 Wow.

Karlenne: 01:54:19 And at Clemson, a guy from Henderson Advertising came to speak at a class and talked about how an agency worked and talked about a production department. So they made print production and figured things out and schedules. I can do that. I was a rush chair with my sorority. I can do schedules. Advertising can't be that hard.

Tina: 01:54:46 And for you, it wasn't.

Karlenne: 01:54:47 Well, but anyway, so I decided that, again, it reinforced advertising, and the kind of job I would go after was production. Because I knew I couldn't write. I'm not good at writing, and I didn't have the talent for art director. But I could organize.

Tina: 01:55:09 Yes.

Karlenne: 01:55:10 And so when I came back to Birmingham, I went looking for jobs in advertising and print production, and so I got ... And Roy was the first art director I worked with. But all that to say is that on the job training is the only kind of training I've had, is learning and doing and figuring it out as I'm in it.

Tina: 01:55:40 Which is the same as your-

Karlenne: 01:55:41 Is the way I'm doing the painting. I mean, it's how I did my career too.

Tina: 01:55:45 Well, I loved too that you noticed that a poster and flyer worked, and you kind of ... It's kind of your MO, is you see, "Oh, I want to go there," and then you go, "Okay, I'm starting from here. I do this, this, this, this, this, this, this."

Karlenne: 01:55:57 To get there.

Tina: 01:55:58 Ding! Look, I'm here!

Karlenne: 01:56:03 I stayed at the same company forever, but yet I would come home and I would say, "Roy, I ..." I told him that I wanted to change jobs and go and do this part now. "What?" "Well, I think I'm gonna do that." Or, "I can only be a production manager. We'll have a ceiling on salary, because it's an undervalued ..." I of course think it's the most important thing, but no one else does. "So you've got to get an account service, so I'm gonna go do that. Okay, so now, I'm thinking I'm gonna go do this." It was all within the same theme, but yes, that's been a consistent trend.

Tina: 01:56:48 I love it. So there are probably a lot of yous out there. Not you in particular, but you in general, where there are these people that have these careers, but they have this little tickle from something from younger. What would you ... And this is just a question I ask everyone kind of towards it. What would you say to those people if they haven't done learning, but they just want to do something? Is there something you would tell them that you think would be ...

Karlenne: 01:57:29 Well, I think it's pretty straightforward in that don't squelch that voice. Just don't let it die. Feed it, even if it's just looking at Pinterest.

Tina: 01:57:44 Yeah, just to keep it going.

Karlenne: 01:57:47 Keep feeding it in someway, even if there's months and years in between that's pretty dry. But there's usually something you can do to scratch that itch.

Tina: 01:58:05 Alright, that's Elizabeth. That's good. Are they carrying something?

Karlenne: 01:58:11 Elizabeth [inaudible 01:58:19].

Tina: 01:58:19 That's what I was saying. Is Elizabeth carrying something?

Karlenne: 01:58:21 I'll wait for them, Amazon.

Tina: 01:58:34 Oh, my dogs let me know when Amazon is coming.

Karlenne: 01:58:37 Roy gets lots of things delivered. This is also what he does.

Tina: 01:58:43 Right. Actually, I was listening to a sermon on Sunday, and he was like, "You're gonna get a box in the mail." And he said, "And it's gonna say prime on it, and you're not gonna know what's in it." He goes, "You're gonna have forgotten." And it was a thing on like, do you need everything that you buy, blah, blah, blah. It was funny. I love this chair, by the way, the fabric and the pillow and everything.

Karlenne: 01:59:12 Thank you.

Tina: 01:59:15 Oh, what's next? Or do you not know yet? Or do you know you're gonna just keep ... Now that you find your kind of Carlene-ness?

Karlenne: 01:59:25 Hmm.

Tina: 01:59:29 I know there's a switch somewhere.

Karlenne: 01:59:35 I was thinking it's getting hot. Well, a goal would be the whole gallery notion, and how it came about with Roy going, "You know, my wife paints."

Tina: 02:00:05 I told that story at lunch with Deb and ... Who was with us? Deb and me and [inaudible 02:00:14]. I laughed, because he was like, "You know Carlene paints?"

Karlenne: 02:00:20 So I have been ... I have made a list of all the galleries I want to do. I have a new spreadsheet that I built, what they require.

Tina: 02:00:28 Say it again. You have a what?

Karlenne: 02:00:30 A spreadsheet.

Tina: 02:00:33 I love it.

Karlenne: 02:00:36 And Atlanta has a ton of galleries, but I would say ... my limited knowledge ... but 60% of them to 70 are contemporary art, and I don't paint that. So in galleries, just like in business, they have a niche that they're trying to carve out, so that the interior designers and people who own homes and ... No, well, I want to go to ... What's the K name that you just said?

Karlenne: 02:01:21 [Kaylynn 02:01:21]. So I go to [Kaylynn 02:01:23] if I'm looking for ... They have certain kinds of looks, even though all the artists are different. But it's a carving out. Huff Harrington and all these different places. And so I've been looking at which ones that I think my work might fit in. But then you have to say, "But gosh, they've got three other artists that look kind of like me." So it has to fit my work, but there also has to be a whole that they don't quite have what I have. And so it's thinking through that, which ones would I go after and approach in Atlanta. So the answer to your question, sorry. Now that I'm in Birmingham, I decided to go full into that, get that done, established. A) I can check out my prices. It's a great experiment to find out on the business side how much will it go for and things like that. And then when I approach Atlanta, a larger market ...

Tina: 02:02:41 You'll have that.

Karlenne: 02:02:47 I'll have that informed ... I'll be represented, and I'll know that my 18x18's go for so-and-so in that market.

Tina: 02:02:54 X number, yeah.

Karlenne: 02:02:58 And then I've got three or four of which ones I would go after. So my next goal would be to get in a gallery in Atlanta.

Speaker 1: 02:03:05 We're home.

Tina: 02:03:09 We're home. How did we do? Did we just have a grand time?

Speaker 1: 02:03:13 We did. We want to [inaudible 02:03:18] and then to the UPS store, and then we went to ...

PART 4 OF 4 ENDS [02:03:19]

Speaker 1: 00:00 And I know that they're doing a toondoo and so why do I think this is important to put into words and it's going to be about the feet because it's about the toondoo, it's about the discipline ...

Speaker 2: 00:11 Oh so also you took the photograph and then you studied what about it and wrote that out.

Speaker 1: 00:19 I've got 200 images, so picking which one and then ... Pride escaped from the world, that probably was my reason why I took dance, but trying to figure out one of my teachers has talked about the big shapes and they fit together like a puzzle makes compositions nice and so she's going to be and this might be a unit and are the shadows coming ... You know, just trying to make some of the decisions in ...

Speaker 2: 00:56 Yeah, because I'm going to have to ask Angela. I want her to get this.

Speaker 1: 00:59 Uh huh.

Speaker 2: 01:03 That's cool though, I didn't ... I guess what it is, is maybe that's why it feels so ... visceral a lot, like there's flesh and blood in that because you took the time to like what am I seeing and that, where's that is just a million times snap, here's the details. Like here's just the woop. The facts. That is the interpretation.

Speaker 1: 01:30 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Speaker 2: 01:31 That's cool because I don't know what I'm doing. I've never taken it but I can see now ... It's funny, I used to think, "Oh well if you have a picture, you can't paint a picture".

Speaker 1: 01:44 You can't.

Speaker 2: 01:45 Look, no I used to see a picture and go, "Oh they just painted the picture. That's easy". So cute.

Speaker 1: 01:52 But-

Speaker 2: 01:53 But your subjects, so like that is art, yet what's funny is I would have never thought it could, but it's because of what you were telling me about those two guys and that small space, move like a unit and they're ... and you captured that. You know, there's a conjoinedness to them.

Speaker 1: 02:15 Well ... Let me help you when you start writing about it, if I make the cut.

Speaker 2: 02:23 That's already done, you are.

Speaker 1: 02:26 Oh. And I don't know which one ... And see, for me, I've thought about Steph assigning and I'm writing stories to go with each of the paintings too when I give them to the gallery and this is about sharing meals so it's in a collection that celebrates the cooks, servers, and guests and drawing on simple pleasures.

Speaker 2: 02:50 I love this. I loved that.

Speaker 1: 02:52 And moving in spaces where this will live, it's her right now only. But I'll have more valet but ...

Speaker 2: 03:00 So you're going to do more under that theme?

Speaker 1: 03:02 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Speaker 2: 03:03 Yep.

Speaker 1: 03:04 And so when I think about galleries and that corner of gallery where you see that, I think that there's a body of work and there's themes, there's-

Speaker 2: 03:16 Yes.

Speaker 1: 03:17 You know, and this is helping me frame my thinking of my themes-

Speaker 2: 03:21 It gives you-

Speaker 1: 03:21 Gives me body.

Speaker 2: 03:22 Yep.

Speaker 1: 03:22 Keeps me focused.

Speaker 2: 03:23 Of course. You're so lucky.

Speaker 1: 03:27 But I also just might see something I want to paint. I can make it work into ...

Speaker 2: 03:31 Well, you may have another category.

Speaker 1: 03:33 Yeah.

Speaker 2: 03:33 Yeah.

Speaker 1: 03:34 So these are ... So anyway, but just shows, again, some of the ... So this is about movement as magical as fluid as expressing dynamic. So even though that picture is very static ...

Speaker 2: 03:48 Your painting isn't.

Speaker 1: 03:48 I want my work to-

Speaker 2: 03:50 It isn't, at all.

Speaker 1: 03:51 It's about movement. It's capturing a moment in a movement.

Speaker 2: 03:57 Yeah.

Speaker 1: 03:58 That's static, but-

Speaker 2: 04:00 Yeah, because to me that picture's still.

Speaker 1: 04:02 Very static.

Speaker 2: 04:02 That is not.

Speaker 1: 04:03 That is not. Oh good.

Speaker 2: 04:06 No, not at all. I mean I keep like, I could catch them moving if I looked quick enough.

Speaker 1: 04:10 Yeah and the shadows help.

Speaker 2: 04:13 And I love how you put the pink hues into the ... You know, because as you were pointing out, this is so sexual.

Speaker 1: 04:22 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Speaker 2: 04:24 And I love how you put that because that's what happens in that, you know, like the energy goes through and the lights move and I love it.

Speaker 1: 04:33 That Chris one, who I didn't like, Chris teacher one, that's one of the main things they say, you need to repeat your colors in other places. It's just a percentage. So this is going to have a hell of a lot more pinks and the pink leotards, but you need to have pink somewhere else.

Speaker 2: 04:52 And you did.

Speaker 1: 04:54 And so, it's just ...

Speaker 2: 04:54 It's beautiful. I'm like-

Speaker 1: 04:56 It's sweet.

Speaker 2: 04:57 I think it's beyond cool that I know you.

Speaker 1: 05:01 You're so-