It's a conspiracy.Well, we know it is.I could tell you.I've read books on it.It's an absolute, complete fact.They ushered in modern art.Now, we don't know if Pollock knew.We don't know if Rothko knew.We don't know if Rauschenberg knew.
But they were proxies to that because they needed people like Rockefeller to finance it, people like the CIA to finance it, because they wanted to show free enterprise.And it was counter the social realism of Russia.
Welcome to the Creative Endeavor podcast.This is the podcast bringing you inspiring stories from creative professionals from around the world.It's real conversations with real artists.My name is Andrew Tischler.
Such a pleasure to have your company here in the studio once again.My goodness, was this episode a real treat or what? Now this episode is going to be a little bit on the spicy side.
I'm not going to lie, we get a little conspiratorial here on The Creative Endeavor.That's a good thing too.For many years I've been convinced that modern art was a massive conspiracy.There's just got to be something going on here.I mean,
How the heck do you get away with some of this stuff that they're getting away with now?It's got to be a PSYOP, right?It's got to be an excuse for some sort of shady deal or money laundering or something.
I just can't get behind this as a genuine expression of creativity.Like this is the next thing and it's been going on for decades. Now, maybe you're like me.Maybe you don't agree.
Either way, this is bound to be a very interesting listen because I've got on the podcast Mr. Justin Bua.Now, Justin has been an amazing artist for many years working professionally.
He's done quite a bit in film and television, but he's an incredible painter.
He's got an incredible graphic, brilliant style, and he really specializes in these stylized caricature type portraits and scenes that capture the essence of the urban environment.
But he's been around creating art for some time, and I suppose this gives him a unique edge, in a way, as somebody that has mastered their craft and been at this for decades, to shed a little light and give a unique insight on the state of the art world.
And there's so much going on now.Now, we mentioned a little bit before there just the contemporary art scene and just the total void that that is. But also, what about AI?
What about what's happening now in the creative sphere with artificial intelligence now painting pictures?I really wanted to get Justin's take on this, because I've been following Justin for some time on Instagram.
And some of his reels totally crack me up.Other reels just really depress me.But he's always got an interesting take.And he's not afraid to go right for the jugular, tell it like it is, and give you something to think about.
I know I for one and many others were just in that comment section just going Yep, yep, preach brother preach.So it's really interesting getting him on the podcast and getting his take on so much of the stuff that's going on today in the art world.
Like modern art like AI. and also get into a couple of interesting things from his past and his story coming up.
There's a quite a famous name that he drops here in this podcast and interesting to hear his personal connection with this artist who turns out is a real hero of mine too.So that was kind of cool.I'll save that for the episode.
Now, before we get stuck into it, I just need to take a quick minute and tell you about the Creative Endeavors sponsor, Rosemary and Co.Brushes.
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Now, before we get into this episode of Creative Endeavor podcast, I just need to tell you that there is an official video version.You can find that right now on Tisch Academy.
Click that link in the description and get yourself a free seven-day trial.And you can see the full video version of the Creative Endeavor podcast along with over 300 hours of painting video content.
So if that sounds like you, then jump on over and check it out. All right, I can't wait to share this episode with you.Here he is.This is Justin Bua and The Creative Endeavor. Justin, welcome to the Creative Endeavor podcast.
Such a pleasure to meet you face to face, even though it's here on Zoom.Welcome.
Thank you.Pleasure to be here.Pleasure to be talking to an actual artist.And not a robot.And not a robot and not somebody who thinks they're an artist because they say they're an artist.Oh, that old chestnut. You know how that is.
This is the world we unfortunately navigate these days, today.And by the way, a compliment to your work.I'm a huge fan of Howard Terping.He's just an absolute monster.I would say those artists that
paint well, big narratives, probably the greatest of all time is Reppin, in my opinion.I mean, Reppin is, ugh, God, just such an absolute beast.But Terpene is kind of like does that, you know, for us, for Americans, you know, like painting the West.
And it's just nice to see.It's just nice to see that there's people like you still out there going for it.
because it's hard.Well, I appreciate that so much.I tell you what's nice to see is somebody spitting facts and truth.I've been following you on Instagram.Now some of your reels like I'm howling.
But you know, with laughter, but but in others, it's kind of like, dude, you hit the nail on the head.I said in a recent podcast, because I'm really critical of AI art, I can't stand the stuff. And I was saying, okay, well, I'm not worried yet.
The minute I get worried is when the Boston Dynamic robot picks up the brush and starts doing that.And then I see in your reel, it's like, oh, no, they actually did it.They actually did it.Let's jump in right there.
Give me your views on what's going on in this relatively new occurrence here of AI image generation and now AI painting.
This is very nuanced and obviously a lot of people would call us fear mongers, that we are just technophobes and just old school knuckleheads who don't really believe in technology and they would equate it to perhaps
you know, when Nadar came out with the camera and everyone was like, Oh my God, the camera is going to take over everything.And you saw people like Anwar Domier, one of my favorite illustrators of all time.
who's making fun of all of that, and people who are ridiculing it, because there was a lot of fear that it was going to be replaced.And guess what?A lot of it was replaced.A lot of editorial illustration was replaced by photography.
Advertising illustration was replaced by photography.It displaced, there was a lot of things that displaced J.C.Leyendecker and Rockwell, but certainly the camera helped.
Saturday Evening Post had a beautiful charm when Norman Rockwell was painting it. But once the camera came in, everything changed.
And that would be the same for artists like Sun Bloom, who did Quaker Roads and all of these iconic early American illustrations.Now, what did we do as artists?We pivoted, right?
We became more concerned with creative stuff that the camera couldn't do.A lot of artists started to paint out of their imagination, and they weren't relying so much on life.
like a Cornwell or a Leyendecker or a Rockwell, and they were able to survive and create a new genre.Now Photoshop comes along years later and has the same effect.I was there at the beginning of that.
I went to Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, which was known very well as the Harvard of art schools.We had a lot of great teachers like Steve Houston and Harry Karmian.These are all people I studied with.
I studied with Steve, I studied with Harry Karmian, I studied a lot with Berne Hogarth.Remember Berne Hogarth, Dynamic Anatomy?Dude, I love, I got his books, love Berne.Berne used to yell at me, paint it like a man!
He would scream, I'd be like, oh, okay. Yeah, it was wild, bro.I had some wild teachers and I was a wild kid from New York.So all of a sudden I was there with these monsters.This was the last to me, Andrew.
And I mentioned these teachers because it was like the last of the generation.And it was like, I don't know if you know, Gary Meyer. The Chicago album cover from above, an aerial perspective of Garrett.Like he painted in gouache.
Dude, the guy was, these guys were monsters.They weren't normal.
They were, they were direct descendants of other people that, and you know, and then it goes all the way back to the 57th street art students league in New York where Bridgman was and where Rockwell studied with Bridgman.
And you know, it's got this crazy genealogy and history.So at the end, you know, We're in the animation world, my best friends at Disney, and people are painting traditionally, they're copying backgrounds with cell paint.And what happens?
Photoshop in about three to five years from my graduation date, which is 95, about late 90s, it starts becoming pretty prevalent, pretty dominant.And now it's like, oh, you're not working at Sony, Disney, DreamWorks without knowing Photoshop.
And the traditional painting, sure, it's a great thing to learn.But Photoshop is, and we know Photoshop is so completely, profoundly deep, right?It's such a deep program because you've got people working on the tech.
and artists, et cetera, and so on.So Photoshop comes in and does displace a lot of people.So artists have to pivot and learn it.They have to know it.Now, the artists that paint better, when I did my TV show, I hired artists.
I did a show called Urbani on Comedy Central.It was an animated TV show.
And I was hiring artists who were mostly traditionally trained, because we knew that the pivot for them with Photoshop would be easier than a Photoshop person pivoting to learn painting.Painting is a lifetime to learn.Photoshop is not.It's a tool.
But it did come in and take over.Okay, so now, fast forward to 2024, we're at the stage of AI.This is a little different, and I'm not being paranoid.I'm being very honest here.I'm thinking as an artist, but I'm also thinking as a businessman.
I'm trying not to think as an erudite, but like a real thinking person you're seeing AI is starting to do stuff very fast that is doing it on their own.It's not a tool anymore.It's becoming, in a certain way, autonomously creative now.
What do I mean by that?Yes, we know that Mid-Journey and Dali can't really do hands well.They're not doing the Berne Hogarth hands.The hands are still messed up.The bases are off.
There's some things that are off, but there's some things they're doing really, really well.One of them is backgrounds. That's what I've noticed.I was a big, you know, production design for movies before.
I just did a movie with Bora Vybinski, who directed Rango and Pirates of the Caribbean.So I know the people in the space, I know the fears, and I know what's really happening from an inside track.And what's really happening is it is doing
the job well with backgrounds, with different environments.It's hard to think about hiring a team of artists
Maybe one artist or two artists were prompting, but then you can let some of these programs, especially if you have guys who know what they're doing, kind of churn out stuff.And it's getting better all the time.
The more we feed the machine, the more the machine eats, the easier it is.I mean, what we're seeing right now with ChatGPT4, this is nothing.This is like, it was kindergarten and high school, now it's PhD, professor at UCLA level.
Eventually it'll be like super genius, you know?It'll have the like, the brain capacity of an Einstein, every one of them, and everyone will have access to that.
So I think it is dangerous because it is going to take away a certain amount of creative jobs.That's a weird thing.And so my friend, my best friend, Ruben Hickman, he's a phenomenal production designer.He's worked on every freaking movie.
In my opinion, he's the best production designer and animation in Hollywood, for me. He's afraid.He's seeing what it's doing.
At first it was like, ah, it'll never, you know, that'll be the last, it'll be like the last place where it's going to attack us.I mean, journalism, forget it.Like, they're done in terms of like, chat GPT does an amazing job.
Now we know it's aggregating, right?It's not, it's, you know, there's a lot of cutting and pasting. but it's getting better all the time.And I think what I saw yesterday was really frightening.
Cause I put out a lot of these robots and essentially it's like a printer, right?It's not like, like the graffiti one I put out.It's like, first of all, it's a horrible painting it's doing.Secondly, it's really just a printer.
Like it's an oversized printer.But I did see something yesterday where this guy who was an engineer painted a robot.I mean, had a robot do a painting and it was, it was really good.I was like, kind of like, little bit weirded out.
Now we have limited edition G clay printers, we've had printers, we've had all kinds of technology.But I feel like it is a very dangerous place because there's nothing we can do about it.And I know I don't know if there is a pivot, right?
Other than like, okay, so for me, I'm Justin Bua.I've been, I'm 56 years old.I've been doing this my whole life.Like people are going to buy a Bua because I'm Justin Bua.But what if Justin Bua was a 20 year old again, and I had to become Justin Bua?
People might not want to buy my stuff as much, right?They want to, they know me, they know my work.They want to feel the hand, the touch. of my personal art.And people can argue with me all day, all night.
I will tell you, I'm talking to some of the biggest creatives who are open to technology, and I think everybody is scared.And we thought art was the last bastion of creativity that wouldn't be infiltrated by the machine.And I think we're wrong.
I think it's coming.It's going to take time, but as long as businessmen are at the top of the food chain, which they usually are in all of these, whether it's TV, film, or let's be real, Sotheby's, Christie's,
I think that they're going to change the workforce and there's going to be less positions for working artists.Is there a pivot?I'm sure there is.I don't know what it is, man.That's the truth.
I don't know what the pivot is for new artists, for new and up-and-comers.
You make a good point there.Yeah.I, I've been thinking about this for some time and speculating that the pivot could be that people eventually just have a gut full of it.
And they're like, you know what, this is soulless and I don't want to go and watch the movie.You know, it's, it's kind of like, we saw this with CGI in a way, right?
You know, that, that at a certain point when it's CGI, you no longer get the, oh wow, it's amazing.It's like, eh, so what?You know what I mean?
And it feels, when it feels CGI, it's absolutely the worst.
yeah and so you see a lot of um movies going to back back to practical effect where costumes are designed like i'm i don't really watch a lot of movies these days but um i saw just something just scrolling um with this new alien movie that's come out and they found you know a seven foot something dude and dressed him up in the in a alien hybrid skin and there he is and it's an actual dude wearing a suit and it's like wow that looks real because
And I think that, I think you're right.There's a certain craftsman, like there's a reason craft beer is on its way up, right?Craft handmade tables.Like people don't want the homogenized cookie cutter, Ikea table.
People don't want the homogenized Bud Light. People want something that's homemade.That is very true.
And there's still something about a Terry Gilliam, you know, who did, who directed Brazil and part of Monty Python, who is able to make things feel unique and different.And when you see all the CG, it does get exhausting.
And that's why when you go to like movies like Isle of Dogs by Wes Anderson, the animated movie, right?Brilliant, right?So, or, or Spider-Man. Because you're seeing that now they're kind of bashing these worlds.
They're conflating like, you know, Photoshop with traditional painting, with cell animation, with CGI, where you can't tell.
What they've done so brilliantly is they've been able to mask the CGI because they know that people feel like it feels like Jurassic Park, early days of Jurassic Park, where it just feels kind of off.
And they want that, like you said, they want that realism.I had a couple of friends that were leads on Alien, funny you mentioned that.And you know, these are really, really high level artists, you know, over at Legacy.
They're also worried, by the way, those artists over there.But I think you are right.But what happens when it gets as good as people wearing a suit?We're not there yet.Remember, we're not there.We're there in some places.
We're there with some backgrounds and lighting situations.We're not fully there yet. Yeah.And so, yeah, maybe there'll be kind of like, you know, I've heard Elon talk about it.Like you got to, you got to start regulating it.
Cats out of the bag though, man.
But like, it really does feel that way.Yeah.
Yeah.But yeah.And everyone's going to use it if they can, because it's a great cheat code.The problem, I think the biggest problem is this, I mean, cause that's a long-term problem.
I think the short-term problem is all the people that are delusional that think they're artists because they're prompting.That's a problem. That's a real immediate problem.
I made this, Justin.I put in the words, dude.
I made this up.Right.I prompted this.So therefore I am an artist.And it's like, Oh, so you never got yelled at by Bern Hogarth.You never got, you know, you never got like, you never went through the horrible, you know,
academic training that you earned your stripes on.You're just kind of prompted and you're just telling everybody you're an artist and all your friends are yes men.So they're going to tell you you're an artist too.
But that's the unfortunate reality of when you have easy cheat codes to get to a certain level.That's a problem.And I don't know a lot of I don't know what people are doing also on the other side.I don't know even in my own community.
Maybe some people are prompting stuff and painting on top of it.I really don't even know.
There's a lot of that.I've been going down these rabbit holes recently and there's, you know, fortunately, a lot of artists online are calling it out and calling it out for what it is because it is completely different.
I made an art, a video on YouTube about a year and a half ago about AI.I was kind of late to the party with my critique of it.
I put this video out and basically saying we're losing focus of what's actually important, which is the actual process of the making of the stuff.And I think one thing that people miss when they are calling themselves artists,
and just prompting is they're missing that time, building the skill set, you know, spending the years.And then the process of the physical making of that art.I mean, you're not just painting a painting within that afternoon.
You're painting a painting with that afternoon and the 20 years that came before that to build up that skill set. And nothing could replace that.For me, you know, part of that equation is, yes, you have art as that final product.But art's a verb.
Art's a verb.Art's a doing thing, you know?And I feel sorry for the people that are out there calling themselves artists.I mean, now, instead of pissing me off, I more just look at them and go, dude, you just don't get it.You're not going to.
And I'm sorry about that, you know?
But it's a generational thing.There's going to be a certain point where there can't be a distinction between that and what it means to come up.Now, if we teach people or if they experience it, like let's say they go to a life drawing class with us.
They're gonna be like drawing stick figures and they're gonna be having a hard time and they're gonna feel embarrassed and there's going to be a humiliation experience.
That's what I always say because I was reading something from a very famous artist on one of my... It's hard for me to read all my stuff on my IG because sometimes I have 140,000 comments.
Like I got one, I got one that's like, I don't know if it's that many, but like that one with the two girls tethered together that are drawing.And that's got like 15, 15 million plays, 150,000 shares, like this thousands.
And so like, but you know, he didn't say that on this, he said it on, and he's very famous.He said it on the monochrome blue one.I did where I was talking about Eve's Klein Klein blur.Yeah.Yeah.The IK.
the IKB, the YKB, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-B, Y-K-
Okay, like the entire, anything, you can't just play two strings of the guitar.Sure, you can make a song, but you've got to be able to play all six strings.
And I said, and it's easy for him to say, because he's an older guy, he's gone through the training.Now he's at this like, oh, but like, you think Picasso would have ever arrived at cubism? without being a masterful draftsman?I don't think so.
Do you think Picasso would have arrived at doing his etchings at the level he was doing them, albeit like neoclassically kind of abstract in this Dionysian reality of existential weirdness without him having a masterful understanding of
of light and value?I don't think so.I'm sorry.He had to go through that to become an abstract artist in some capacity, in some capacity.And I would say the same for Vouillard and Bonnard.
Some capacity, you know, they've had to go through that to have the mastery of understanding of color theory that Vouillard and Bonnard had.They really, you know, they were doing very abstract tapestrial stuff.And the same with Dean Cornwell.
Dean Cornwell went through the vortex of masterful, masterful drawing, masterful painting, monster level.And the last part of his work is freaking tapestry.And honestly, Sargent was heading there too.Look what Sargent was doing.
Later Sargent is becoming almost like super stylized, figurative art with an abstract kind of background.And you could even argue you know, great realistic painting like Sargent and Zorn.And my friend Jennifer McCristian, you should have her on.
She's- Oh, I love her work, man.
Oh, I mean, Jennifer and I work together.We, she's, oh God, bro.We- Dude, her planer is next level.We gotta get Jennifer McCristian on.She's, I think she's the best planer painter alive. Could be.I'll throw that out there, bro.
I would say a woman, Jennifer McChristian, I've seen her when she sucked.I remember her when she sucked.Straight up, like, whack attack.Sitting next to her in figure drawing class, like, oh, that's cool, yeah.
You know, and then all of a sudden, like, what the hell's going on with this monster? She is such a good painter and she's so good at drawing, so good at painting, and so good at color.
That pink she gets behind some of those plein airs, like there's this brilliant pop of fluorescence, you know, and it just, bam, those blues and those greens.Yeah, I geek out about her work a bunch.
You gotta get her on, dude.She's awesome.So I've known Jennifer for 30 years.Right. she's, she's the real deal, like, the way that she lays pain and sometimes and I have a couple of her originals at my house.
So I get to look at them, you know, and I just feel like she, she's able, there's something so abstract about it, right?Because When painters like yourself, Zorn and Sargent and Jennifer, when they lay stuff in, it's so abstract.
And then they build out this super realism because it's all predicated on shape, right?Shape, value, color.It's always shape, value, color.She's an expert at that.
And so if you had some of these prompting morons come into a class with me and you and Jennifer, I mean, they'd be like, yeah, I got it.I understand.
But unless they experience it firsthand, like if they're sitting with us next to us at a workshop, drawing the figure, painting from life, they're not gonna understand it because they don't have, they don't, there's something deeply spiritual and connecting about drawing and painting.
whether it's from your head or from your imagination.There's something deeply spiritual about when Jennifer does these little plein air studies, because they're so realized.And I don't think that is the disconnect.
And that gets into a deeper existential realm of spirit and God.And whether you believe in God or not, there's something that we as artists do, and you could call it whatever you want,
But there's something that artists do to touch God, and it is not from prompting.That is the opposite side of that.
That is like, if there is a heaven and hell, that is hell and satanic, because you're allowing the computer to make these choices for you.So you're disconnecting from spirit.And I think when you're over here on this side,
you have to connect to the earthly, you know, divinity of truth.And the other side is just like lie, you know, and just allowing the machines to take over.It's like Ex Machina.You've seen that movie?Oh, dude.Yeah.
I mean, we're not we're not far off.No, we're really, we're really and and the craziest thing is, right, because there's a fascination with it, like in the movie was like, Oh, I'm fascinated by like, this is fascinating.It's alluring.
But the darkness is alluring.You know what I mean?Alcohol is alluring.Horrible demonic drugs are alluring.It's all alluring, but it has the same energy encapsulated in that
as the other side has that same kind of positive, high vibe, spiritual, apotheistic energy.And that is real, especially drawing.I feel like drawing more than painting, because I like to say that even when people paint, they're just drawing.
you know, so there's something just so high vibe spirit heavenly, about drawing and something so low vibe about prompting.So that that's kind of where that's where I'm at.
I'm glad you brought that into the mix about the spiritual side, because I really believe that that will be the pivot.The people at the top that are driving this, the businessmen, as you put it earlier, I think these these people,
You know, in a certain respect, we need these people, but they've forgotten who they are, and they've forgotten what's actually important.
The minute you turn your focus to just the utility of things, the bottom line, the economic factors, then you get further and further away from spirit.
Now, I think that that knee-jerk reaction, so long as there are human beings, and we don't go too far with that transhumanist agenda, you know, so long as there's human beings here, they will yearn for that side.
And, you know, seeing as you bring the spiritual side of things, you know, that demonic side of things, so, you know, I'm a Christian, I love Jesus, but reading the Bible, you know, it's weird when you bring AI into the mix, and I've said this on the podcast before, there's a real Ephesians 6 vibe going on here with
AI, you know, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities.It feels like a principality.It really does.
Especially as you start getting into these weird rabbit holes, like Loab, you know, where have you seen that you come across this?So somebody, somebody asked, I found a little bit more about this.
And you know, speaking of the, the darkness being fascinating, I just couldn't look away.
And so what had happened is there was somebody who, if I remember this right, people will let me know in comment section, but somebody did a prompt and said, give me a picture of Marlon Brando.And then they said, give me the opposite.
So they did a negative prompt.Give me the opposite of Marlon Brando.And so then what came about was this weird black and white graphic with text on it that said digital pantics or something like, it made no sense.It was gobbledygook.
And then they said, right, now give me the opposite of that. And then this figure appeared, which was this weird kind of middle-aged woman with rosacea kind of thing.And then she kept appearing again and again and again and again.
And it almost to the point where it was like the ghost in the machine, this demonic entity.And then just all of this, well, for lack of a better word, you know, violence started coming out of it. And it was just dark, dude.It was really dark.
And so, you know, I've seen a few videos on this.Some people are like, hey, you guys don't know what's going on.It's nothing to see here, blah, blah, blah.But others are like, no, actually, there's something weird and trippy going on.
I tend to verge on the conspiratorial and some of that, that principality side of things.That's just where my brain goes.
But I don't think I think it's, you know, conspiracies. seem like they're conspiracies until they don't, right?And it's usually who's controlling the narrative that is telling you who and what is a conspiracy.
I mean, there were so many conspiracies that are, you know, sinking of the Lusitania, that was a conspiracy theory.And then it became true.You know, all of these, there's millions of them.
And so I think that we can't really rely on that because it almost feels like
in my opinion, once they start saying it's a conspiracy, that's like the immediate, like, okay, well now I'm going to really look at that because I didn't even think that was a conspiracy.
You know, I didn't even think anything of it until you guys are just talking about how much it's a conspiracy theory because follow the money, right, Andrew?We know like in any war, I think even Einstein said that, like in any war, follow the money.
Who's making the money?Is it, Halliburton, I mean, follow the war in Iraq.
I mean, it was Dick Cheney trying to blow it all up so he could fix it all and put it all back together with a no big contract from his own company, Halliburton, which is part of the military industrial complex here in the States.So like,
follow the money, and we will figure out why things are happening.And the same with anything.And like you said, we do need business people.We need people who have money, who can support artists.And we've always had that historically.
Michelangelo had Pope Julius II.He had the Medici family.Rembrandt had more mid-level clients, very rare, but most artists historically had popes, kings, aristocracy, the wealthy, and I would say that would be the same thing here.
I mean, Rockefeller was, you know, Rockefeller supported many, many artists, good and bad, you know, and mistakenly supported Diego Rivera, as we know, which was a mistake on his part that he learned later on.
Yeah, the reason that it is so daunting is because I believe, like you do, like I'm I'm of the earth.I'm an earthly man.I'm a slave.I'm working for Jehovah.I'm slaving for Jehovah as a God-fearing human being and a God-loving human being.
But I feel like Satan is winning, if we were going to break it down into light and dark.And I feel that we're getting ruled by this kind of satanic, transhumanistic landscape right now.It's a spiritual war.We're in a spiritual war.
And transhumanism and AI, in many ways, is winning the war right now. People like us have to stand up.You can believe in whatever you want to believe, but you have to stand up for humanity.You have to stand up for the connection to life, to nature.
You can't just cut down a redwood forest without any kind of consequences.You're not just harvesting the wood. You're changing the alkalinity of the soil.You're killing the insects in the ecosystem.
I mean, everybody knows this and knows anything, and you're doing the same thing when you destroy art.You really are.You're changing the ecology and spirituality of the journey of the artist.Okay?That's, to me,
That's a very dangerous thing, and people are normalizing it.First, transhumanism was, oh, if he wears glasses, technically that's transhumanistic.Oh, you need a new patella, you know?That's humanistic, right?
I mean, that's transhumanism at low level.Eventually, when we have a newer link, you know, Elon Musk's link, and we all have it because we all want to be at the level.I ain't gonna, I'm not, like, homie, don't play that, you know?I'm not doing that.
I'm not doing that.No, not doing anything, anything like that.I don't like the intervention of that.And that goes for all parts of my existence, by the way.That goes to the medicalization intervention.I don't play any of that stuff.I hear you.
So I feel like we have to keep a purity, a God-fearing purity with art.
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Thanks so much for allowing this brief interruption.Let's jump right back into the podcast with Justin Bua. Dude, I, oh man, I love this.I absolutely love this.Okay.
Speaking of conspiracies though, I am convinced, I am convinced that modern art is one giant conspiracy.I'm convinced that there's, I mean, we know, we know that there are modern artists that were paid by the CIA.We know that now.
Isn't that funny?You talk about that with even some of my friends who have like, PhDs in art history.And I mentioned that they're like, that's so weird, because I never even read anything about that.
I'm like, of course, because your curriculum, yeah, well, your curriculum, it's like this, you know, I was talking, you know, to my to my friend, who's a who's a neurologist.
And he said that, you know, 50% of everything that's in the textbooks, the medical textbooks is wrong because it's outdated and it's antiquated.And I said, why don't they change this?
Well, too many peer reviewed papers, it's too messy and people don't want to change things.And I feel like it's the same thing with like art history.
It's like the way that art history was written in Janssen and Gardner and all the books that we read in school that are curriculum, are written in a certain way, right?
Like, so that gets us into a bigger discussion of why is Gauguin in the museum versus, you know, whoever that we don't know, right?Like, why is Pollock?So you're saying it's a conspiracy.Well, we know it is.We know it's a fact.
What you're saying is not a conspiracy.I can tell you.I've read books on it.It's an absolute, complete fact.They ushered in modern art.
Now, we don't know if Pollock knew, we don't know if Rothko knew, we don't know if Rauschenberg knew, but they were proxies to that, right?
Because they needed something that was, you know, they needed people like Rockefeller to finance it, people like the CIA to finance it, because they wanted to show free enterprise.And it was counter the social realism of Russia.
So, if they would propagate that propaganda with American modern art everywhere, you have this idea that like, oh, wow, this is a new movement.America's free.It's independent.It's individual.But Russia, oh, they're the worst.They're rigid.
I mean, think about all the Russian artists, like, repping and fetching and good stuff. Look at this.Oh, God.Fetching.Fetching.Fetching.Like if I mention his name, I get goosebumps because he's so good.
I want to punch myself in the head and stop painting.But. And rep infection, they're monsters.There's little waves and then there's tsunamis.
I would say rep infection or both tsunamis, but getting back to what I'm saying is like, they were pushing social realism and like anything, whether it's the landing on the moon or putting stuff out there, we had to be the top dog.
We have to be the individual.America is democracy.Even when it's not a democracy, it's a democracy because we told you it is, right?
And so that's what, no, it's true, we're number one, we're the best, you follow us, we're the top dog, and you bow down before us.And one of those ways was starting this movement of modern art.Now, there's a lot of books out there.
People can read it themselves.This is not Andrew and Bua conspiring to say that this didn't happen, this happened. The problem is now with this post-modernistic world is that it's still happening.
And the students have been taught that this comes from some great reaction to X, Y, and Z. But the reality is oftentimes when things are manufactured and you're taught about it, you feel like, well, that's the only way.
Look at the food pyramid, food pyramid in America, great example. You know, you need you need this amount of dairy, you need this amount of meat, you need this amount of like, it's all been debunked, right?Crap.Yeah.
I mean, like, seed oil is good for you.That's all debunked, right?
But yeah, like canola oil, grapeseed oil, safflower oil, machine lubricant, canola oil.Yeah, exactly.It's canola, right?Canada, Canada, oil. So Canada's oil from rapeseed that they extracted and sold across the world for profit.
Once again, follow the money.And that's what happened in art.So now all of a sudden, you see a massive industry, massive industry of money laundering, tax evasion, predicated on artists like Jackson Pollock and Rothko.I mean, God, there's so many.
Rauschenberg.A lot of these artists who are like, well, wait a minute. Are these, if the CIA wasn't there and the elite like the Rockefellers financing it, would we even have it?And I don't think that we would.
I don't think it was a natural progression of art history that you can't stop.Like no matter what, it's gonna happen.Like no matter what, impressionism is happening because it's a reaction to neoclassicism.
And you've got John Dominique Ang's teacher, Jacques-Louis David, teacher John Dominique Ang, he has Degas.
Degas becomes an impressionist because he's not getting seen in the neoclassical museums, but all of a sudden, as an impressionist, he's getting seen, right?
It's an influence by the wonderful painters from Japan, Hokusai, Hiroshige, and next thing you know, there's an explosion of capturing light, and that makes sense, okay?
But all of a sudden, modern art, kind of like, there's something edited out of that story, right?Like, what's the natural progression of that?
So just like many things, you realize, oh, snap, that was manufactured.Then you start going, well, what else was manufactured?
Yo, this is, now I'm getting, like, now it's gonna, like, the movie where, you know, like, you're like, oh, this is, this is getting crazy.Like, you start getting, like, you know, like you start freaking out.
Because I went to art school, you know, I went to Fiorello LaGuardia High School of Music and Performing Arts, the FAME school.I was an artist at the FAME school.I was writing graffiti. And I had art history very early on.My mom was an artist.
My grandfather was an artist.My grandfather was the letterer for Bazooka Joe, Felix the Cat, Prince Valiant.He worked with Frankie Frazetta.Like he was a phenomenal, phenomenal letterer.Phenomenal, like typography, anything he wanted out of his head.
Calligraphy, Bodoni, Futura, you name it.Like everything by hand.And he was a painter.And so I learned early on about, tradition.I had Brock on my wall, I had Vermeer, I had Holbein, I had Rembrandt.I had a lot of not real ones because I wish I did.
But the budget ones, the budget prints. And so I knew early on between the real deal and not the real deal, but I was taught in school that this was a real movement.I never learned any of the CIA was involved and anything was financed.
But now we know there were shows set up globally for American abstract art.And there just was.I mean, it was, you could, you know, you could read all about it, but I never learned that in school.
And you will never, ever read about that in the textbooks.And that's the problem.So these kids learned this forever ago in the, you know, forties, fifties.And then they were like, well, I don't need to draw because they never learned how to draw.
which I don't know if it was true or not, I guarantee Rothko did figure drawing classes, but okay, let's say that's true.
But then they felt like, well, I'm not gonna draw, and then the next generation's not gonna draw, the next generation's not gonna draw, and here we are.Many generations into drawing is not important anymore.
And all of the truth about art and the movements might have been skewed.So that's what these kids are coming to the table with, saying, well, when I get into my,
rants on Instagram, and you could see the back and forth infighting, a lot of the people are like, you're perturbed, you're disturbed, therefore it's art, because it made you angry.Well, that's a ridiculous argument.That's the number one argument.
The number two argument is, it's art because I say it is, and everything is art.Now, that's a very common thing now.If you say it's art, it's art, and you can't dispute that.And that comes from the history that people have been reading.
It's like the medical textbooks where it says, this is how you do it.Even if it's wrong, it's in the medical textbook, so you can't dispute it.It's peer reviewed.
Going to art school in Australia, it was a contemporary school.I was thinking, they're going to teach me how to paint.It's going to be great.I'm going to build my skills.Day one, I was like, oh crap, here we go. And it was modern through and through.
And when I say that, it was all about concept and ideas.And looking back now, I feel like it's almost verging on psychological abuse.Because what these lecturers and what the institute, because it was done to them.They're just repeating the cycle.
I mean, I can't single out any one lecturer.Some of them were more hardcore than the others. But one thing that they talked about was that it's all about the idea and skill is dead, painting's dead.
And what ends up happening is you turn out a whole bunch of people that are broken, they have nothing to contribute, they don't really have anything to say, because a lot of them are so young, they haven't lived enough to even make a statement or any kind of social commentary.
So you're just turning out a bunch of angry leftist kids, in a way, that are not qualified for anything but the checkout at the grocery store.And eventually that's going to be replaced by a robot anyway. But I just, it took me two years.
My recovery process from that was two years before I picked up a book by Carl Runges, artist sportsman, the Glenbow Archives put this beautiful book together of Carl Runges, German-born American wildlife painter.
and I was flicking through, and I was just, I called my father, who's a wildlife artist, he sculpts, and I said, Dad, I want to do this.And he's like, okay, well, here's how we do it, you know?
And then I went into painting and, you know, the rest is history.But it's just interesting, like that, I just remember that broken feeling.
And so I really feel for a lot of these kids that are in these institutions thinking that they're going to become an artist.And a lot of them are in for a rude awakening.
However, the one system that I do like is that Atelier system of actually teaching real skill.
But, I mean, I guess the bigger conversation that we're having here is, there's this other thing that I've talked about in the podcast before, I'd like to get your take.
Where it starts to piss me off is when public money gets involved and the way arts councils and government, you know, municipal bodies
you know, operate, when they're trying to decide what work to put in the town square, they're often hiring experts, they're hiring people that have got that arts education and arts background.
And they end up choosing things or going with art based on, you know, who they know or who's hot and trending at the time.
And then, consequently, you get this phenomenon where you have such a huge divide between that artwork and the general population, the public.Like, people now are walking around saying, I know nothing about art.No kidding.
No one knows anything about what the heck's going on anymore.You know? I, but I do feel I am encouraged, I do feel that tradition is coming back, beauty is coming back, you know, and ultimately truth is coming back.
And a lot of these things I think are universal.
Yeah, and it doesn't have to be like, you know, you don't have to have William Bouguereau women, you know, to be a great artist.I mean, Rembrandt painted the ugliness, and Rembrandt, in my opinion, is the greatest painter that's ever lived.
And his depiction of Adam and Eve is like, Eve is a kind of a cellulite woman who's a little heavyset, and Adam is all burly looking and kind of homeless looking.
the way Rembrandt was able to find the humanity in people with his brushstrokes, there's an ugliness to that.So I think what you mean is tradition is coming back, right?Tradition is coming back.
We understand that there's, whoever you are, whether you're a cartoon artist, an animator, a realistic painter, we have to, we have to go through the traditional birth canal in order to, create, right?
And then you deal with like, once you're born, like for me, I was a graffiti writer, b-boy in New York city.I grew up in New York.Uh, I was a painter.I was an artist, but I had other friends who were really, really good.
And then when I went to art center, I was like at a next another level of like, Oh man, this guy's better than me.You know, kind of like when I was sitting next to Jennifer McChristian, I was like, God, she's not really that good, you know?
But then all of a sudden she got better and better and better.And that was kind of how I was.I was at art center and I was like,
the bottom rung and I was painting with teachers like Craig Nelson and Steve Hewson and Vern Wilson and Bill Maughan and you name it, Vern Holger.
And I got better, you know, and I knew that I had to have a certain skill to be able to set my imagination free. That's the key, right?Like for me, if I'm not at a certain level, I can't articulate myself eloquently to be an able visual dialectician.
That's important.That's very important.And then you can decide to use it or not, to harness it or not, right?Like we see artists, Ralph Steadman, the illustrator who did the Hunter S. Thompson books, you know, Steadman's work.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.It rings a bell, yeah, yeah, yeah.Hunter S. Thompson, yeah.
He's a good example because he's very, very creative.He draws a lot with perspective and pen and ink with a crow quill.But if he didn't draw that well, you know, it would be a different experience.
And, you know, the same could be said for anybody, you know, really anybody.And then you can make a decision on how much you need.Like a great example, Van Gogh, like Van Gogh was never, Van Gogh was never at the level of, of a high level draftsman.
He was, he was never going to be Ang.He was never going to be Degas.Let's talk about his contemporaries.He was never going to be Manet. But he was good enough.He was good enough to articulate his emotions.
And he didn't need to be Degas level, you know, draftsman.He was draftsman enough and he got better.You could see it from the potato eaters to starry night.There's a massive, massive, massive curve, right?A learning curve.
And you could see how good he got, but he didn't need to be Degas level draftsman to articulate his emotions.
But if he didn't draw at all, then we wouldn't even have acknowledged anything like Starry Night, which by the way, costs more than probably anything in the world, right?Maybe besides the Mona Lisa, it's probably, no, it's priceless.
That's how much it is.It's this big, it's in the MoMA in New York, and it's priceless.It's freaking priceless.But he was, if he didn't have the urge, the desire, the desire Anx to, to, to learn, to study.He was studying.
He was learning people forget that they just think that he's born and he just does it.That's not what happened.He worked his ass off as a draftsman.You could see the potato eaters.It's so, it's so childlike almost in terms of like, uh, his skillset.
And, and before that, then he gets to a certain level.It's like, Oh my God, like, wow.He's able to tell his story. It's all he needed.Now, you're telling me the artists coming into the world today don't need any of that at all?That's crazy to me.
You're skipping the basics.Any other profession, any other profession, you need the basics.Running, basketball, jujitsu, wrestling, the physical ones, the spiritual ones. you know, surgery, dentistry.
Can you imagine being like, yeah, you could, you could operate on my teeth because you call yourself a dentist.Dude.I identify as a dentist.Yeah.It's like, it's like, well, people that tell me like, oh, anybody can be an artist while I say this.Okay.
So if we did go to this dude right here and he tells you he's a pilot, would you let him fly you?Would you let, would you get in a plane with this dude?Well, here's the answer. No, because there's dire consequences.We will die.
If he flies this plane, we're gonna die, okay?So why can't we put that dire consequences on being an artist?Why?It's not different.It's not different.There are certain guardrails you need to protect the integrity of the arts.
No matter where we are, whether you're Diebenkorn or Wayne Thiebaud or
Jean-Michel Basquiat or Adam Warhol, I think people see the intrinsic value of even a understanding of light logic, value, composition, design, saturation, color theory, atmosphere, I mean, texture.
Art is so deep, you're never gonna, I mean, Michelangelo was 87, he said, I'm just beginning to learn how to draw. to learn how to draw.He's 87.Hokusai says, Hokusai, too long to recite.Hokusai basically says the same thing, right?
I mean, this is a lifelong process.So if you skip all of the basics and you're going to try to tell me you're an artist, you're crazy.You can't say that with anything.You imagine, hey, I'm a UFC fighter.Cool.
I'm going to jump in the ring with John Jones. you can get knocked out quick.You'll probably die, actually, if you're not used to it.But with art, you can just say it and get away with it.
To me, that's scandalous, and it should be completely addressed.And here's the crazy shit.No one's addressing it.I'm addressing it.You're addressing it.I'm addressing it face-to-face with people.
Because to me, going through ArtCenter, going through even LaGuardia in New York, going through my grandfather and all these people that I had to go through, makes no sense to me.Just at least try to learn, try to get the basics.
And we're not all going to be, you know, Leyendecker.It ain't going to happen.It ain't going to happen.We're not going to be Rembrandt.It ain't going to happen.We're not going to be Holbein.It ain't going to happen.
You're going to understand it so you could maybe be you.That's the thing.The more you can do that, the more you can be you freely.And maybe it is abstract painting.That's cool.But you're coming from a place of understanding why you're doing it.
Otherwise, you're not.You're just an elite child of the postmodernistic world. where there is no objective truth.And if you argue against it, you're the oppressor oppressing the oppressed.
That's basically like, well, you're bullying me by saying that.I get that all the time.Like, oh, you're a bully.Like, why?Because I'm saying that it's important?That I'm saying that these people are parasitic?
Because what now we're into when they say that, the oppressor oppressing the oppressed, is that
they're just getting into philosophical semantics and they're getting out of the conversation of what I'm trying to talk about, which is actually art, right?It's philosophy now.
So now we've moved into philosophy, which is funny because that's where postmodernism comes from, French philosophy. So this is a game.This is a mind game going back to kind of wrapping up what we're saying before.This is a mind game.
That's going back to the darkness.That's going back to transhumanism.That's going back.Here we go.We're going right back to where it's all coming from.It's a very dangerous place.It's satanic.Wow.Drawing is truth.
So I think we all have to, we don't have to be great at it. We have to go through it.We have to try to do it.We have to try to learn it.We have to try to experience it.We have to.
I love that.I love that.I got to ask you about, before you go, I got to ask you about Berne Hogarth.Let me show you what's sitting on my coffee table here.Hang on.
Hang on.You have dynamic anatomy.Let me guess.
I have a super eight video that I shot of Byrne as a funny video in film class, because I took a lot of film classes too, where Byrne is drawing on the chalkboard.Awesome.In chalk.He's a lefty, right?And it's so good.It's so good.
It's almost the greatest thing you've ever seen.And he could draw horses coming out at you like this on the chalkboard. And he used to yell at you and say, draw it like you want to make love to it, you freaking fairy.
Everything he said was not politically correct.He was mean, but he was funny.Like I always thought he was funny, like to me, cause I'm from New York.So it didn't bother me.I had people yelling at me my whole life.My mom was yelling at me.
There's people on the street were yelling at me.So Byrne would get right this close to your face and be like, what the hell are you doing?You idiot.And I'd be like, I don't know, man.What am I doing?He's like, well, you're not doing it the right way.
And he would grab a pen and just start drawing. And I have video that I got to get.And it's just a cool film I made of Bern.And I have all his drawings recorded. And it's silent because it's Super 8, but he was a wonderful teacher.
He was a wonderful guy.He kind of took a shine to me, I think because I had thick skin.But he was very arrogant.He was like, I'm Bern Hogarth.And do you know who Glenn, sorry, yeah, not Vilppu, Harry Karmian, you know him?No, I don't.
Harry Karmian is in the Master Series.He's like a high-level draftsman. him and Harry hated each other.So I would go to Harry's class over here in this next door, and Harry was a very renaissance-y draftsman.
He'd be like, oh, you talk to Byrne and everything?He's like, oh, I never heard of Byrne.Who are you talking about?I was like, Byrne Hogarth over there.He's like, oh, you mean the comic book guy?And I'd be like, oh.
And then I'd talk to Byrne and be like, Do you, you know that Harry, like, do you not like Harry?He's like, who's Harry?I'm like, y'all been teaching next door to each other for like 25 years.
He's like, Oh, you mean the guy who draws like really bad Michelangelo copies?I'd be like, Oh, okay.It's a weird, they just hated each other's guts, but each one brought something to the table.Yeah.
And Bernd Hogarth, in my opinion, to this day, is one of the best, if not the best draftsman on chalkboard.Because his value is a little cheesy, the way he was like, shh.
But his freaking out of his head draft, I never saw anybody that could do that before.Like he did it.Like six horses coming at you in perspective with guys like, you know, coming at you with swords.
The chalkboard drawings were greater than anything in any of those books.That's how good he was.The things he did live in front of you were so good.It was like, to this day, I think about him and I go, oh, he was a gift.He was a gift.
And he was one of the guys who started visual arts in New York, believe it or not, SVA.
Wow.How I would have loved to be there.I grew up looking at Bern Hogarth's books.I had dynamic anatomy, dynamic light and shade.I got there drawing the human head here.Yeah, yeah.
My father introduced me to him.And so my dad was taking a lot of the Hogarth lessons and applying them to wildlife for what he did.
Yeah, it's just how cool it would have been to be there.Hey, Justin, I've thoroughly enjoyed this.This has been such a treat getting to talk to you.I just want to say thank you so much for being on the Creative Endeavor podcast.
Thank you, man.Let's do it again.And I appreciate it.And, you know, just stay connected, man.And that's me and you and to spirit and God and we'll get there.
Well, I really hope you enjoyed this episode of the Creative Endeavor podcast.Thank you so much for joining me in the studio.Did this get you thinking?Or did it get you thinking?It got me thinking, my goodness, what fun this episode was.
Now, if you enjoyed this episode of the Creative Endeavor, please do me a huge favor and leave me a writing or a review on whatever audio platform you're listening on.
Also, if you have not already, please go ahead and follow today's guest over on their website and on Instagram.You'll find Justin Bua by clicking those links in the description.He can be found at justinbua.com.
Make sure you're also following him on Instagram to follow along with some of those reels that he's been posting.They're bound to give you a laugh and certainly some food for thought.
Maybe some of them are going to tick you off like they have me, you know, just from the stuff that he's shining a light on and letting us know about, about the state of the art world. But I really appreciate you being here.
Look, I couldn't do this without you, and I appreciate you taking the time to share this episode on your social media.If you could take a minute and do that for me, I'd really appreciate it.My guests would appreciate that too.
Shine a light on these conversations.Share it with more people.That'll help more listeners find the show.And I appreciate that so much. All right, I'm going to get out of here and get back to painting.
It's been a pleasure sharing this time with you here, and I'll see you again in another episode of The Creative Endeavor.
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