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Luke Anderson is a contemporary landscape, wildlife and figure painter. Luke resides in Wyoming, where he was born and raised. Discovering a knack for his artistic abilities early on, he’s fortunate to have settled into his gift while still quite young. Still in his mid 20’s, Luke is one of the young guns in the Western art world, with a bright future ahead. Join us as we discuss how he got started, his chili test and what’s next in his career.
For some visuals, check him out on Instagram at @lukeandersonpaintings or online at www.lukeandersonfineart.com.
00:01:09 Getting Started in Painting
00:07:03 The Chili Test
00:10:55 Wyoming
00:13:28 What’s Next
00:18:04 Influences
00:22:18 Heavy Metal Pedal Steel Interlude
00:27:07 Good Advice
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Interview with Luke Anderson, Oil Painter
WG: How did you get into a painting?
LA: I was always into art as a kid. It was always drawing though. My first exposure to oil painting was my mom signed my brother and I up for … I don’t know if you’ve ever done one of these or heard about it, but there was this Bob Ross licensed art class program?
WG: Oh wow, no I hadn’t.
LA: They had them all over the country. There were these instructors who are licensed by the Bob Ross brand, or whatever, and they would go and teach classes in the community about how to paint in the Bob Ross style.
WG: That’s cool.
LA: I did a couple of those classes and enjoyed those. This was when I was in elementary school probably, and then didn’t really do any painting for a while, just art class in school. But then once I got into high school I got back into art a little more seriously, and I had this one particular art teacher who was extra encouraging to go sort of beyond what we were doing in class. But then one of my teachers gave me some linseed oil to go play around with, and so yeah, I got really into painting in high school and then pursued the oils beyond acrylic in tempera and watercolor and stuff like that. I didn’t get super serious about it until 2015, 2016 when I was graduating college.
WG: Did you study art in college?
LA: I took two semesters of it in the art program and then it wasn’t for me at that time, the combination of factors of the instructors and the way the program was structured. Art just didn’t really … It a different purpose for me then than it does now. It was more of an emotional escape for me back then, and so I didn’t like being constantly critiqued on it, I suppose.
WG: That makes sense. Yeah.
LA: It was just too personal of a thing at that point, and so I got out of the art program, I just did like the basic intro core classes, and then I got my degree in American Studies and Environment and Natural Resources.
WG: Oh wow, well that seems to lend itself pretty well to the Western style, right?
LA: Right, I do consider, I still got an arts education. It was just sort of a different unconventional approach to it.
WG: Sure.
LA: Once I had figured out some other stuff in my social life and got some things in order, I revisited, I took like a year or two off from where I didn’t do any art at all in that span. But then I got back into it. I get a lot of encouragement from a lot of important people in my life, and it’s just sort of snowballed from there I guess.
WG: And it seems like having only really looked at most of your work online, I do own one of your paintings-
LA: Thank you, of course.
WG: It’s over here actually-
LA: Nice.
WG: It’s in the kid’s corner.
LA: Looks great. It’s appropriate.
WG: Yeah, it’s a fun painting. The painting is called Props, by the way, for anybody listening who wants to look it up, I’ll put a picture of it and show notes. Oh, anyway, I was saying I can tell a real progression over the past few years for you, and your work is really starting to come into its own I feel like.
LA: Thanks. Thus the struggle of all and a burden of all artists is to try and come up with that voice and that style of their own. It’s been interesting to approach it the way I have without doing the traditional four years in art program, or doing an MFA or some sort of other formal training like that. I’ve had to learn a lot of things the hard way probably, and just influences from across the board. Just trying to figure out when I need to find something that works and stick with it, or if I should just always be going 100 miles an hour with 100 different projects. I’ve don’t think I’ve worked that out yet, but it’s been good to try a lot of different things. Not all of them work out, and that’s fine.
WG: Yeah. That’s cool. It’s interesting to hear you explain that a little bit. ‘Cause I see things where you’ve posted on Instagram, where you’re talking about reworking of painting or taking one that you didn’t like and cropping it into something you do, or trying something completely different. Like the one you did I guess recently, where you made it sort of this horse going through this big black negative space, and coming out the other side, which is pretty cool.
LA: Thanks.
WG: But you know it’s interesting to kind of see the exploration happening as well as just seeing the polished finished series. You know?
LA: I mean, I think for a long time I a perception and I think maybe other artists have this too, that you have a conception of a painting from the very beginning, you know what it’s on look like in the end, you know how your process is going to achieve that result. But I think that I’m definitely realizing that there’s a lot of in between stuff that happens where you can’t … you obviously well never know what your finished piece is actually going to look like. I try to embrace that, and if things don’t work out overall, but there’s certain elements that I really do like, I try not to like scrap it entirely and just take the pieces that work and just do what I can to emphasize those, like that one you just mentioned. There were parts of that piece that I really liked and the rest was not so great.
WG: It seems like it-
LA: Yeah, just trying to work with some negative space, do really contemporary stuff.
WG: Yeah. Take the parts of it that you like and leave the parts that don’t really work behind. Seems like a good kind of metaphor for life.
LA: Right, right, exactly. You take what you can get and try and keep a positive too. And there’s definitely things that I’ve just totally painted over, or torn off. But other times yeah, I’ll take it off the stretcher bars and crop it to another aspect ratio and then like, boom, new painting.
WG: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s something that I think for the first time I read about you doing that or something else I was like, “Huh. What does that mean? But, if I think about it, that’s a really, totally valid part of painting process, right? It’s something that you’re making this decision about visually doing and then physically doing it, which is kind of the dictionary definition of art, right?
LA: Right. Yeah.
WG: It’s cool.
LA: I’ve developed this this test for my paintings that I’ve dubbed the chili test. You know when you make a good pot of chili, it simmers for several hours and then it gets even better if we have leftovers and they stay in the fridge for a week. Those flavor just keep melding, getting better and better. When I finish a piece, if I let it sit for like three weeks or so, I have this weird thing in my brain where if it seems to me like the colors and the elements are still continually doing new things when I look at them, and like getting better as it dries and such, and then it will pass the chili test and it’ll be a finished painting that I can varnish and send out to the world. But if not, then I have to reconsider either it didn’t work out at all, or there’s pieces of it that worked that I can alter. That’s how I assess if I have a good painting or not.
WG: Man, that’s a good … that seems like a good trip. It’s cool.
LA: I also really like chili.
WG: Do you do a celebratory batch of chili for each painting when you think you’re done?
LA: I do not, but I will probably start doing that now, especially ’cause it’s fall and it’s gonna be cold here.
WG: I was thinking that could really help you with your painting evaluation. You’re like, “Well, the chili is really good now, how’s the painting?
LA: Right, yeah. On a less, I don’t know, goofy note, I have a 150 page Word document where I do a full critique of every painting I do, like a self- critique where I do a more intense analysis and pull out the things that worked, the things that it could have been improved, and then do an overall assessment of the successfulness of the piece.
WG: Wow, that’s wild. That’s an interesting counter to your being open with how a painting that takes shape approach, you know?
LA: Yes.
WG: Versus really zeroing in on what you think it’s gonna be. And then on the other side you’ve got like a really detailed, meticulous aspect of it where you’re critiquing, and-
LA: I think it’s a good check and balance on that process, because when I start something I still have a goal or an idea in mind for what I think it’s going. Doing that sort of critique allows me to reflect on what I did in the process to achieve that goal, or how well I actually did to achieve that goal, which I think illuminates a lot of things about my own process and what I think. If I start a piece I have something in mind of what I think will make it good, and then at the end I can see if when I did actually did make it good. I think it’s just a good reflection on that. And then after that critique I can just move on and adjust if I want to alter and that sort of thing, and can do it again.
WG: Yeah, that seems like, you talk about not doing the traditional art school kind of thing or not studying art in college. If you’re gonna be a self-taught artist, that seems like a very detailed way to do it. Yeah, it’s cool.
LA: I feel like it’s a trope of art school and art programs. You just get hammered and hammered super hard with super intense critiques-
WG: Oh definitely, yeah.
LA: … and criticism and stuff, so I don’t know if that’s just me trying to create that environment for myself in sort of a subconscious way, but he is always with the goal of improving and getting better with each piece.
WG: Well, in theory, that’s the goal of critiques in any case. Right?
LA: Right.
WG: Hey you got a cat there or a dog? Oh, it’s your dog.
LA: It’s my dog. This is Scrappy.
WG: Hey Scrappy, I’ve seen your picture 4.
LA: Yeah, he’s also featured heavily on my Instagram.
WG: Awesome.
LA: He was just looking on the sun and now he is stretching out.
WG: That’s cool.
LA: You can go over there.
WG: And you also, by the way, congratulations, you just got engaged not long ago?
LA: Uh-huh, yeah. Thanks.
WG: Yeah, that’s cool.
LA: Also exciting.
WG: Life is happening.
LA: Yeah, yeah. It is.
WG: Have you always been out in Wyoming or did you send something take you out there?
LA: No, I am from Cheyenne. from the capital, and then I came over to Laramie for school.
WG: Gotcha.
LA: I have been here my whole life. I do like it a lot. It’s windy and cold, but when you’re here your whole life, you kind of get used to it.
WG: Sure.
LA: I think Wyoming has been an interesting place to be in considering the greater Western art genre, because the Southwest sort of dominates, or originated, sort of we know as contemporary western art. But Wyoming, people know the Tetons and Yellowstone, but the rest of the Wyoming is they’re on like high desolate plateau grassland sort of place that people don’t really know a lot about, and I don’t think it exists as much in the minds of the Western zeitgeist as much as Utah or Arizona as much.
WG: Beyond that, there’s not very many people there.
LA: Yup, yup.
WG: And there’s a lot of it that’s pretty flat, right?
LA: Yeah. There’s a lot of valleys and basins in between mid-sized mountain ranges. The eastern half of the state is sort of more prairie. It’s a little more rolling hills. There’s a big desert in the middle of it. And then we have 13,000 foot mountain peaks, so it’s very, very diverse in its landscapes. I think that surprises a lot of people who come and visit it for the first time, and open spaces are what, I think, what people really, really fall for in Wyoming is just the vastness of the sky and the horizons.
WG: Hell yeah. Isn’t Wyoming the first or second in the nation as far as like low population density? Do you know anything about that? I guess one of the first-
LA: I know it’s the smallest population, I don’t know about density.
WG: Okay.
LA: I would assume that Alaska probably has that-
WG: That would make sense, yeah. Probably Alaska.
LA: … crown, but Wyoming might be second.
WG: Yeah. That kind of gives it a cool feel anyway.
LA: Yeah, and that’s partly why I paint a lot of pronghorn, is because that’s sort of Wyoming’s signature animal for people who live here.
WG: Gotcha.
LA: There is about as ubiquitous as cattle.
WG: Cool. I guess switching back to your work. You said you’ve been doing it kind of seriously for the past couple years, or three years or so, and I’ve noticed you’ve been participating in some shows. You’ve got your art out in a couple of local gallery kind of situations. Where do you see yourself as far as do you see an art career for yourself? What’s next for you?
LA: Yes, I mean that’s definitely that’s the long-term goal, that’s the dream, at least part-time if could I could sustain that part-time. Yeah, definitely. Some people know what they want to do with their life since they were 10. I wasn’t really one of those people. As I’ve gone through college and then afterwards, I think it’s just because super-clear that there’s a lot that I could do for work that would make me happy as much as painting does. I think I just have to trust my gut and my instincts with that and take it as far as I can.
WG: Cool.
LA: I started college as a psychology major. Yeah, I had no idea what I want them to do.
WG: Let me think about a different way to ask this, and I guess you answered my question more or less, but let’s go a little bit more specific. All right. What group show, real or imaginary, would you like to participate in?
LA: There’s a few I applied to this year and I got rejected from, which is part of the process.
WG: Yeah, part of it.
LA: I’ve heard the Mountain Oyster Show in Tucson is a good one to get into. The Cheyenne Old West Museum, they do two big shows a year, one which I’ve been a part of. But their Western Art show during Frontier Days is their main one, which I think is a big one. The Coors Western Art Show in Denver is probably one of those. Finding different market too that I haven’t been established in. People in Southwest Wyoming I think are more or less familiar with and what I do.
LA: I do have work in states across the country, but I think shows like that are more prominent and you’re reaching a more audience and clientele that you want to reach with those things.
WG: Right, Yeah.
LA: Expanding in the West for sure. And outside of the West too.
WG: And then kind of like the next step beyond that I have is if you were to have a solo show somewhere, can you of describe what you think you might like that to be?
LA: I don’t know, it’s-
WG: As far as your work is concerned?
LA: As far as work is concerned, I would love to do a series of pieces, like 10 or so, exploring one concept in depth and then show that in an exhibition. I’ve wanted him to do that for a long time, but I have sort of like, I don’t know if I have a short attention span or what, but I’ll do two of a similar theme, and then just be like, “I gotta move on.” But if I think if I had more time to dedicate to it, I would be able to do more of an exploration of a single theme.
WG: Well yeah, I think that would be … I would like to see that.
LA: Yeah?
WG: I think that would make for a good show.
LA: Yeah, that would be great. Something to hope for for the future.
WG: Yup, it will be interesting to see how your chili tests comes out on a bit group of paintings like that.
LA: Yeah, and I have to expand it, because it would be different batches of chili all working together.
WG: Yeah, exactly.
LA: I feel something like that you have to consider them as the whole and not necessarily as just the individual pieces.
WG: It can be a chili cook-off, but you’re gonna have to have whole range of awards.
LA: Yeah.
WG: Yeah.
LA: Yeah, like hottest, and more flavorful, and I don’t know, healthiest. I don’t know if that’s …
WG: Healthiest chili.
LA: Healthiest chili.
WG: No thank you. Do you think that the fact that you are not formally schooled is a benefit to your work? And if so, how would you say?
LA: I mean I feel like one thing self-taught artists probably tell themselves is that it’s a benefit because they don’t have that ingrained approaches that they’ve picked up. There’s more freedom or something to developing your own approach to it. I think I believed that a lot at first. I think it’s a wave. Like there’s periods where like, “Yes, this is great, I don’t have… This is a super-original idea that I came up with that was not influenced by anybody.”
LA: But then there’s also times it’s like, “Man, I wish I just would have had this very rudimentary instruction on this very basic process.” And then there’s other things too that there’s a lot of people talk about, like the things you don’t get taught of art school anyway, which is the marketing and the business side of being an artist. But for some of those technical things I do wish now that I’d had some of that instruction rather than going through all that on my own, but there’s also then I think benefits to that as well, because there’s a lot of struggle and suffering, it brings you closer to your craft, I guess.
WG: Maybe so, yeah. All right, so let’s switch gears here and a quick … Tell me, off the top of your head, three influences.
LA: I think first, it’s a really early one, was Van Gogh.
WG: Okay. Before we get into that, let’s go to the next one.
LA: Okay. I would say Georgia O’Keeffe, and then a very contemporary one, I’d say … and I’ve never actually said this guy’s name out loud, but I’m sure you know who. Logan Hagege… is that how it’s pronounced? I know you know his work, but …
WG: All right, let’s go back and talk about them. Van Gogh.
LA: Van Gogh, yeah. I have always loved how much paint he used. He was super-structural and the color use, obviously, very, very influential and very bold. I’ve always responded to boldness and bold color in art. I do also just on another wavelength. I’m a big fan of abstract impressionism too, so sort of all in that same vein.
WG: Okay, well then, O’Keeffe?
LA: O’Keeffe, yeah. thematically I think what she did as far as the subjects that she chose, the schools obviously I’m a huge fan of-
WG: Oh right, I’ve seen some of your school pictures.
LA: Those are probably some of my favorite ones that I paint, and she’s the most well-known of that subject. Georgia O’Keeffe was actually my grandma’s favorite artist, so I had a long exposure to her. Never actually been to Ghost Ranch, but took several trips in New Mexico with my grandma.
WG: Oh cool, so it was like a developmental association too. Developmental, I mean personally like growing up.
LA: Right. And her florals too. I’ve done a couple of florals that draw from another groundbreaking thing she has established.
WG: I mean, I like your florals a lot. The pink rose you’ve got, that you’ve done recently looks really great. I thought it was a cool shift to see that side of your work too. And then Logan, Logan H’s work-
LA: There we go. Yeah, he sort of mastered the blend of traditional and contemporary, which is what I aspire to. I just, and again, like boldness and color, sort of semi-abstraction of shapes, sort of cartoonish sort of influences. Yeah, a lot of respect there.
WG: Oh definitely. You know, you talk about finding your artistic voice and that’s somebody who clearly did and stuck with it and evolved with it.
LA: I think that’s one of the hard things about any artist, is at what point they discover that and determine that’s gonna be what they’re going to stick with.
WG: Yeah, well he’s been doing it for a while too.
LA: Right.
WG: All right. Do you have a favorite brush or a secret weapon but you like to use?
LA: Not really. My brush collection is the conglomeration of stuff I’ve accumulated over … even stuff from childhood. I use a lot of small round brushes, but my medium, I guess, is something that is important to my process, and it’s just a combination of linseed oil and just generic, odorless … oh, I can’t even remember the brand. Just a general medium they cut with linseed oil. It sorta helps speed drying time, but doesn’t get as matte as pure medium does.
WG: Gotcha.
LA: Yeah, as far as the brushes go, it’s just whatever I grab first.
WG: Whatever will work for the situation.
LA: Yup.
WG: Do you listen to any music when you paint?
LA: I do, almost always. It’s just my iPod on shuffle, which is actually mostly metal core. I do have a lot of different musical interests, but I do listen to a lot of metal.
WG: Cool.
LA: Yeah.
WG: I don’t know why I can’t remember the name now, but a good friend of mine is a pedal steel musician.
LA: Oh, nice.
WG: Made an instrumental metal-influenced album.
LA: That’s cool.
WG: It’s really cool. I’ll look it up and send it to you at some point.
LA: Yeah, that’d be great. I do have pedal steel too.
WG: Oh yeah, it’s got a Western feel to it.
LA: Yeah, I’m sure it’d be interesting to track what I listen to and compare to what I paint and see how the results line up.
WG: Like this artist comes out with, “When I paint skull.”
LA: Yeah, just death metal.
WG: Yeah. Who’s your favorite metal band?
LA: I listen to Trivium the most.
WG: Trivium?
LA: Yeah, I don’t know if you know them.
WG: I don’t.
LA: Killswitch Engage is another big one, but then I also, Red Hot Chili Peppers is also one of my favorite bands, Cake is another one of those top ones that I go back to all the time.
WG: That’s when you do your fun paintings, right?
LA: Yeah. But I think when I listen to Cake, those are the most surly painting.
WG: Okay.
LA: I feel they have a lot of sarcastic sort of music, so yeah.
WG: You have a day job. How do you balance your creative side and your painting with your day job? And/or do you have any … What’s your painting schedule like?
LA: That’s the hardest thing to figure out over the last year or so. My painting schedule is, the way I’ve worked out the best is I save the actual in depth painting sessions for the weekends where I can do to two to four hours at a time.
WG: Sure.
LA: And then on weeknights I’ll do some canvas prep, or do early stages of the process that don’t … like drawing the design on the canvas or that sort of thing that don’t involve a lot of plugging in a lot of focus or concentration.
WG: That’s cool.
LA: That’s what I’ve been doing for the last couple of months. I just definitely don’t have as much time to work as I’d like, which creates some anxiety as far as what I choose to spend my time on. I have so many ideas and projects I want to do, but I can only do maybe one a month. But I have a sketch book at work. I have a journal that I constantly write ideas down, and do drawing at my desk and stuff. I try to do what I can with the setting that I’m in.
WG: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I think that you’re not alone in having that kind of constraint, right?
LA: Yeah.
WG: But I wonder, when you start to get to a point—and you may never get to a point where you’re feeling comfortable with your explorations and then wanting to try new things—but I wonder if you could create a vision for a series for a solo show that’s not scheduled anywhere right now, right?
LA: Right.
WG: And then just try and execute on that over a number of months, and then maybe you’ll be closer to whatever the next step is in your career.
LA: I like that thought, ’cause I mean the more you do have an idea or a subject, the more you’ll get to know it. I think by the end of something like that you would have a good idea on if it’s a good idea or not.
WG: True, yeah. And then along the way you could still submit pieces that come out of that to group shows or whatever-
LA: Right.
WG: … if you feel like it.
LA: Yeah.
WG: I don’t know. I’m not trying … I’m just having ideas.
LA: I’ll take any ideas. I do try and do a mix of larger, more developed pieces, and then do a lot of little five by seven or eight by ten really quick pieces that are more sort of experimental, or are trying to study landscapes directly from reference, or trying to get accuracy and color and stuff like that. For a while I would do exercises where I’d take a five by seven and set my timer for an hour, and just crank out a painting.
WG: Oh cool.
LA: I got actually a lot of really good results from that, so I need to get back into that because that was a good exercise.
WG: Oh, cool. Yeah. That seems like it’d be good. Keep you sharp.
LA: Yeah.
WG: Tell me about the first painting you sold.
LA: Yeah, the first one I sold was to my high school art teacher for like $50 bucks. He’s been the biggest supporter from day one. I think it was a 16 by 20 acrylic of an explosion in the desert, or something like that. There’s a lot of chaos, and a lot of oranges and reds and splatters. I don’t know, it was an interesting one.
WG: This may overlap, I don’t know, but what’s one piece of advice you were told that’s made a difference in your career as a painter?
LA: I think, “Don’t be afraid to hear no,” is a really good one. “Trust your instincts,” is another one, to fight that temptation to just do what you think your family would like, or what you think would sell, what you think would get approval from outside, that sort of thing. The combination of those two I think is the best advice I’ve tried to always keep in mind.
WG: Cool. Have you ever had a booth at an art show or anything like that?
LA: I haven’t done that sort of thing. There are opportunities … There’s a big … The Cherry Creek Art Festival in Denver is a big one. There’s one in Cheyenne every summer, but I haven’t … I feel it’s a different sort of mindset to showing work than showing it in an exhibition. Those art fairs feel to me more for selling, which is a combination of-
WG: Yeah, that’s what they are.
LA: … I don’t like selling my work to begin with. I don’t like that process. Because as a consumer I never like feeling badgered to buy something, and so that’s why I just assume that all selling is, which is not true. I think that’s the biggest reason why I haven’t. And it’s also just a confidence thing, because I am so critical I would never feel like I have a cohesive enough set of works available to be like, “This is what I’m going to put out to the world, ” and say, “This is me. You should spend money on it.”
WG: Oh well, you need a champion.
LA: I guess.
WG: Yeah.
LA: And what happens … And I do. It’s not like I hate every piece I make. I shouldn’t put out that vibe. There are definitely … I do like what I produce, but those tend to then go out the door faster, and so the stuff I have laying around that’s available, around my house is usually not the best of the best.
WG: Not your favorite pieces.
LA: Yeah.
WG: Yeah.
LA: Sometimes I will have pieces I do really like that nobody wants to buy, which is fine. And I have a few in a personal collection, and I’ll just reserve those for me. Those are some of those experimental ones that were good enough to hang onto it.
WG: Yeah, I mentioned that you’ve got pieces hanging in some local galleries. How did you get into those places?
LA: The one I’m in in Cheyenne, I knew the owner a little bit by going to visit the gallery over time, and then he asked me to be the featured … Cheyenne does an art walk every month like a lot of places do. And so he asked me to be the featured artist for one month and I showed some of my stuff there, and then after that was over, I asked him if he’d have any interest in taking me on and keeping some stuff around, and he has the sort of … a really broad array of types of pieces there, and mine didn’t really fit in with what he had already, so he was, I think, happy to take them in.
LA: And then the one I’m in in Laramie is like a co-op. The gallery is run by this organization called the Wyoming Women’s Business Center, and they’re a non-profit group that helps with small business in Wyoming. This gallery is a project of theirs that is for Wyoming-only artists-
WG: Who are not all women?
LA: No, not all women and they don’t actually only … I think there is part of their mission to help with women in business in particular, but they don’t only provide their services to just women. It’s just they’re open to small business.
WG: That’s really cool, yeah.
LA: Yeah, and it’s a great thing. They have a studio space too that I was part of. And so when you’re part of the studio you don’t have to pay the membership fee or something to the gallery.
WG: Sure, gotcha.
LA: I was like, “Sure, why not?” And I’ve actually done an incredible business through them. I wasn’t really sure what to expect up front, just because Laramie’s not actually a big art town, and this is just a retail, this is on the street people walking in. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised there.
WG: That’s good.
LA: Yeah.
WG: Wow. Well, I think I might be out of questions for now.
LA: Okay. That is fine.
WG: It works out with the schedule a little bit.
LA: Yeah.
WG: Cool. Well thank you so much Luke, I guess for being on, and I’ll give you a heads up when this gets published.
LA: Yeah, I’m really looking forward to listening to all of the interviews you do. I think it’s a … yeah. There’s a few art podcasts out there, but I think this is really good, so-
WG: Thanks, yeah I hop that it comes out oke. This may be the kind of thing where I need to do a written critique of everyone myself.
LA: Cool. Well it is a great opportunity for me. I think it’s great exposure, and that’s always … I don’t really talk about my art like this with anybody, so it’s good to personally reflect on it when you’re forced to think about some of these things.
WG: Oh yeah. Another question is, do you have any artist friends that you critique each other’s work or anything like that? Or is it more your self-reflection?
LA: Yeah, Jason Lohmeier and I have actually done some of that. I don’t have … there’s not a really great network of people working in my medium and genre geographically close to me. There are, there’s a lot of great artists in Laramie, it’s just not people who are doing that similar of stuff. But Jason, it seemed like he was navigating some of those same waters I was, and so I reached out to him and suggested that, and we haven’t done it in a while, but we do do that occasionally. Some finished pieces for critiques or stuff in progress to get advice on.
WG: How did you guys connect?
LA: Just through Instagram.
WG: That’s what I was wondering. That’s cool.
LA: Yeah, there are some people who have … You form a little community.
WG: Jason’s a super-nice guy, that’s cool.
LA: Yeah, I’ve never met him, obviously, but …
WG: I’ve never met in person, but I’ve interacted with him over Instagram, and then direct messaging or whatnot.
LA: He’s good at critiquing.
WG: Oh, okay. You mentioned Jason, and I was thinking I should have him on. I was going to ask you for two suggestions of people I should have on the show, and/or intros I I don’t know who they are.
LA: Oh gosh. Yeah. I might have to look through-
WG: Who would you like to hear on the show? Would be another thought.
LA: Maybe … I like Marcia Molnar’s work a lot. I don’t know if you’re familiar with her?
WG: Yeah, I mean the name, I think …
LA: She does work sorta like, it reminds me of Ed Mell in a way, but not …
WG: Oh yes, yes. I know exactly who you’re talking about it.
LA: Yeah, she does roses and some florals too.
WG: I love her recent ones with all the lightning and the vertical formats, those are awesome.
LA: Yeah. That’s one that comes to mind right away.
WG: That’s a great idea.
LA: Yeah.
WG: Well great, Luke. It’s really been a pleasure talking with you, and wish you the best of luck, and I’m excited to continue to see your work progress.
LA: Well thanks, I appreciate that. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it too.
WG: All right. Take care.
LA: See ya.
WG: Bye.