Rob Lee: Welcome to The Truth in His Arts, your source for conversations connecting arts, culture, and community. These are stories that matter, and I am your host, Rob Lee. Today, I'm excited to welcome my next guest on to the podcast. She is a self-taught painter and curator who was raised in and is based in Washington, DC. Her work, rooted in organizing and civil rights, explores the emotional weight of entrenched inequality, tracing how personal and collective experiences are politicized, obscured, or transformed into sites of resistance. So please welcome to the program, Carter Wynn. Welcome to the podcast.
Carter Wynne: Thank you so much. I'm honored to be a guest.
Rob Lee: Thank you for making the time, being on here. And, you know, as we start off, I'd like to go with the very sort of general, I call it a softball question for some people. Some people find this question very hard. But before we get to the deeper topics for today's conversation, you know, narrative is important, especially owning our own narrative, because you introduce yourself in your own words. Yeah.
Carter Wynne: So I am one of those people that, you know, sometimes struggles with the question. So I might just throw a bunch of facts at you about who I am, but I'm Carter. At my core, I would call myself an artist, not just with what I make, but kind of the way that I move through the world. I think I'm a very, I'm a deep feeler and that kind of grounds how I interact with the things and the people that I care about. Self-taught painter and an emerging curator. I consider myself to be an organizer and an advocate. So I've been organizing since I was a high schooler.
Social justice is pretty essential to most everything that I do. I'm also a very proud fourth generation Washingtonian. I'm the big sister of my family. I'm a very curious person and I'm 27. And I use she or pronouns.
Rob Lee: Thank you. Like you said, the facts, you gave me all of the facts. Yeah, that I'm slowly building. Yeah, that's that's good. And thank you for that. I noticed that the the Washingtonian part is very, very important.
And I definitely peep that and notice that and appreciate that because, you know, I think for a place that I've spent so much time in the last like six to seven months, I'll give you the context. My birthday is January 20th. So, you know, it has a half time and I wanted to go down there just cause during that time, I was like, I'm going to go down that week. I'm not going to go down on the 20th. I can't I can't have a bad birthday. I just can't have it happen. But I went down on the 20th, 23rd, rather.
And I say that for this context, that being down there pretty much every two weeks for the last six, almost seven months at this point, it's really opened my eyes up like generally when I go down to DC, I'm just down there to get some work done, do some interviews either at Eaton or the line now and get some interviews done. Get some really overpriced baked goods. Cause look, your boy likes a chocolate chip cookie and there's a look. I'll spend, I think I went down there. I was like, yo, I got $30 for cookies. That's what I'm doing.
Carter Wynne: You say, oh, you're not playing third. That's that's a lot for cookie.
Rob Lee: So I'm going to my mind, Ellie, verdict, something like that. But in the last, you know, in this sort of this year, being able to spend more time down there and looking at things and walking a lot more getting sort of the cultural context, I kind of really appreciate folks when they're saying, look, I'm from here, multi-generational from here and it's identity and it's sort of this, this notion of, you know, and I hear that pride. So I just wanted to share that piece.
Carter Wynne: Oh, I appreciate that. I do. Yeah. Something I'm really proud of it. Something my family is really proud of. So we talk about all the time. So that's, yeah, that acknowledgement's nice.
Rob Lee: And I am the older sibling in my group. It's, uh, I have a younger brother and it's an interesting spot to be in.
Carter Wynne: It is. And I say that because oldest siblings tend to hear that and they're like, I get it. I got it. So it's kind of like a group within itself. Yes.
Rob Lee: It's one of those things where I grew up with my younger brother and then like later and she's like, oh, you have an older sister and an older brother, long lost, but they're like half siblings and they try to like little brother me. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, regardless.
I'm the oldest. Like I have that energy. And, um, the last thing I'll touch on before moving into this second part of the question is I love that you said like moving through the world as an artist. Right.
Um, I romancy thought that idea. Like I've been podcasting nearly 20 years and I don't view this as a marketing mechanism. I don't view this as a, I don't view it really in a high level sort of. I'm doing the discourse at the odd, but it's more so like I'm having an interesting conversation, but the way I approach it is very serious. And I moved through it with sort of an artistic and creative sensibility more than just put a Michael on, let's not prep, let's not do anything. But I approach it somewhere between anthropology, creativity and like journalism. But the artist lifestyle, I try to live that. So I'm hanging out with people trying to get that culture and all.
Carter Wynne: Yeah. No, I think that that's a fantastic way to approach podcasting because the people that you're going to be interviewing probably live their life similarly. So to meet them at that level and understand the context that they're coming from probably makes for more authentic conversations. So yeah, I appreciate that a lot. Absolutely.
Rob Lee: So also within your story, touched on the social justice piece, there's a civil rights piece, organizing piece in there. So could you share sort of what that larger movement towards art? Because I think we shared in the email before that like sort of artists and additional projects for our security and sort of the the visual art components there that this is something in addition to the day to day like work that you're doing. So to talk about sort of that shift into adding that as a bigger part of your day to day in your life.
Carter Wynne: Yeah, definitely. I think so I'll get a little context to make it make sense. So in undergrad and I graduated from undergrad in 2020, I double majored in art history and women, gender, sexuality studies. So I used to think of those as like two very distinct versions of myself. There was the art Carter and more of the theory Carter, but really each one shapes the other. So I was like very much applying the critical race, queer feminist theory to the more or less like Eurocentric art canon that I was being taught and then viewing the critical theory itself more through an artistic or interpretive lens. So when I graduated, I knew that I wanted to work at the intersection of those two things, art and justice.
I also knew that I needed to make money. So I imagine that that path would look like becoming an art lawyer. So somebody working on First Amendment cases, like restitution, repatriation, copyright and justices, civil rights litigation, that kind of thing. So I started off as a paralegal at a private firm that had a civil rights litigation practice area. And then I later ended up becoming a lead paralegal for a civil rights team at a major tech company. I was also studying for the LSAT during this time.
So this is, you know, 2020 to 2022. I was painting sporadically when I could, but I wouldn't say that I had a consistent art practice. Um, and the work that I was doing, the legal work, it really started to drain me. I felt as though, like despite my best efforts and the best efforts of my colleagues, it kind of felt like we were performing this dance.
We were, you know, advocating for justice structures, uh, which for justice in, inside of structures that really are not designed to deliver, deliver it. So I kind of felt like my soul was dying a little bit, like my life force was, I could feel it shrinking. And I was in a bit of a denial phase. Um, I ended up taking LSAT, which was a pretty horrible experience for me.
Um, remember this is in like early COVID times. So I had to take that exam virtually. Um, and anyone who takes the LSAT knows that every time you take it, it can be a really different test because they change the sections every time. And so I was four hours into this exam and I got booted off of the server because of a technical glitch. And I had to take the whole thing again a week later. And it was just this like really demoralizing experience. Um, and it really forced me to kind of stop and reflect on whether or not law school and the world that it would kind of usher me deeper into, if it was truly for me, I was very burnt out, not just intellectually, but also my body was, you know, responding to that misalignment. So I was developing really intense chronic back pain. Um, and I actually ended up having to take medical leave from my job. And during that time, which was, I think it was close to like four months, I was in so much pain that I really couldn't leave the house much. And I started painting pretty obsessively. It was like all I could do therapy.
It was a ritual. I was, I was grieving a lot about my health, the sort of confusion about my career path, the state of the world. And painting just became this way that I was able to make sense of everything. So right before I was supposed to go back to work, I like kind of on a whim, just submitted a self portrait to a juried exhibition at a gallery. And I just assumed nothing would come of it.
It was kind of like, uh, yeah, okay, like let's just see what, see what happens. And to my complete shock, the piece was accepted into the show and it also sold in the gallery. So that was a pretty big turning point for me. Um, and I was like, hmm, I wonder how I can like incorporate this a lot more in my life. So when I returned to work, all I could think about was when five PM was going to roll around, but I could paint. So I started, you know, getting into this routine where I would work nine to five and then I would paint from like five to like one or two AM. I just completely fell in love with the process. And then in summer of 2023, you know, there was a lot of math layoffs from tech companies and I was a casualty of that mass wave of layoffs. And it ended up turning into like the best thing that could have happened because it really gave me like the space, time and clarity to fully commit to my practice.
So I decided not through the law school. I eventually started working at a civil rights and human rights nonprofit. So it gave me that work life balance where I could start building out my body of work, regularly showing in galleries. I did this territorial apprenticeship, like doing commission stuff like that. So it just kind of started to feel like I was moving in alignment with what I was supposed to be doing. So that's just a long-winded way of saying like the answer and how I ended up getting into the art as a primary focus.
Rob Lee: That's great. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that and in painting this story, like really setting the stage for us because I relate to it in this way. You know, as far as the misalignment, right? I was working in the beginning of this whole sort of thing. We're going back to 2009.
And the beginning of this whole sort of thing. I knew that I wanted to do something creative. I was in marketing in a big Fortune 500 company and spending a lot of time in Silver Spring and the telephone company.
The phone company. And it wasn't just the trajectory just in the line. You know, I was getting up leaving from Baltimore, commuting down on the mark every day, that's 616 train and then, you know, putting in a lot of time. And eventually I was able to maneuver and just on my own steam, get myself into working and hump out me.
So just north of Baltimore was filling up for field. Like I took a marketing job because I thought I could be creative in it. And it was more of a marketing analyst job, which was great.
And I still have that background and I have a degree in that area. But ultimately on a whim, I love whims on a whim. I had the money to like last like $500 and went across the street to Best Buy.
And I was like, yo, what you need to make like a recording? That's been known in particular. And they like sort of write this way.
Here's the microphones. But like, thanks. Just like that.
Literally. And I still have that equipment here, by the way. And I just started self taught, just started kind of playing with audio, playing with mics and and because you're Washington, you'll love.
I think you'll love this. The first recording ever did. It was Washington football related. Okay. I don't do sports. I don't like talking about sports, right? But it was a signing of Albert Hainesworth forever ago with the now defund ridgames and I was just ranting about it for five minutes.
I would never do about a place that I'm kind of dare because, you know, I was back and forth to, to the, you know, sort of Maryland counties, the DMV sort of counties. But, um, yeah, you know, and that was sort of the start of it. But really it was sort of this rejection of something that I could be doing.
I should be doing. And I've been able to find a way to blend both because as you, you touched on, that'll find a way to survive here. Um, and marketing job was good, but, you know, let you all lay off later. Same sort of thing.
We had to strike all of that stuff. Um, and, you know, 2012, I really blew out doing more and more and more podcasts and really learning that craft. And, you know, now look at it as 10, 10 plus years of me doing this. And specifically with the truth in this art, it's been, it'll be five, four years at the end of this month that I've been doing this and at this rate. So yeah. Journey.
Carter Wynne: It's just, it's so funny. I feel like a lot of people who find themselves like later in life doing something creative full time, a lot of them started out in the same way, like just kind of had this moment where they're like, all right, either I go or I keep doing this thing. And I feel like one of my biggest fears is just regret. So, um, yeah, it's nice to hear other people have that same moment where they just decide to go for it. Walking to a bed by.
Rob Lee: It's just yelling at people randomly. And it's something about some of that, that HP is now like, I'm 40 now. So looking at it, I started podcast when I was 24.
So it's just like being at that spot of, all right, I don't want to like try to sort of just like, man, I'm going through a midlife crisis. Time to start a podcast, which a lot of people do now. But I'm glad that I kind of got in and explored it then. And so now it's so much that comes from it that, you know, I've recently finished my second year of teaching podcasting on a college level. Just based on me building that out. It's just, it's a summer project. It's, you know, six weeks, but it's still, I'm now like Professor Rah, which is wild to me.
Speaker 3: Okay, pro. So thank you.
Rob Lee: Thank you. Um, if I want to go back into them, I don't want to just sit here and talk about myself all the time. I mean, I'm interesting, but also I'm boring. It's about, uh, so going back into your, your work, there's that thread, you know, that, you know, social justice, sort of inequality and, and narratives. Let's talk a bit about some of the key themes that you present and your approach in your work on seeing this, this term or these terms together, entrenched inequality, collective and personal experiences. So talk a bit about that first. Yeah.
Carter Wynne: So most of my work or much of my work sits at that intersection of personal grief and structural violence. So what happens when someone's lived experience collides with institutions that were really never meant to protect them or, or were built for them.
So when I say entrenched inequity and inequality, I'm not talking specifically about a policy failure or historical injustice, but more something that is felt, you know, repeated or rendered invisible through, you know, bureaucratic systems or desensitization. And I feel like for me, that often returns to this idea of a politicized body. So how state violence, displacement, neglect often get mapped onto, onto people in ways that are very intimate and like deeply embodied. Um, so whether or not that occurs in a courtroom or an attention center or a protest site, I'm really drawn to the spaces where individual narratives are kind of flattened into these data points or they're erased altogether.
And so I think of my paintings as a, I guess a visual testimony of sorts and a way to kind of interrupt that erasure and insist on having that, that presence be known. And I think that the, the, the steam, that scheme really emerged out of a place of necessity. Like when I first started painting, it was a way to metabolize. Like I had said, a lot of grief that I was experiencing and sort of give shape to things that I didn't have the language for. So it was very personal in the beginning, a lot of self-portraiture, a way to sort of sit with that emotional pain and make it, um, like physical and legible. But, and I wasn't thinking explicitly in political terms, but then over time, the work started to shift and my experiences with, um, you know, chronic pain and medical dismissal and burnout, they led me to confront larger systemic failures, like the broken U S healthcare system, environmental racism, gendered health disparities, police violence, things like that. And it, it wasn't just private struggles.
They were symptoms of something bigger. And it, my paintings gave me a way to connect that intimate with the structural. Um, so like once I started leaving my work more into like broader political storytelling, I noticed that people started to engage with my work in a different way. They'd, you know, reach out on Instagram and say things like, you know, I'd never seen this feeling depicted before or this really helped me understand something that I couldn't articulate. And I was like another huge turning point for me realizing that art could hold both the specificity of my story, but also like the collective resonance, um, of shared experience. So I see, I'm trying to be intentional about how I create these narratives. I want them to be emotional entry points. Um, yeah, I hope that answers the question.
Rob Lee: It does. And it has me, me thinking like it is one thing in the research that I kept looking at was just sort of, I think in it, I was just like, she gets it. That was literally one of the things that kept popping up sort of the, the connectedness of like, this isn't just one thing, this one isolated sort of data point or what have you, like this is a, this is built this way.
This is just sort of considered a norm. And I go back to, you know, being here Baltimore, right? Um, and this podcast was born out of, uh, Trump saying something really weird and goofy about the city and more so felt like it was the people of the city. And I felt like it was important for us to be, to share our own stories and speak on our own behalf and not have someone who's never been here. You know, say like, this is what this is.
This is just criminals or whatever the thing is and just have people share their own like individual narratives, if you will. And, um, and I, as you remember, you know, recently I have a, um, have a family friend, um, who he was joking. He's like, yeah, you know, it was in DC.
He's joking about like, yeah, it's all these teachers. And it's like, yeah, I read about your story. I read about your experience. And I was like, that's a really interesting and funny take. Like people aren't given a lot of times to opportunity to share their experience and what they're doing because it's ugly, because it's scary, because it's real.
Absolutely. And then seeing how it's connected, um, I'll share this before I move into this sort of next, next question is I, I haven't been thinking about this a lot recently. I did a creative morning talk a couple of years ago and I kind of just shared sort of what the story of this whole thing was. And I really made an ass out of myself. I talked about having my own nickname and giving myself my own nickname because I was being truthful. Um, but at that time I was looking at and sort of the prep for it, looking at the creative mornings talk and this other opportunity. It was a TEDx talk and the folks from TEDx, they wanted me to change what the story of why I started the podcast was. Ooh. It was like, yeah, we don't want the Trump stuff in there.
You know, well, can you just say maybe it was just, you got interested in art one day, you said, Hey, I'll do a podcast. I was like, that doesn't even, that's like you wrote it in chat. GPT is like, it's. What?
Carter Wynne: So what they're saying is we don't want you.
Rob Lee: And I, my, my response was in kind to that of like, I don't know if I'm a good guy for this then, because the story of story, you know, um, and I. And I think that that's important really being able to own and control your story and see sort of, as we're encountering out this sort of suppression and a razor of. Different things that are here, you know, whether, stories, whether books being banned, all of these sort of different things that are happening live in an effect. That's why doing something like this as opposed to as important.
Carter Wynne: Absolutely. And that makes me think about what we were just talking about. was the whole idea of identifying as an artist. If you're going to move through the world, having that as a title or having that as something that you resonate with, I think it comes with this era of authenticity. You're not going to compromise your values just to placate or make someone else feel as though they're comfortable. I think it requires showing up. Even when it is uncomfortable, like you said, having to say, sorry, I can't do this opportunity because you don't want the authentic version of me. But I think eventually when you gain that traction and people start to realize, like, staying on business, then you get the people that you're really supposed to be around. Like I said, you get it?
Rob Lee: So I want to talk a little bit about this. You've described play and looking at this concept, you describe play as an insurgent force within your coroutorial practice. I don't do the thing of merge. I'm like, yeah, you curate. I'm an emerging podcast.
I'm still not good at it. But intrinsic tool, your DC arts center exhibition, it celebrates revolutionary potential of play. I'm very interested in play. Could you elaborate what that means and how play functions as a tool for disruption or change? Totally.
Carter Wynne: Intrinsic tool is so special to me. So let's talk about it. Yeah. So when I was coming up with the idea for the exhibition, I was really thinking about how play is often sort of dismissed as trivial or kind of unserious, reserved for children. But that dismissal is part of the way that dominant systems work. So I think reclaiming play in and of itself as an act of resistance because it interrupts capitalist notions of productivity, usefulness, control, you know, an impressive systems that are designed to erode creativity and joy and also slowness play becomes kind of a radical refusal. And I think struggle and celebration are often framed as mutually exclusive, but I don't believe that they are. I think play allows us to hold contradictions. So like grief and joy, clarity and confusion, action and rest. And intrinsic tool, the whole purpose of the exhibition was to ask the question, how do we stay, engage in resistance work without flattening ourselves into despondency?
How do we remain resilient while doing that work? And so I'm conceptualizing play not as just this emotional thing or an aesthetic. It's more than that. It's epistemological. It's a way of knowing, of seeing, of reimagining. So each artist, an intrinsic tool, and I had six artists in the show, they all experimented with play kind of as a form of inquiry.
So that was either through touch or color or interaction or spatial defiance. They were creating room for the viewers to interrogate their own cognitive and emotional habits. And that interrogation and that interruption, I think it's inherently political. You know, right now in this moment of history and in many moments in history, it's defined by urgency and crisis and over saturation. And I think play disrupts that grind and kind of breaks through that linear time and makes space for people to feel something without being told how to feel that.
And not everybody has access to safety or resources or institutions, but play is a tool that we all carry within our bodies. It just has to be activated. And that's why I use the word intrinsic for the title intrinsic tool. It's something that we can all access if we're given the right space to do so. So that's why the show really centered tactile, interactive and intuitive work. It doesn't require a degree or deep understanding of theory to be felt or understood. It's a survival skill. And it's something that furthers the audience and the viewers capacity for thinking and experiencing things in sort of subtly radical ways.
Rob Lee: That's great. And thank you for that. I think of a few different instances. Like I think of the Austin Cleon stuff and he talks about play like a lot. And I try to incorporate that because it's always, it's always, I'm going to call it is, it's always some like five foot eight white boy that's coming to me and saying, this is how you be more productive.
This is how you can do an extra business, bro. And I'm like, how about they just play? I don't want this thing that I actually to turn into something that's a new vertical.
I don't like it. It feels weird and being able to engage in a conversation without it having any ulterior motive other than the desire to have the conversation. That is that's why I like this part of it, you know, more than the prep and all of that different stuff that goes into it.
It's really, it's really interesting. And to go into play, not having a specific goal at the end, I think, and look at 2020 and sort of how we're all at home. And it's a lot of stuff that we're sitting there kind of coping with and dealing with sort of the, it's always uncertainty, but that version of uncertainty with is the world ending? You know, I think a lot of interesting creative things that come out of that and now we're on the other side of sort of this, the seesaw where the folks with the money and the power of the business sort of way of thinking is stamping or attempting to stamp that out. There's something about that, but that period, because I know that during that sort of two year period, the amount of work that I was producing was like jumping up and people had this desire to just connect and just chat without any like, yo, okay, I got 45 minutes, we got to get everything in. It's just like, no, man, we're not having two hour conversation about nothing.
Carter Wynne: Absolutely. Yeah, I think people don't often realize that like hustle culture or like monetizing everything stems from white supremacy. Like there is absolutely like a correlation between white supremacy and capitalism and these oppressive structures that fuels this desire to constantly be producing and creating and monetizing that and it takes away from the joy of the process of doing so. So yeah, that's definitely what I was going for with Intrinsic Tool and I think, like you were saying that period of time in those two years where everybody was forced to slow down, people started realizing the merit of not putting a time cap on everything and not setting up metrics and KPIs and you know, you could just live. You could just do something to do it.
Rob Lee: So no art card or like lifestyle brand as a vertical that you diversify in the next?
Carter Wynne: No, I'm cool off that.
Rob Lee: Yeah, and even doing this, like, you know, as I was sharing earlier, like, naturally, the opportunity to do the teaching thing, you know, came up as a thing that I wanted to do that just felt good, because you can't fake enthusiasm. At least I can't.
I can't fake enthusiasm. And, you know, when it was presented to me maybe earlier, it had this real, like, packaged spank on it that I just didn't really want to deal with. It's just like, it feels too formal. It feels like it's another job versus, I'm going to put everything I have into it, but the moment that it feels overly structured, it's now moving from what the thing is. This is a thing I shared in my class before I moved to this next question. You know, folks were asking before you even had a podcast, before you even had an idea, right? I was like, what do you want to do? Yeah, man, so how do you modify it? I was like, let's shift the thinking.
Yeah. What is it about first? And there's ways to do it, you know, but you're probably going to fail at it. And I was realizing I was turning into like the sociology professor that takes the chair, turns it backwards, puts his hat on backwards.
Let me wrap it. I was more excited. That's what I was doing, but it was an attempt to be honest. And the way that I compared it was to like chefs, you know, like it's thin margins. You got to do it because you love it. Sure, you'll make money from it, but it's very thin margins. And then if you watch an episode of the bear, you know, what's what?
Carter Wynne: Oh, yeah. Now, I mean, that's, I think that was the biggest, like what your point, you're right there, was the biggest thing that made me kind of hold off on like making actualizing this pivot from like law to art sooner. Is that fear of like, well, this path towards art doesn't offer as much like quote unquote stability or, you know, consistent salary to income or things like that. But I think ultimately you have to kind of pick your poison, right? Do you want to work a job consistently that doesn't allow you to like do the things that bring you joy?
Is that the way that you're going to pay or is the way that you're going to pay that maybe you don't bring as much in every month, but every day you spend doing something that feels really purposeful. And I sort of sat in that in between for a while. And it wasn't until I fully admitted to myself that I was like more scared of, you know, regret and not taking this leap that I was able to finally move forward and do it.
But a lot of people don't get to the point where they're able to do that. So it's a testament to you. And I'm glad that you're telling your students that because they need to hear it, like the truth of that.
Rob Lee: Thank you. So I'm moving to sort of how do you see the visual culture, not just like informing what we know, but actively like shaping our capacity for resistance, imagination and collective building in some ways. You know, what I do has a certain approach to it.
There's a resistance in documenting and so on. But I don't know if I look at it that way, but it's embedded in there. It's sort of the sentiment is in there. So from your vantage point, how do you see like visual culture, like visual art beginning as sort of like, you know, conversation? Yeah.
Carter Wynne: So I think, you know, as people kind of entrenched in the art world and I'm talking about like, you know, if you and me, for example, people who are either artists or involved in the arts community in some way, I think we often forget that imagination is this muscle and not everybody has the ability to just kind of naturally bring that up, because we're constantly surrounded by creative minds. And like as an artist myself, I know that my brain may work a little bit differently than someone who isn't regularly engaged with art. And it's very much like a privilege and an honor to be able to spend, you know, a good chunk of my time studying and creating work that pushes me to envision different realities and solutions that I wouldn't have thought of otherwise without, I guess, how I say, like the catalyzing power of visual culture and visual art.
I've been, you know, I've been with friends and family who rarely interact with art and they visit like their first gallery opening or a public installation. I can see the wheels turning in behind their eyes and they're trying to make sense of what they see. And that process is growth. And I think art really art and when I say art, I'm talking about like visual culture now and not just, you know, very art in a strict sense, but it forces your brain to expand, to learn a new language that has an infinite vocabulary and alphabet. And this is when you think that you've like learned everything, you see a piece that can just completely undo your whole worldview and make you question everything you've been taught. I think there are so few things in the world that have the power to do that, to increase your empathy, to deepen visualization, to spark thoughts, like kind of critical thinking. And so, you know, sometimes that even looks like encountering a piece of work that touches your soul so deeply that you're like, I got to, I got to work. And service of the collective that this piece represents. So I think visual culture is a very deeply human thing. And what are we like or not? It shapes us. So my thinking is like, why not just embrace that and use it strategically if we accept that as truth?
Rob Lee: So I have this, this one question that I've been looking at it so much. This sort of concept is this next question is centered around like, like apathy or what have you. Definitely something that's been on my mind a lot. So it's a powerful statement in your ongoing series and that I read, it reads, the paintings are not made to simplify or to resolve paraphrase a little bit there.
They are made to interrupt apathy. I think many of us can relate to that sort of growing sense of just folks being checked out. Like I'm a giant dude.
I am six, four, two, 40. And often people like, what'd you say? Because they're not engaged. Then you have to be right there. And it's just like, I take up space, right? And, you know, folks are checked out at times. Um, and it can definitely be frustrating and just seems like folks are just not engaged or engaged up to a point. Could you elaborate on like any thoughts that you have in this area, especially how like interrupting apathy, like through your work is centered there?
Carter Wynne: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, this is something that I'm working on in this new series of paintings. But I feel like we're in this moment where state violence and systemic harm are very scrollable and, you know, swappable and ultimately very ignorable.
Um, in this culture where like we're just rewarded for how quickly we can swipe. And I wanted the paintings in this series to be a refusal of that. They're not, I'm not making them to simplify issues or to soothe people.
They're made to disarm the viewer to interrupt that smooth consumption and ask the person to sit with something that's often looked away from. Like I said, you know, in this media cycle where like detachment and speed is rewarded, you know, the work is sort of insisting on this psychological engagement. I think just even the nature of working with, you know, a flow medium like painting kind of doubles down on that.
And one way that I try to do that is through in this series is how I'm building the composition. So there's this kind of effective friction in the space itself. Um, as a piece that I've already created, you know, bodies are often embedded and compressed and pushed forward. I'm creating kind of a discomfort that mirrors the tension of being made hyper visible and also invisible at the same time, whether that's in a courtroom or a detention center or under surveillance. So this compression of space is highlighted and I'm trying to create, um, kind of like a claustrophobic composition.
Uh, and that, that depth kind of leading to nowhere is just a metaphor for these systems of bureaucracy, these carceral systems that are, you know, that I'm trying to address. I want the paintings to hold, to hold emotional density without relying on spectacle. So I'm not trying to shock.
I'm trying to be emotionally honest. I want the paintings to be psychologically accurate. And what I mean by that is not, not just about what a space or event looks like, not about the visual accuracy of it. I'm not going for hyper realism.
I'm going for how it feels. How does dread settle in a room? How does bureaucracy flatten a human being? Psychological accuracy is about, is what makes a painting about injustices. Not necessarily depicted, but felt. And I think using color intentionally allows me to do that as well. So I'm not trying to beautify something, but rather like signal emotional truth. So using color in a way that doesn't asceticize violence, but it rather names it without exploiting it. Obviously there's, you know, and I'm sure you're aware of this and many other artists are aware of this, that there's an ethical tension in making work about suffering, especially state sanctioned suffering.
I don't take that lightly. And I fully recognize that tension and it shapes the form itself. So the scale, the pacing, the brush marks, the goal is to bear witness and to resist that apathy and that numbness and to create the conditions for the viewer to feel. I'm not asking people to feel everything at once, but to just not look away and sit with what's in front of them, if that makes sense.
Rob Lee: It does. It tracks on how you, what you were describing earlier, your feeler, your feeler. So being able to have that in your work and have sort of that for someone like me, I, I find like sometimes in conversation, this is, this gets personal.
Going back into, to therapy recently and sitting with uncertainty, sitting with these things that drive anxiety for me. I'm trying to work on that. I'm not a controlling person, at least I don't think, but then I look at up like, yeah, you're really kind of a thought of this situation in a way, which is, and just owning that and accepting that. But I say all of that for this reason, that when I capture something artistic, whether it's a film, whether it's a painting, whether it's sometimes it's even music, just, you know, an artistic expression that elicits a response out of me, one, I'm feeling something. I feel alive in that way.
I'm like, damn, that's, you know, I watched the movie recently and I just remember the movie presence and it's just a person that's gone in there, but you're seeing their, their visage in a mirror and it's like their ghost. And I wasn't expecting anyone to shock me. I don't get scared to watch a lot of horror movies.
Carter Wynne: I don't get scared. I love horror movies.
Rob Lee: We should try to do some horror movies. I didn't get scared, but I was like, this, this affected me, this sense of loss and the way it was presented. It's, it's not scary. It's not like, but it's more of the shocking thing.
And then it made me rethink and re, try to re-understand the movie and reabsorb the movie. Um, it was, it was something about that. And even in, it's a little toxic, but it was like, this, this Brent Fias song. And I was like, oh, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.
Slow talk, my G, but the sort of cinematic nature of the storytelling that was there. I'm feeling something in a way that I don't know. Like I'm just feeling things differently. So seeing when someone's presenting something like the, the painting that's behind me and this image from Zinnia Gray, just like, oh, I feel this sense of longing. I feel this sense of like trying to connect and being tethered to a person. So I'm feeling things more. And I think with the sort of disconnection that folks have, I've experienced detachment early on in my life. So I got nothing for this, but being able to feel more, I think it opens you up to think more. I'm a thinker, I guess.
Carter Wynne: Yeah. I think it's, it's just a different language to understand people is to, is to have that empathy opened and have your emotional, you know, channels like flowing. And I know that that sounds kind of corny, but it's just a different way of truth. Okay.
Rob Lee: That part got corny at the end. It's a little bit of a fun. So yeah, we're, we're, we're on the same box here. So I got one last real question.
Other ones are, I don't call them fake questions, but they're rapid fire questions and they're not really late. But so there, there is so archiving, you know, crises and justice. Connecting to like a larger narrative. It requires a critical thinking and that's sort of this depiction in the word that's really powerful depiction in the word showing those connections, showing those links. So as the artist making these connections and showing these connections, how do you decide on, you know, an issue on how, on how far to go on a particular issue?
How, how do you decide whether to, all right, I've gone a little far here. And I, and I say this for this context. I am going back to the class I taught.
This is the first year I taught it. There was a guest who was on, there was scheduled to be on a podcast. She couldn't make the podcast. I didn't know why. And then she was in my class.
I'm like, you'll do the podcast, why in the class? And then I learned that she had a personal loss, you know, preventing her. And she shared it in the class because I was talking about sort of being vulnerable in interviews. And I was talking about a guest that was just really looking at existentialism and sort of where would they be at if, you know, they, you know, or they pass, who's going to look after them later in their life? And I was just talking about the importance of being vulnerable and being authentic. And she felt inclined to share that piece. And I was just like,
Speaker 3: wow, you can have whatever you want. You can be on a podcast tomorrow. Let's do it. Let's do all of this stuff.
Rob Lee: And I try to be somewhat reserved in how deep I go on certain topics. But there have been instances where folks have talked about what goes into their work. Sometimes it's the darker things. So it's not ideation and things of that nature. And I'm like, I won't ask a person about that, but this is no perform to go as deep as they would like. So that's sort of what I'm thinking with this sort of question. Yeah.
Carter Wynne: No, I think. Truthfully, my gut impulse almost always in this, you know, I know we're speaking specifically about art, but I think the supply has to pretty much every avenue of my life is always to go as deep as I can. I think that's just how I'm wired. I want to understand, you know, every layer of a problem or emotion that I'm working with. And I've found that the deeper that I go, even when it requires me to show up vulnerably, the more resonance the work tends to have. And I think when artists, and this is just my personal opinion, when artists stay surface level, especially when it's dealing with political or social issues. Sometimes the work can feel a little bit less grounded, like the artist may have slightly less stake in what they're depicting. I personally don't want to make something that just gestures at a topic.
I want it to feel lived in. So for example, an earlier piece I did, it was called Forced to Endure. The piece explored the trauma and the stigma around invisible illnesses like endometriosis and boldedinia, which are incredibly painful and under researched conditions that affect women.
And culturally, we we heave a lot of shame onto women who speak openly about their health problems. And this painting that I did was really very raw, was very personal. And even while I was creating it, I was I was very aware of the fact that I was risking some level of stigma by putting that work into the world with my name on it. But I also was very aware of the fact that if I had pulled back or softened it, the impact wouldn't have been the same.
And so it felt as though I had no choice but to just put it out there in the way that it felt internally. That being said, I think differently when I'm painting about an issue that doesn't affect me directly. And those moments, I'm not trying to center my own story. I'm trying to hold space. And so those may be the moments where I possibly pull back a little bit. I want I want to universalize someone else's struggle in a way that feels human, but not extractive.
I want the depth to still be there, but it's just directed differently. It's more about honoring the weight of someone else's experience without co-opting it. So I wouldn't feel that I had the authority to paint maybe in depth about something that wasn't in directly impacting me. If that makes sense, it does make sense.
Rob Lee: You've made all of the sense.
Carter Wynne: So I also have a bad habit of asking if things make sense, because in my mind I'm like, I'll just pop that.
Speaker 3: And I would always type and I pulled it up and I see, you know, sort of the the image on your Instagram forced to endure. Yeah, I think it always is a it's always a risk, I think. But I think what I tend to believe and I tend to go deep as well is as long as it's truthful. And that's at the end of the day. You know, it simplifies it as long as it's truthful. The intent is truthful. It doesn't mean that, oh, like when I do these interviews, sometimes folks will hit me up and say, ah, you could have done a little bit better. I was like, well, you should have done it. Right. I don't think it's too petty, but also it's just like my intent is my intent. And the questions I'm asking, I'm curious about and how I approach it is sort of an honest attempt at that. It's there.
So that's pretty much my two cents in an area. So I got now four. And I added one because you've been such a such a great guess. I've added an extra rat and fire question for you.
So it will work for you to do more women doing unpaid labor. I don't know. So here's the, and so I'll say that the point of all of these questions is designed to help folks get to know you, the person behind the art, the person behind the duration, because it's easy to get the human element because we're always focused on what did they make? What did they create? It's kind of like icebreaker questions, but reversing some ways.
Carter Wynne: Okay. I got you. All right. So here's the first one.
Rob Lee: What is your favorite relaxing activity?
Carter Wynne: My favorite relaxing activity. It's so funny because I, well, that's like a really loud thunder that is continuously going. Sorry. A little distract there. So I want to say painting, but that feels like I can't say because we just talked about painting. So I feel like my response to that would be reading dystopian fiction. I know it's going to sound weird because like, why would that be relaxing? But for whatever reason, I love getting sucked into other worlds. It completely takes me out of any stress that I'm dealing with presently in my own life. I've recently been reading the fifth season trilogy by NK Janison. It's so good. It's about people who can like control seismic activity and rocks and stuff like that. So I would say, yeah, reading like bizarre dystopian sci-fi fiction. Okay.
Rob Lee: I have this thing where I go backwards. I try to go back into the past at times. You know, it's lost that feeling. Right. I know I was talking earlier about feeling things with certain things I've consumed, whether it be music, film, whatever. But I find that I go backwards and recently I've been watching homicide life on the street.
Basically sort of the proto wire in some ways. And interestingly enough, they filmed it near my middle school and I wasn't aware of this. It's like, oh, this is 1993.
So like, oh, right. That's what they were doing then when I was a kid. So now watching it and seeing sort of the city change over the three decades or have you and really appreciating if something about before things got sort of corrupted with the, I guess the fake news of the commercial is some of the things that are happening currently. It's just like, when you go back at just enough, you find that sweet spot when I don't know how to get this made, but they did it. And they did it. So the next one. Have you ever been starstruck? And if so, who's the person?
Carter Wynne: I don't know that I've ever been starstruck. I feel like we all have celebrity crushes, but I don't know if I've ever encountered one in the wild. Um, I, okay. Okay.
Actually, I think back. I, one of my favorite bands is this band called Peter cat recording company and they performed at songbird and union market a couple of years ago. And I was just like grabbing a drink before the show and they ended up just coming outside to like have a drink and chill. And they came over and they're like, Hey, like, what's up?
You going to the show? And I, I don't know if they didn't know that I knew who they were or if I did. Um, the lead singer named the surrogate. I was like trying to hold in my excitement. Um, I don't know if I did a good job or not, but I shared a drink with them before they went on stage and like blew my thoughts off and performed. So I think that was probably like the most starstruck moment I've had in person. I was, I was pretty deep.
Rob Lee: That's right. That's right. Um, I had, uh, I went to, I go to wrestling shows, right? I liked, I liked pro wrestling. I am a nerd in that way. And, uh, I usually travel with one of my buddies and I went to see Shinsuke Nakamura's last indie match.
And I forget who he was facing cause I didn't watch the match. I've waited in like the hallway. So I could be the first person online and get a autograph.
Carter Wynne: Oh, you're a diehard fan. You don't play.
Rob Lee: I was my favorite guy. So he comes over there and he's, um, I guess it's this person who was, it was holding up a table, but it's just like, you want to take a picture? I was like, no, no, I don't want to take a picture at all. I was so nervous. And my buddy was like, I can take the picture for you. Cause I think your phone is dead.
I was like, no, it's not dead. I'm not going to take this picture cause I'm going to black out because my guy is right here. It's a rare instance that I run into anyone. It's just like, but that was my guy. Um, cause he's one of the reasons I got back into wrestling and enjoying that and being in my, my nerddom. Okay.
Carter Wynne: So you're a bit of a Renaissance man, a wrestler, a podcaster, works in marketing. Does all these teacher, professor.
Rob Lee: Yeah, a little bit. Um, that's just old. That's all it is. Uh, so this is me tweaking the question I had initially. Okay. What is the first color that comes to mind for you? Blue. Same answer.
Carter Wynne: I know it's so on the head. It's so on the nail. I just, I've always loved blue. It's my favorite color. I've loved it since I was a kid. I think there are so many variations of blue and each one carries like a different emotional weight and I love that. You could probably say that about any color, but for whatever reason, this is the color that just sticks with me. Yeah.
Rob Lee: It gets into, um, hell, Jordan, uh, territory there a little bit. The different color. Blue used to be my favorite color, um, for a long time. And it's all Ninja Turtles related. I'm going deep nerd with you right now. Um, but yeah, definitely Leonardo with my guy in turtles and so it's like, yeah, I like the color blue because Leonardo and that's all I used to wear. And then as I got older and Morgan state, uh, there was a guy I had in my class who was represented in affiliation. He's like, you're brave. Got a lot of blue.
Speaker 3: I was like, Oh, oh, no, no, not at all. Rub it, not at all. We didn't do that.
Rob Lee: I was talking about, um, and then he became friends, which is really funny. Um, upon graduation, he's like, yo, Rob, he's crossing the stage. Yo Rob, you're my executive inwards. I was like, sure.
Speaker 3: Okay. I mean, our card and an executive in word. Uh, so here's the last one. I'm kind of bringing it back to the DC of it all. So some DC love, could you name a person, place or, or thing, um, related to DC? That you think doesn't, that you, did you don't think it's enough love? Hmm. It's like the props. So it's like giving the props, you know,
Carter Wynne: that's such a good question that doesn't get enough love. I would say. Oh, I'm going to talk about a neighborhood. Um, so I think I'm this, unfortunately, like many neighborhoods in DC year is in the process of gentrification. And, you know, I'm, I'm only 27, but I can definitely say, like, in my life, I've seen, I've seen it firsthand. My parents talk about it.
My grandparents talked about it. But one place that always comes to mind to me when I think about DC is my grandparents' home in Fort Totten. And back then it was not the neighborhood that it is now. Um, and I remember like having just the best summer days of my childhood, like playing around the house and exploring the neighborhood, but there were all of these like kind of contradictions to that. Like I remember there were like bullet holes in the garage door.
And I'd be like, let's put strings through it. Like we didn't acknowledge it or like the backyard. There were like, you know, there was stuff going on in our neighbor's yard, but we didn't care because we were just in the sun and having fun. And I think like I just have so many positive memories and feelings associated with, um, it was Kennedy street in Fort Totten. And I feel like people don't really talk about that neighborhood that much anymore because it's just getting really gentrified.
It's just very like residential and people don't give it enough love. But for me, it's just this very like sacred memory where, you know, I grew up and my grandparents lived and we, we had a lot of cookouts. And yeah, I would say that that would be my answer to that.
Rob Lee: That's great. Thank you for sharing that. Um, yeah, place is important and being able because part of this is archival in nature. And sort of, um, as time passes, and as I was saying with that show, um, homicide, just seeing like, Oh, this is what this looked like 30 years ago. Like the place where the police department is set, right? Um, it's now a really, really, really expensive hotel.
Same edifices, the same structure and everything I say in that hotel, um, because I'm bougie, uh, it was $800 a night and I was just like, I'm bugging. But seeing it when it served as a police station in this television show, I'm like, not much has changed. They are around it, seeing like what's still there from 30 years ago. And, you know, and all of that is just like, all right, I see where the justification and where the reshaping of things is at, but then also I see sort of the elements of culture that are still there that persists. Yeah.
Carter Wynne: Now it's always important to think about, to think about what, what the past, you know, carried forward and what still remains. I also thought of one other like little mini thing that's just kind of fun. I, and they still do this. Sometimes it's later in the day, but I grew up going to the drum circle and Malcolm X on Sundays. And I remember the first time I went, I was in like middle school and I was like, what is this?
Like, what's going on? And I just loved it so much to see like all of these, like you got the old heads playing the drums, you got some random white ladies spinning around and it was just, it's just such a fun DC vibe that I don't think is very, it's not a transplant thing to do to go to the drum circle. And so like from time to time, I'll like, you know, get my book and go sit out there and just kind of enjoy the nostalgia of being a kid and being at the drum circle on Sundays. So that was just another thing that I thought.
Rob Lee: Oh, yes. Thank you for sharing. That's really cool. I like that. I like those things that are off the sort of beat and pass, but it's like, the real people know. So with that, there's two things I want to do as we close out. Here. One, I would like to thank you for coming on, spending some time with me. Let me talk a year off. And two, I like to invite and encourage you to share with the listeners where they can find you, social media, website, all of that good stuff. They can check out your work and stay up to date with all things you've got going on. Yeah.
Carter Wynne: Well, I mean, first of all, thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity to come on and also, yeah, if you're a year off, but no, this has been a joy. If people want to find my work online, my website is just my name, CarterWin.com.
When is WYNNE? I know some people could then mix up. And then my Instagram is at freckled underscore blue underscore. And you can also find that on my website. But yeah.
Rob Lee: There you have it, folks. I want to again, thank CarterWin for coming on to the podcast and sharing a bit of her story with us today. And for CarterWin, I am Rob Lee, Santa Day's art, culture and community in and around your neck of the woods. You just have to look forward.