Artistic Perspective: Creating Meaningful Work with Emily Gaines Demsky | Possibility, Authenticity, Community

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Rob Lee
Welcome to the truth in this art. I am your host, Rob Lee, and my next guest makes bold, bright paintings, light filled photographs and bite sized essays about possibility, perspective, gratitude and wonder. Please welcome Emily Gaines Demsky. Welcome to the podcast.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
Thanks, Rob. Thanks for having me.

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Rob Lee
Thank you for coming on. I like some of the latter part of their possibility perspective. I had some questions about that, but I want to open it up and that that way that some people I can do the whole podcast this way and other people are like, can we get from this part to the next question? Tell me about yourself.

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Rob Lee
How do you what's the the Emily Gaines Dempsey story? How do you how do you get here? Where we where are we coming from?

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Emily Gaines Demsky
It's a better. That's a big question.

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Rob Lee
I know.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
But here's the here's what I'll tell you. So when I was 25, three things happened in quick succession in the span of a couple of months. My father died. My maternal grandmother had a massive stroke that left her paralyzed and bedridden. And I gave birth to my first child, my son, all in a span of just a couple months.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
Wow. And my whole life was turned upside down. I had been working in Arts Administration. I left my job. And let me just back up and say this. So the Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving before my father died. So this is Thanksgiving, 1998. We always ask everyone to come to the table prepared to say what they're thankful for. And most people say, like The Cranberries or My Family.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
So that year, my father was really sick and he came with this handwritten page that has become like our family's Thanksgiving prayer. We read it every year and it included the words, I am thankful for the blessings of life and love and for the lessons I am privileged to extract from my trials and tribulations. And that became like the frame for my life.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
So my father died. Fast forward a few months. My father dies. My grandmother has a stroke. I have this baby. My life is turned upside down. And I was determined to follow that example. What are the lessons that I'm privileged to extract from my trials and tribulations? So sort of tilted me in a new direction and eventually that led toward my creative work.

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Rob Lee
Wow. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Whenever there is, like, something that comes from the personal side and it's definitely something that that resonates, we we all have families who all kind of like as we're recording this, we're in November. So that's something that's also top of mind as well. And even coming out of the last few years with just being more aware of all of the stuff that goes around us and having that, I think in some instances collective reset.

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Rob Lee
I thank you for sharing it.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, no, I think it's true. And I think I think in the last few years, also, we're acutely aware of our personal and our collective trials and tribulations. Right. Like it's so present for us now that we everybody struggles every step. You never know what someone else is dealing with.

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Rob Lee
Yeah.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
Yeah.

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Rob Lee
So when it comes to, you know, early on, you know, you mentioned our administrative work being in that sort of like lane what was your first experience where like art popped for you? Like you were like, oh, there's, there's a painting that I liked or, you know, I was like, you know, coloring a little bit. What was that first experience with art for?

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Emily Gaines Demsky
You know, that's a great question. And so I do have this like image of myself at 11 in the driveway with this like this glitter. But now so my dad was a painter. He was a lawyer by day and he was a watercolor painter and a poet by night. And I think I never identified as an artist because he was an artist.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
And he made like the kind of watercolor paintings, like a still life where you can see the reflection in the copper kettle, like super realistic. And so that was art in my mind. And I didn't identify as an artist until much, much, much later. But she had this big blue art bin with all the supplies. And I had a little blue art bin, and I would sit beside him and like little sketchbooks and watercolors.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
So that was really my first. Those are my formative memories of making art besides the glitter.

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Rob Lee
That that's that's really cool. I always think back to I got this my, my grandmother used to like really so like a lot of different stuff and to the degree where she made clothing out of like old like, like adult clothing for my brother and I's teddy bears.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
That's so cool.

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Rob Lee
So I remember she took a bag that my dad had when he was younger, and she took different bits of fabric from you. He was he was he's a veteran. So different bits of fabric from maybe a duffle bag from the Marines, what have you. And made my art bag for me so all of my art materials would be in there.

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Rob Lee
So it's like taking from my dad's childhood and you know, some of his stuff growing up. So I had all of my because I wanted to be a comic book artist, all of my old color pencils and art books and Wizard, you know, Wizard magazine and all of that stuff in there. And that's that's pretty much how far I go back and thinking about it, like sketching and trying to do that stuff and having these bags at times.

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Rob Lee
If you see me in person, this is going to really resonate at times bigger than I am. So how so? Yeah, you know, just a lot to absorb.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
Because I'm a character and we carry those generations with us. Like, that's all part of our story.

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Rob Lee
Yeah. Yeah. What are. I'm always interested in learning about, like, imagination and. And creativity from creative. So what are some of the things that fuel your imagination? Because I recognize in reading over like some of the doing some of the research that, you know, there are maybe imagery that comes from and we'll talk about a little bit later, but imagery that comes from maybe experiences and things of that nature.

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Rob Lee
But in terms of the imagination and how to present it in a certain way, where does that come from?

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Emily Gaines Demsky
Yeah, I know a great question. So I do tend I paint typically I paint flowers and horizons and horizons. I call them horizons like landscapes with big sky usually. And I paint those two subjects because for me they are the ultimate symbols of hope and possibility. So the flower grows out of the little seed that's buried beneath the surface of the earth in the dark, and then pushes through that soil to grow up into the light.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
Like for me, that is that's what I aspire to write, to come out of that darkness and grow into the light and then the horizon like it's the the expanse of possibility. So for me, those are the things that fuel my creativity. And that's where my imagery comes from. And it, you know, lots of times I will paint with flowers before me and lots of times I am painting those.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
They are, you know, they are not necessarily the tulip, the sunflower, but they are flower and it is representative like that.

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Rob Lee
So when you come to the point where you're comfortable with using the term artist right then, and that's a thing because it's interesting. Like I've had people tell me, Oh, you're this, you're that. And like, I don't just do that as a microphone. It's like you're an anthropologist, you're an artist, you're doing all types of stuff here. Journalism is like, Sure, I guess.

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Rob Lee
And it's like, I'm all of that and none of that or have you an audio artist is another one of the things that are out there in my perspective is is that of an artist and I think having these sorts of conversations help kind of fuel and help impact that realization. Describe like your relationship with the term artists.

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Rob Lee
How you view yourself as an artist, things of the sort.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
That is I mean, that is it was a journey to get there. I am I don't have any degree from an art school. I don't have credentials as an artist. So it really took a lot of work to get to the point where I could call myself an artist and lots of times I'll say I'm a painter because it seems easier than saying I'm an artist even though my work goes beyond painting.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
So I submitted my work to a gallery for the first time when my kids were really little, and I remember taking this folder with a C, D to the gallery, and I remember picking my kids up from school that day and they get in the car. And I said to that like my daughter was in preschool, I think like three or four.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
And I said today I did a really big like I submitted my work to this gallery. And even if they don't want to show the work, like I feel like that was like I was successful today because I did this hard thing. I think it's hard to like claim that label without, you know, without. So I think it's easier if you have an external like stamp, like, here's my credentials, but if you don't have that, then it's about claiming it for yourself.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
And I believe that we're all artists. Like when people say, I'm not an artist or I don't have any creative abilities, I don't believe that. I believe we all have it. It's just how we express it. And so it was a lot of work to get to claiming it. But I think, you know, showing work in a gallery, selling work, receiving money in exchange for the work, it helps to give myself my own credentials, I guess.

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Rob Lee
Yeah. Yeah, I know that that's that's important because that sort of credentialing process, if you will, it is not always the most inclusive situation and it's based on folks individual tastes and so on. And you have these notions of king and queen makers, and that's fine. And there's a place for that. But also I think, you know, who's doing work, who's consistently doing work.

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Rob Lee
And, you know, I go to this this this quote or maybe it's paraphrasing, but this this piece from like Sam Jackson. And he's he's talking about like I'm an actor because I come from a family of people who are working. You know, they're always working. So I'm always working. I'm always acting. That's my job, my vocation, my calling.

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Rob Lee
So I think that desire to do it, like, you know, like for for instance, the recognition of doing a podcast as art doesn't really we're not quite there yet, but I'm working on stuff all the time. I have a process, I go about it, certain things that seem more and more like an artist, but it's not in that approved upon definition yet.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
Right? Well, and again, I would say that's an external definition. Right. And we also make we make got to make a definition. I mean, for I would say I'm guessing I'm wrong you in the work that you do and I know for me in the work that I do, it's about the way we see the world and the way we interact with the world and the way we express what we see in the world.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
And the conversation is art.

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Rob Lee
Yeah.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
Lots of times. I mean, I became an artist and a mother sort of simultaneously. Like I sort of embodied that notion of being an artist as I was becoming a mother. And there were lots of days where I wasn't making any art. But like the but dinner was the art, right? If I made the brownies were the art or the, you know, the bread that I baked or whatever.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
Like there were other ways of expressing that. And I feel like conversation is one of those.

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Rob Lee
Yeah, I think there's, there are some people who do bad conversations. It's like, what do you what are we talking about? It just goes nowhere. It's like, oh, oh, so, so from where you started and we're talking about like, you know, this this journey a little bit. You know, you touched on earlier from where you started in kind of like exploring in these sort of nascent stages of exploring art to where you're on now.

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Rob Lee
Let's let's talk about some of the the milestones in that that period or what have you, maybe in education, maybe in experiences that served as a sort of supplemental education because not everybody goes to art school, obviously. So. And also I wanted to hear about maybe if you have an exhibition or an event that, you know that you may have attended or, you know, you see, like I'm doing what I should be doing.

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Rob Lee
I like this person's work. This is informing me. This is how this is. This is serving me. Tell me about that.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
Okay. So so it's it's like super recent. The way I answer is super reason. I mean, I could tell you about others in the past, but during Joni Mitchell exhibit at the BMA this summer, you see it.

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Rob Lee
I missed it. I was so busy.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
Okay. So I went grab I'm not kidding you. I went every single week for like the first four months. Like I just felt like I was bathing in her paintings. Yeah. They to me feel like an expression. Is she painted? She painted a lot of flower. There's a lot of flower imagery. Sunflower imagery. But it's very, very, very abstracted.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
And it felt to me, just like this expression of flowers or this expression of what I was, what I am always trying to express in this most fundamental and organic way. I just, I, I loved that exhibit. That was a really good one.

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Rob Lee
That's wonderful. That that is wonderful. I think when we encounter something that it just informs us. It's just like, you know, if I were to go to see it in terms of my my lane or the thing that I'm pursuing it, I go back to when I had a conversation with La Fontaine, Oliver or even Aaron Hankin or even Sam says, I've got to put my light on or any of the folks that are in the sort of like radio space and the sort of that storytelling space.

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Rob Lee
It's like, wow. Oh, you know, they may have found that question impressive. Or, you know, listening to them talk about it, it's like, Oh, there is a path that this makes sense for me. I don't feel like I'm faking it. I feel like I'm an outsider and things of that nature and sometimes kind of getting that, it just gives you that newfound confidence, I guess.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
I agree. And I think also seeing how other people express themselves expands. For me, my idea of how I can express myself not to say that I want to do what she does or do what she does. But I see. Oh, this is something I've never seen before, right? She's doing her thing the same way I'm doing my thing.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
And and it it's kind of empowering in a way to remember like this is my journey and there are so many other journeys and my mind's before me.

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Rob Lee
Yeah, I'll make a ridiculous reference here because I'm filled with ridiculous references. One of the shows that I got really into was the show Hannibal, and I just remember Will Graham's character just kind of like, you know, framing out what a particular crime scene might look like. And he'll say, This is my design, and that's where I find myself doing all the time.

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Rob Lee
And it for me connects like this is my process, this is how I'm going about it. And I don't know as being able to hold my own in a conversation with people who are doing wildly creative things, some sometimes of which I have no idea what they're saying. It's like, Yeah, yeah, go on, tell me more. It's just like, Wow, this is this is great.

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Rob Lee
I think just being around it, being in the company of creatives, that it's going to pull something out of you.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, Rob, one of the things I love about what you do is that you do it your way, like you record however many you record, you put I think you have as many conversations you have like, you know, lots of people are recording or putting out once a week or twice a week or whatever.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
It's like you're doing it your way. That's the idea. I have to remind myself all the time. The idea is for me to do it my way, not anybody else's way. All those other ways already been done right. This is my way.

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Rob Lee
It makes that, you know, that uniquely sort of Emily approach. It makes it that much more obvious. Like this is the way I'm doing it. Yes.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
Yes, yes.

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Rob Lee
So I read you describe your work as reminders to speak more about the meaning behind that sort of description.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
Yeah. So I feel like the world, the way I see it, the world is reminding us all of the time that it is hard and scary and dark and very much a not the sort of vision of the world as I wish it were. The headlines, the news, the social media posts like there is just so much hard in our lives, in our communities and our friends, in our in our city, in our country beyond.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
And for me, my, my paintings, my writing, all of my work, I hope, reminds us that there is brightness, there is beauty, there is goodness. Even when it seems so dark, we can go through that soil to find the points of light, that the points of light are there and and we can set our gaze to those. So that's what so that's what I mean when I say reminders, just expand on it and say one other from which is that I believe we get what we, what we honor, you know, what we and that we have so much like you know, our our movie is our television series art like so much like death and

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Emily Gaines Demsky
destruction and violence. And I get that there's a hero story in that also. But I think that if we want more goodness, we have to elevate more goodness that we can do that, that that's in our power. And so that's really part of my part of my message. And that's what I mean by reminders.

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Rob Lee
I dig down and dig that it's three instances that come to mind recently that I have a friend who is a podcaster as well, and I do. I'm a strategist. I have that sort of approach to how I go about things, and I'm on a call with him and his team and, you know, they're like, Why do you want to help him?

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Rob Lee
It's because he's my friend and it's the thing I want to do. And just it was just natural. It wasn't my immediate impulse in many instances. How can I help? How can I make this process easier for somebody? And sometimes some of the weirdest responses of like pushback or Nabarro or what have you. And it's like, I'm just earnestly helping.

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Rob Lee
That's just a thing that I'm interested in doing because I always have three or four or five different ways to go about something. And it's like, here's something from the tool kit and I remember speaking with someone relatively high, a person in this sort of media space and we had, you know, moved a meeting a couple of times, get a few things that present themselves and just had to reschedule.

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Rob Lee
And when we got connected, we actually, you know, got together on the call. He was just like, Yeah, so, you know, I wanted to get an idea, you know, would you want to talk about? And I was like, you know, I dig what you're doing and I wanted to chat with you and maybe want to hear from you kind of in a sort of mentor capacity or have you.

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Rob Lee
And he's like, wow, it's like people don't do that anymore. And it just, you know, he was like, I don't give out my number here. Please take my number. Let's stay in touch. And we talked, you know, for a guy that's very busy in this sort of president role that he's in, in this organization, he gave me like 30 minutes of his time, you know, and and I recognize in doing this during these these series of podcasts and then the rate in which I'm doing it, people like time is a commodity that we don't have a lot of.

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Rob Lee
And I try to be as mindful of folks as time and understanding. It's not always reciprocated in that way, but more often than not it is in communication. Right. And we kind of it you were touching on a little bit, I think with the social media component. I'm want to hide your message and I don't want to see this message.

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Rob Lee
It's like communicate, talk to a person, have this sort of connection. And the last thing I'll say in this regard is it's kind of one of the things I would talk to people about and say, oh, are you trying to scale this? What are you what are you trying to do with this? I'll say I'm here to make friends, but as literally what it is.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
Yeah, well, and I mean, I love that. But I also think from my perspective, you're building community, like you're creating community. But I got to. Can I go back to one other thing you were saying? I had a professor in college my freshman year. I took introduction to theater and the professor used to talk about how he ran a small I guess in his previous life.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
He had run a small community theater outside of Minneapolis. So in Minneapolis there's the Guthrie Theater. It's a huge regional theater, well-respected, well-known. And he said people used to say to him, But you have this competition, like, why are you know, how does that work? You have this competition. And he said, good theater begets good theater. It's a great good podcasting begets good podcasting.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
Good artwork begets good art. Like we the more we elevate it, the more we create a space for it.

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Rob Lee
Yeah. Yeah. And so that kind of brings me to because I think I was I was circling around it a little bit. Let's talk about what is a flight deck? Yeah.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
Okay. So the flight deck is my creation. It's 28 cards, deck of cards, one on one side, there's artwork. It's fragments of my paintings. And on the other side, there are actions, really simple actions, questions and affirmations that you can say to yourself or out loud. They're all designed to help you. Help may help anyone when we're feeling stuck, whether it's like cranky, bad mood can't get motivated.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
Like you just notice you're in a headspace that you can't shake yourself out of. So it's simple things like Sit down. If you're standing up and stand up for sitting down, open the window, go outside. You know what's the good? Tell me the good news. There's always some good news. Tell me some good news. So, you know, really simple things that can be used either one a day for 28 days or shuffle the deck and pull a card or tape one to your bathroom mirror or like put one of the note you send to a friend.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
I created this because that was my own practice. Like, that's what I would do when I was feeling stuck. These are my my big tools for myself. And I created it in the fall of 2019 when stuck was an idea, right? Like, yeah, like what does it mean to be stuck? And it resonated and like sold out the first printing sold out the second printing.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
And then fast forward to March of 2020 and all of a sudden everybody is nonstop. Yeah. And it really like helped me and helped a lot of people through that time, just sort of remembering that we are we may be all stock, but the tagline for the flight deck is Shift your perspective, shift your life. And you know, it helps you do that.

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Rob Lee
So that's great as I dig that and I may have added a couple of rapid fire questions as a result of that. Just so you know. And so this this is not necessarily in the same vein, but I think it's worth asking is shifting perspectives. Right. Have have you ahead of time to maybe experiment experiment with other art practices, other mediums, things of that nature?

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Rob Lee
And was that and taking that shift, was that something that maybe improved, maybe the painting, maybe the photography, maybe the writing? Let's talk about that a little bit.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
Yeah, good question. So, yes, in lots of different times and lots of different ways, some by choice, right? Like I had a period of time where I was experimenting with encaustic monotype making and it was great in that moment and I loved doing it. And I ultimately realized like, this is not my path forward. It was, but it informed what I did either.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
You know, when the pandemic started, I moved all of my working to the dining room table in my house. So I went from like making big paintings on wood panel to making small paintings in watercolor at my dining room table. And I feel like we always learn something like any limitation we give ourselves creates new opportunities and new pathways.

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Emily Gaines Demsky
So I did a whole series once where I painted only with my non-dominant hand lots of thing, you know, I like to I like to experiment.

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Rob Lee
It's almost as if you have the questions in front of you, because this next this absolutely goes to this next question I have about limitations. Is that because I kind of read about that, where, you know, the Dr. Seuss story of going to use 50 words in this in this book and it's what Green eggs, a ham or cat in the hat?

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Rob Lee
I'm not quite sure if it was a bet, or sometimes I'd like to add in goofy things of how quasi I purposely forget maybe a card or forget my my primary recording device of recording out of studio. And I'm like, how am I going to MacGyver this one? So my problem solving, part of my mind kind of kicks in and then it opens up new questions and like, Damn, what?

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Rob Lee
How did they do that? You know, how do you do that? And now it gets into a deeper, richer sort of conversation with the guest. What sort of limitations? And you touched on a few like, you know, painting with your non-dominant hand and such, but what sorts of limitations do you do you put in like, you know, do you often find yourself kind of going back to like, yeah, when I want to work in this color or only want to do things of this size or this scale.

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Rob Lee
Tell me about that.

00;26;11;03 - 00;26;39;00
Emily Gaines Demsky
So I do like I have given myself limitations of these are the colors or this everything's going to be in this size for a period of time. But the thing I've done that's been the most unlocking for me has been time defined projects. So I've done a number of like for 30 days, I'm going to do this. So I've done that a few times.

00;26;39;00 - 00;27;07;17
Emily Gaines Demsky
That was hugely transformative. I've done six times. I've done the 100 day project where for 100 days in a row I do something and like transformative on so many levels. But I would say the fact that you have to then push through the monotony of it, like you're like move through the muck to get to the other side where the treasure is kind of back for me has been huge.

00;27;08;10 - 00;27;29;27
Rob Lee
Yeah, it's I always think of the variety pack of oatmeal scenario. No one's taking every flavor in that pack. Well, all ignoring the reason blame the weight loss that is apple, cinnamon and brown sugar, you know, all the time. And that's the way I look at the colors or the different choices that we might have, like I've tried to curtail how I go about this, this podcast.

00;27;30;23 - 00;28;08;21
Rob Lee
You know, there is very rare that I do an hour long interview in the purposes not to do the interview that ends all the interviews. You know, it's an interview to kind of get the guests at a moment in time where something may be going on, something's new. And potentially we go back and talk again when there's another big thing that's happening or another thing that's small or another thing which is interesting and, you know, I think once I came to that realization because, you know, as you probably heard, have been doing podcasting for a very long time and not having those sort of bumpers around me and be able to just really do it

00;28;08;21 - 00;28;27;26
Rob Lee
my way. But I think redefining what my way might look like and limitations are baked in there and sometimes even going to it. I don't even write questions sometimes in and I remember at a point it would be guests who say, Oh, I don't read the questions anyway, send them away. They're not going to read them. And to say, Oh, okay, cool.

00;28;28;16 - 00;28;40;14
Rob Lee
And I'm like, Oh, so we're just going to free jazz it and improvise and see what we get. And you know, those interviews, I can tell and not everyone listening can, but I can tell. I was like, Yeah, I'm prepared, but I didn't write it.

00;28;40;14 - 00;28;42;12
Emily Gaines Demsky
Of course, you know.

00;28;42;13 - 00;29;04;14
Rob Lee
No, no, we're we're good. We're good here. We're good here. And, you know, I can I can recognize that those those instances when when questions are kind of like written out in even at times when I feel like the the answers to those questions were a little bit more rehearsed than authentic and kind of just like out there, it's like this is off the cuff.

00;29;04;24 - 00;29;23;24
Rob Lee
This is all contrived. We know that. But, you know, I think when a person may get a question in a different way, I was I was on a panel. I was moderating a panel the other day, and we had all the questions. They were all kind of scripted out. And there was a panel with actors. And I threw in one curveball that none of them had.

00;29;23;24 - 00;29;45;04
Rob Lee
They were like, Oh, yeah, actually, I do have something to say about that. And that was the point of the moderation that it turned, because I really don't do moderation and I was I don't know if how good I am at something that's something I'm developing in. But once I was able to rest on what I do and kind of work within the parameters of what I have, I was able to show my true self and what my skill is.

00;29;46;04 - 00;30;12;04
Emily Gaines Demsky
Yeah, I had a painting mentor who said painting is letting things happen. I definitely tend toward like, I'm going to control this and you know, but I mean, I practically like say it to myself while I'm painting, like I am letting things happen rather than making things happen. Like I can make things happen all day, but just letting things happen is the for me, the arts in there.

00;30;12;04 - 00;30;12;25
Rob Lee
Are you a doodler?

00;30;14;07 - 00;30;38;27
Emily Gaines Demsky
I went two are I am a I'm a writer. I write a lot and with us I use a fountain pen and a notebook and I write and script. It's very, very messy. That's really just like dumping things out of my head. So you can't really go back and read what it says. That's kind of my doodle. And then I do, I'll like sort of like rough sketch things sometimes.

00;30;38;27 - 00;30;41;21
Emily Gaines Demsky
Like if I'm, you know, bored in a meeting or something.

00;30;42;21 - 00;30;59;02
Rob Lee
I find myself drawing either faces or like, like, like I guess that's visuals. I think of a Game of Thrones, like, you know, emblems or what have you. I find myself drawing something that's reminiscent of that so bored in a meetings thing. And then I look at it later. Yeah.

00;30;59;12 - 00;31;07;00
Emily Gaines Demsky
Always flowers for me. It's always flowers. Like it's either those like loopy words, loopy scribble, or it's flowers.

00;31;07;16 - 00;31;24;27
Rob Lee
So here's the last real question that I got for you, and I got some rapid fire questions after this. So pursuing art and I've really been in this book about called Death of an Artist. So if you haven't read it, I'd recommend checking it out. Pursuing art isn't easy with with big business and kind of getting in the way.

00;31;24;27 - 00;31;50;23
Rob Lee
The expectations of current constantly, consistently pushing out content versus actually making art. There is a difference. Obviously. You know, there's a timeliness, there's a meaningfulness, there's work that goes into it. And, you know, not to say that content isn't that the content are two different things. And it's hard for an artist, you know, how can artists be successful with those as this in the background all the time?

00;31;50;23 - 00;32;02;27
Rob Lee
Those two main pieces in the background all the time. This push to always be putting stuff out there and, you know, billionaires saying this is what art is and this is how your art's going to get seen on social media.

00;32;02;27 - 00;32;29;20
Emily Gaines Demsky
Great question. And if I had the answer, I'd be rich. I you know, there is so much noise. There's so much noise. And I have to block it out for myself. Like I have to go off social media, stay away from that, you know, go on sometimes, but not go on other times and really like operate from the place of what do I what do I have to say?

00;32;29;27 - 00;33;09;21
Emily Gaines Demsky
Like, what am I trying to express? What is the reason that I am sitting here with this pain or this pen or this camera? Like, what is my expression here? And I have had to really divorce my expression from the reception my expression receives. Right? Like commercial success. I don't know how to answer that question in terms like, you know, but for me, the success as an artist is to authentically produce something that is meaningful and then to put it before other people so that they can respond to it.

00;33;10;07 - 00;33;33;28
Emily Gaines Demsky
And sometimes for me, that second part is the harder part than the producing, right? It's the like that vulnerability of I now put it before you and you're going to have a judgment about it, but like divorcing it from the way it's received and just letting it be the offering for me, that's where the like that's where the inner success lies.

00;33;34;11 - 00;33;51;06
Rob Lee
Yeah, yeah, well said, well said. And, and I think what happens is follow that noise that's out there. Any other things that make a part of it that I don't know if the bad actors is what I wanted is either that's but let's just for brevity say let's just call it bad actors that's going to get washed away.

00;33;51;07 - 00;34;07;20
Rob Lee
Authentic authenticity always kind of like prevails at the end of the day. And when you see and you're like, Oh no, that person is really making good stuff and saying, Show me, show you work. How do you do this? What's your process again? Oh, you're just the face. That's that's arts that art's behind or what have you.

00;34;07;20 - 00;34;31;04
Emily Gaines Demsky
Well, I think another thing I have, I remind myself of often is that no art is going to appeal to every person. Right? Like somebody hopefully will respond to what you put out, what I put out, what he puts out, what she puts out, that it impact. If it impacts one person, that's success if it you know, if it's a ripple in a pond and then that person impacts another person, that's success.

00;34;31;04 - 00;34;42;29
Emily Gaines Demsky
So for me, it's also remembering that it's not about the number of likes or the, you know, the number of red dots in the gallery show. It's about having my work be in relationship with people.

00;34;43;24 - 00;34;49;00
Rob Lee
I love that. And it is. I think that's a good spot for us to start because we keyed in on reminders again. I like that.

00;34;49;13 - 00;34;50;05
Emily Gaines Demsky
Yeah.

00;34;50;05 - 00;35;06;27
Rob Lee
So with that I want to move into some rapid fire questions. I have as many rapid fire questions now as my real question, so thank you. I'm ready for it. So brevity is key here, as you know. And so I want to start off with what is your favorite flower know?

00;35;08;13 - 00;35;10;04
Emily Gaines Demsky
Well, Baitullah.

00;35;10;04 - 00;35;33;17
Rob Lee
All right. Or are you driven more by curiosity, passion, frustration or something else when it comes to your work? Curiosity, what is your favorite time to work? It can be your time of the year, time of the day. Springtime makes sense. Everything is in bloom right? Aside from money, because money is too obvious. What would you say? Three things.

00;35;33;17 - 00;35;34;29
Rob Lee
That that an artist needs.

00;35;36;14 - 00;35;45;29
Emily Gaines Demsky
Time, space and confidence.

00;35;46;20 - 00;36;05;07
Rob Lee
And time. Space and confidence. What is the most powerful word? Because you can't forget the the writing component of your book. Your practice was the most powerful word at your disposal. It could be English, it could be another language. If you speak another language was the most powerful word at your disposal. Love can be some good news.

00;36;06;18 - 00;36;17;00
Emily Gaines Demsky
You if I use some good news. Tomorrow is election day and we have the chance to vote for the world we want to live in.

00;36;17;26 - 00;36;20;25
Rob Lee
Lesley, what was the card that you bought today?

00;36;21;15 - 00;36;27;18
Emily Gaines Demsky
Oh, open the window. That's fine to go. Close it right before we started.

00;36;29;06 - 00;36;45;04
Rob Lee
That's great. That's great. And I want to thank you for for being on this podcast. Gratitude. Gratitude for being on this podcast. And I want to invite and encourage you to tell the listeners where to find you and where to check out your website, your social media, all that good stuff. The floor is yours.

00;36;45;16 - 00;36;57;00
Emily Gaines Demsky
Thank you so much. And thank you for having me. Wonderful talking with you. I have a website. Emily Gaines, Dexcom, and on Instagram, you can find me at shining egg.

00;36;57;13 - 00;37;18;14
Rob Lee
And there you have it, folks. I want to again thank Emily Gaines PINSKY for coming onto the podcast and shopping it out with me. It's great to learn more about her work. And for Emily, I am broadly saying that there's art in and around your neck of the woods. You just have to look for it.