I want to prime you with a question asked by today’s guest during our conversation: “What does it mean for you to be fully expressed as a human being in whatever shape that takes?” So much of our life and work is spent in opposition to what we actually want, and yet the possibilities are truly endless. Sarah Bush is a mixed media artist who explores “the relationship between materials and ideas” with fiber, metal, handmade books, and the written word. In our conversation, we dive deep into imagination, the creative process, and the importance of struggle in our work. We also talk about healing through our work, making work that is true versus good, how risk changes as we get older, the role of mystery in her work, the threads that weave through it all, how to commit to your vision, and Sarah’s obsession with scale. Show Links Sarah Bush ArtworksWhat’s Wrong with Hard? – The Pink TeacupPaul SimonDavid ByrneRobert PlantDevin TownsendA World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness by Michael Pollan Transcript Chris Martin: It’s always fun when you meet people for the first time and they just put you in a place of not ease, but just calm and peace and excitement for the conversation. And I think you just bring an energy to the Zoom room of just that. So welcome to the show. Sarah Bush: Thank you so much. I’m so happy to be here. CM: Awesome. Well, I love asking this question of everyone I talk with, and it’s, what are you endlessly curious about? SB: Well, one of the reasons that I make art is that it feeds my endless curiosity. And it’s one of the places in the world where I can’t be bored. And also partly because I set the terms. So that really interests me. The creative process and how it works, I find that really interesting, and I do find exploring how to use my imagination as almost like a spiritual practice, a lifelong endeavor. And so all the things I love to do most, make art, garden, spiritual work, it’s all, to me, those will keep me busy till I’m dead. CM: What a great way to describe it, ’cause I feel like we look at work as this thing that we do drudgingly until we die, as opposed to how you just phrased it as like, “This is gonna keep me busy until I’m dead.” And there’s almost a freedom to that, as opposed to the drudgery nature of how we often look at it. SB: That’s right, and I think that’s like owning your work. And understandably, a lot of people can’t own their work, when it’s externally imposed upon you it can feel a lot like drudgery. But then I think we can also treat anything really challenging as drudgery. And one of my other big mantras is—I wrote a blog post called What’s Wrong with Hard?—and it’s one of my more popularly read ones. I’m glad it’s popular because I think we live in a culture obsessed with natural talent and things that come easily, and when something doesn’t, people think, “Oh, that’s not my thing.” And I think, oh, how strange. That anything worth doing is usually hard, and that if you’re just okay with it being hard, then it kinda opens up a lot. CM: It’s so interesting that you said that too, because one of the areas that I have a lot of conversation around is friction, and that needed component of work that, yes, it is hard, it is challenging. That’s how you develop the abilities, the skills to continually do your work. And yet I think we do live in a society that wants things to make it easier for us, for whatever reason. I don’t know why. SB: I know. I think some of it is because we have this thing about natural talent and natural abilities that other cultures actually don’t have so strongly. And I also think what’s so interesting about that is that those aspects of our work, like the things that we do find hard, they’re almost like a spiritual practice too. I think basically what’s hard for me is that I’m facing the thing in myself, like my anxiety, I don’t know how to do this. What I’m bumping up against is often internal about the process that I find where all the friction is really, and that, like I always thought as an artist, I try to, when I’m talking to other artists about pricing, like I was a designer for a long time, and we all had to pr- I kind of enjoy it, but it took, you’re really bumping up against your feelings of self-worth. All those issues come up, and so it’s like an opportunity really to heal that stuff, through your work, through this thing you’re giving your time to, and treating it like this little lens onto what’s going on inside. CM: That’s interesting. What was that process to go from the world of design and wrestling against the self-worth and charging and pricing to then that point of expansion to where you enter the world of art and you’re like, “Okay, this is what I’m doing now,” and it sounds like there’s a lot of freedom that showed up for you. SB: Yes and no. I also think design, it tends to be more concrete. You ...
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Jul 2 202611 min
56 min