THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Jeffrey Madoff: One of the things that messes people up is that they don’t set deadlines for themselves. So, you know, in my production company and making all the films that I made and the commercials and all that kind of stuff, people say, what if you had writer’s block? Same thing with my play. What do you do? And I said, I think of the deadline. You know, I have to get this done. I have a responsibility to get this done.
Speaker 2: It’s the Inspiration Place podcast with artist Miriam Schulman. Welcome to the Inspiration Place Podcast, an art world insider podcast for artists by an artist where each week we go behind the scenes to uncover the perspiration and inspiration behind the art. And now your host, Miriam Schulman.
Miriam Schulman: All right, we’re ready to get started. With me today is Jeffrey Madoff. Jeffrey is the author of Creative Careers. He’s also co-host of a podcast with Dan Sullivan. Did I get that right?
Jeffrey Madoff: Yes. It’s called Anything and Everything.
Miriam Schulman: Anything and everything. And do you have your own podcast? Creative careers? You have two things?
Jeffrey Madoff: No, no, I do not.
Miriam Schulman: Just the one. Okay. And you have a play that is being produced in London. And has it been cast?
Jeffrey Madoff: Yes.
Miriam Schulman: Excellent. Congratulations. All right, so I invite—And Jeff has done many other things as well. And he’s also a second time on the podcast, which is really the main credentials that he was on my podcast already. So what I invited Jeffrey to do today, and we’ve had absolutely zero prep on this. So this is like he has no idea what I’m about to throw at him. So I’ve been collecting what I call weird art news articles for us to discuss and make jokes about and do all the things. And if our jokes don’t work, that will be cut out of the podcast.
Jeffrey Madoff: So the podcast will end after I say I’m somewhere between 20 and 117 blocks away from you.
Miriam Schulman: And it’ll be a bunch of b-b-b-bums, you know, like the little the drum set.
Jeffrey Madoff: Rimshot, yes.
Miriam Schulman: Drumkit. Okay. You ready?
Jeffrey Madoff: Kind of impossible to be ready, right? I mean you just show up.
Miriam Schulman: Right, exactly. Okay. What do you think of this? This artist here. So it’s an Australian artist. Lindy Lee was given $10 million, and that’s Australian dollars, but US dollars, that’s 6.7 million USD worth of pure gold to make a sculpture. And this is supposed to, uh, give attention to using real gold for making art. I have some thoughts about this. I want to hear your thoughts first.
Jeffrey Madoff: Well, first of all, it made me think of your earphones.
Miriam Schulman: Okay.
Jeffrey Madoff: What was the purpose of it again?
Miriam Schulman: This is the part that I get kind of annoyed. So, she called the sculpture Abundance. Remember, this is $10 million worth of gold. And the purpose is they wanted to give more emerging and established Australian artists the opportunity to work in Australian gold and silver. So—alright, I’m just going to not bury the lead—my problem with this is, why give one artist—I mean, this is going to sound like socialism—but why give one artist $10 million worth of gold? If they want to give more artists the opportunity to work with gold and silver, why not give ten artists $1 million, or 100 artists less gold to work with? I’m just a little bit confused about how this is going to get their mission across. I don’t know, do you disagree with me? What do you think?
Jeffrey Madoff: You know, it’s actually—it’s like, uh, I forget the author’s name, but the one who won the Academy Award for American Fiction this past year, which I thought was one of the absolute best movies of 2023. And he said, for what it cost to make one of these Marvel superhero movies, you could do ten movies like mine. So, why don’t we fund independent filmmakers so that more people have a chance to create the art and get it out there? It kind of reminds me of that. And your thinking is the same as mine—why give so much to one? And is that what they said, just that it was all going to one artist? Is that what it said in the article?
Miriam Schulman: Yes but like, I don’t necessarily, in and of itself, have a problem with one person using $10 million worth of gold. Well, maybe I do have a problem. I’m not really sure. But they said the reason—the reason was because they wanted to give more emerging and established artists the opportunity to work with Australian gold and silver. So, it seems like that is not helping their purpose.
Jeffrey Madoff: Maybe they want to give one more artist the opportunity.
Miriam Schulman: I don’t know, I’m looking to see if there’s something else that I missed. Yeah. The public will first see Abundance when it forms part of the exhibition, Lindy Lee, um, October 25th through June in 2025. So, that is next year.
Jeffrey Madoff: Which isn’t so far away. We’re in the ninth month already.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah, but it’s—so, it’s a year from now. Okay. And it says, promptly attracted criticisms for spending such a large amount on just one work. So, the critics agree with us, by the way. Alright, there.
Jeffrey Madoff: And by the way, I think that you’re right. If somebody wants to put $10 million worth of gold into a project, and that’s their art, so be it. But if your mission is to give more people the chance to do something…
Miriam Schulman: Then it doesn’t—It sounds like it’s counterintuitive to what your mission is.
Jeffrey Madoff: Well, actually, not counterintuitive. It’s opposing.
Miriam Schulman: Counterproductive, yeah.
Jeffrey Madoff: A contradiction to what your mission is.
Miriam Schulman: Yes.
Jeffrey Madoff: Weird intent.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. Sticking with the theme of money turned into artwork, there is an exhibit called Money Talks. It’s in the London Museum in Oxford until January 5th, 2025. And there’s this dress. Can you see that?
Jeffrey Madoff: Yes.
Miriam Schulman: The dress is made—oh, by the way, listeners, we will put a picture of the dress and the gold sculpture in the show notes. I don’t remember what number this is, but it will be in the show notes. So, just wherever you’re listening, click over to the show notes. So, it’s a Victorian-looking dress, and it is made out of paper money. Now, that I don’t have a problem with.
Jeffrey Madoff: No, I think, you know, in a way, it says a great deal about fashion, right?
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. And for listeners who maybe don’t have the same idea in their heads that I think we both do, why don’t you explain that? What do you think it says about fashion?
Jeffrey Madoff: Well, it costs money. And your money, through some alchemy, turns into a dress. Fabrics are bought and all of that. Well, here, now you just take the money and make the clothes out of it, and you skip the middle step.
Miriam Schulman: And by the way, it’s probably cheaper to make a dress out of money than it is to source all the proper materials.
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah, I mean, depending, of course, on the denomination, right?
Miriam Schulman: It’s actually a cool-looking dress, you know? I think it’s kind of cool.
Jeffrey Madoff: I’ve seen—by the way, my wife made a dress out of candy wrappers, and she made an apron out of candy wrappers, and it was really quite cool. And in and of itself, paper fashion has a history, which is kind of interesting. But it’s more of a statement when you’re actually using paper money to make that garment, you know? Because I think it’s saying more about the fashion industry, which is kind of interesting now.
Miriam Schulman: Is she in the fashion industry?
Jeffrey Madoff: She was—my wife was a model.
Miriam Schulman: Oh, okay. That’s very cool. I mean, I know they had an exhibit at the Museum of Design—is that the museum where they had, like, paper dresses? Like, that was a thing in the 60s too, like…
Jeffrey Madoff: Oh, yeah.
Miriam Schulman: Kind of like paper napkins. They had paper dresses.
Jeffrey Madoff: And there’s also, by the way, paper hats that are sold every summer. It’s almost like straw hats, but they’re literally woven of paper.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, so when we come back, we’ll be talking about none other than the Mona Lisa. But first, I wanted you to hear from one of my newest Artist Incubator members, because people are always wondering if they’re too old to do this. And I love her spirit and what she has to say. Okay, I have one more money story. So, this is about the Mona Lisa. Have you been to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa? Or tried to see the Mona Lisa?
Jeffrey Madoff: I have, and I did. And it was funny because I saw the classic caricature of an American tourist family, where the quite overweight father-husband, with kids who couldn’t care less, and their wife trying to get them to appreciate the art. The husband said—this is a true story, by the way—he said, “Alright, we’ve seen the Mona Lisa, now let’s get out of here.”
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. And meanwhile, if you’re a true art lover, the funny thing about the Mona Lisa is, it’s not the only artwork in that room. There’s a whole bunch of other masterpieces, which are arguably more important—with air quotes. More important, because everything is subjective. But you can go have a nice, quiet, private viewing of those because everyone else is gathered around the Mona Lisa. It’s like a decoy. Right? You know, it’s like Mickey Mouse. Okay, so what this article is about is that they’ve been talking about moving the Mona Lisa and building a separate room for it, and it will cost €500 million to build that room.
Jeffrey Madoff: Wow.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. So, this is actually an opinion piece by Ben Luke in The Art Magazine, and he says they should just write it off. Not write off the €500 million, but like, stop spending money on making the Mona Lisa a better experience for people. It’s just not worth investing anything in, is what he was saying.
Jeffrey Madoff: You know what I found amazing about the Mona Lisa—or surprising, I should say—is that we’ve all seen pictures of it, but I didn’t realize how small it was. Wasn’t that a surprise when you first saw it? How small the Mona Lisa is?
Miriam Schulman: I mean, you can’t even really see it. There are so many people gathered around it, and it’s behind this little glass box so people can’t throw paint on it or shoot a bullet through it or whatever. So, it’s really hard to see it.
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah. And wasn’t it trashed not too long ago? Somebody tried to throw paint or tomato sauce or something on it?
Miriam Schulman: Well, that’s always happening now. Like the environmental activists with their tomato soup. But I think the glass box was there way before that happened. When I went to see it—um, I think it was on my honeymoon, which was…
Jeffrey Madoff: 30 years ago?
Miriam Schulman: Yes! So, that was a long time ago, and it was already behind a glass box.
Jeffrey Madoff: But yeah, talk about excess spending—€500 million on a separate room for the Mona Lisa seems absolutely ridiculous. Why don’t they acquire other art or do other things that enhance the museum, rather than that?
Miriam Schulman: We’re totally going to be accused of being socialists after this episode airs. I don’t care, by the way. But yeah, you know, between our opinions on the gold piece and this piece, we might. But this is what they’re saying in the article: First of all, it was never meant to be a public viewing painting. Da Vinci’s intention was that he made this painting for the husband of the sitter—as a private piece of art. It wasn’t meant to be a public piece of art.
Jeffrey Madoff: Well, has it even… Well, first of all, most art was originally commissioned by the church and royalty, where they had to create idealized versions of what people looked like, you know, in portraiture. To argue that art was meant for just a few eyes only… The idea of a museum or a gallery is to gather works for others to see. And by the way, I’ve heard—I don’t know if it’s true—that the Mona Lisa was a prostitute that Da Vinci had been with. The identity of who she was is still a mystery, I think.
Miriam Schulman: I think you’re right. In this article, it seems to have some knowledge—or pretends to have some knowledge—about who she was. The chief curator of 16th-century Italian paintings pointed out that Leonardo wanted to establish a face-to-face relationship between the painting and the person contemplating it. And they also say it was done for the sitter’s husband. But I don’t know where the research stands on that. The article seems to think it knows.
Jeffrey Madoff: So, does that mean the painting should remain hidden after the person is dead? I mean, I’m sure they’re dead by now, right?
Miriam Schulman: Yeah, I think you’re right about that.
Jeffrey Madoff: Or they’re, like, 527 years old or something.
Miriam Schulman: [laughs] Yeah, unless they have the Sorcerer’s Stone or something from Harry Potter. But yeah, this guy’s opinion was that the money should be spent not just on enhancing one painting’s experience. I like your idea of investing in more art, but the Louvre—well, they do invest in new acquisitions. However, they could focus more on drawing visitors’ attention to other masterpieces rather than spending so much on enhancing the experience of the one painting everyone knows about.
Jeffrey Madoff: Right.
Miriam Schulman: Educate the public about these other artworks.
Jeffrey Madoff: That’s the important point you’re making. What is the purpose of a museum? What is the purpose of an art gallery? Museums often presuppose a certain age, but then you have places like the Museum of Modern Art, which has contemporary pieces too. It’s interesting because it speaks more to our culture. In our culture, art isn’t as deeply appreciated, but people are fascinated by how much a painting sells for. The origin of the art, the inspiration behind it, the story behind the painting… in most cases, people don’t know. You know, as you were saying, people know what they’re supposed to like.
That family I saw—”We’ve seen the Mona Lisa, can we get out of here now?”—they didn’t really have an appreciation for it.
Miriam Schulman: It’s also like your earlier comment about making ten really high-quality movies versus one Marvel movie. It’s like the fast food of art and culture.
Jeffrey Madoff: Well, what what it is is that art, especially in our culture. But art is so I’m you know, my play is happening in, in London. It’s really interesting in London, of course, because of a guy named William Shakespeare. I’m sure that your listeners have heard about there is a culture for theater. Yeah, that translates into tax rebates for the production, for investment incentives. So more theater can be made because there is the embedded cultural belief that theater is important. So we only know sort of the headliners, and people are always looking to de-risk whatever it is they do. So if this movie was really successful, they’ll make ten more movies like that movie that was really successful. And I think that we’re talking about a business enterprise. And of course, there’s nothing the matter with movie companies wanting to make a profit and thinking they’ll make a profit on superhero movies, and they will make those until the audience is exhausted, which actually seems to be the point we’re at now, because other than Wolverine and, uh oh God, what’s his name? You know, the latest. But, you know, it’s it’s like most things, if it’s successful, there will be sequels.
And in a way, you could say that happens in art too. If something is successful and the artist continues to paint, it’s often embraced. But if an artist wants to explore other realms, they often face criticism. To me, if you embrace art, you embrace the process and are open to seeing things that are unexpected. But I think, you know, there’s a reason why there are so many McDonald’s. It’s because people want the certainty that they’re going to get the hamburgers and fries they like, wherever they go. And yeah…
Miriam Schulman: I don’t eat at McDonald’s, but I feel that way about Starbucks. Even though there are much better coffee places, when I’m traveling, I often find myself gravitating toward Starbucks. Not because I think it’s so great, but because I know what I’ll get, right?
Jeffrey Madoff: Well, people like that. I mean, yeah, people like knowing what they’re going to get. People don’t like surprises.
Miriam Schulman: No, because the brain craves certainty.
Jeffrey Madoff: Which doesn’t exist anyhow, but yes.
Miriam Schulman: Yes, correct. All right. Now, speaking of London and sequels, that perfectly queues me up for this unprepared, prepared episode. All right, so the next article I have is about the Courtauld Show making Monet’s 1905 London dream of exhibiting his work a reality. So we will link… Can you see that? Yes, seeing the art is really not the point of our conversations, by the way, but we will link the pictures in the show notes.
The reason I wanted to discuss this is because he was going to have this exhibit back in his lifetime, but he canceled it because he thought his art wasn’t good enough. I just thought, “Wow!” This is one of the things I always hear from emerging artists and artists who come to coach with me: their biggest fear is that their art isn’t good enough. And here is Monet, who canceled his exhibition because he thought his art wasn’t good enough. There’s a great quote in here where he told a journalist in 1901, “I am never contented with my work. I let a picture go because I would work on it forever if I didn’t.” So, I thought this was a really good lesson on editing, the process, and knowing when to let art go. I’m sure you have some thoughts about this.
Jeffrey Madoff: I don’t.
Miriam Schulman: Oh, that’s bad.
Jeffrey Madoff: You know, there’s a phrase: “Great art is never finished; it’s abandoned.”
Miriam Schulman: Yeah.
Jeffrey Madoff: And, to use a technical term my grandmother often used, you could “poke around forever.” You know, in the play that I’m working on, it’s a very organic process. When you’re in rehearsals and previews, you’re always changing things. But before opening night—two performances before—the play is locked. No more changes because it’s too disorienting for the actors. Lighting cues, costume changes—there’s a whole ripple effect with anything that you do. I think you can always do something else. But what motivates me is, well, I like that phrase: “It’s just abandoned.” Yeah, but that’s not really true. I think one of the things that messes people up is they don’t set deadlines for themselves. In my production company, when I made films, commercials, and all that, people would ask, “What if you have writer’s block?” Same thing with my play. They’d ask, “What do you do?” And I’d say, “I think of the deadline.” I have to get this done. I have a responsibility to get this done. I can give you a funny sidebar to this.
Miriam Schulman: Good, because that’s why I invited you. It’s all about the sidebars. It’s like how I order food in a restaurant—it’s all about the side dishes. It’s never about the main thing.
Jeffrey Madoff: We were doing a reading of the screenplay I wrote. It was about 15 minutes before curtain, and the audience was full—about 200 people. One of the actors, who had a small part, came up to me and said, “I have a problem. I don’t think my character would say that.” I said, “Okay, two things: Number one, the character would say that because I created the character, and that’s what I wrote for him to say. So, you’re hearing it from the source.”
Miriam Schulman: Yeah.
Jeffrey Madoff: And number two, come here. I pulled back the curtain, and he saw the full theater. I said, “And that’s your motivation. The curtain goes up in 12 minutes.”
Miriam Schulman: Wow.
Jeffrey Madoff: “Okay, good. All right, I get it, I get it.”
Miriam Schulman: Good.
Jeffrey Madoff: But I think, you know, I don’t look at deadlines as something that looms. I look at them as a threshold I have to cross to get to where I want to go. It’s really easy to get stuck, but it’s important to approach the creative process with the mindset that it’s also how I make my living, which means I’ve got to deliver in a timely fashion. If somebody commissions a piece of artwork from you, or they buy a piece of your work, they don’t want to hear, “Well, she’s still working on it,” when it was supposed to be done three years ago. “Yeah, but it’s not quite right yet,” you know?
Miriam Schulman: Yeah, I mean, often… So, I have so many follow-ups, but just on your most recent point—when I was doing pet portrait commissions, and I really didn’t like doing them, by the way (hopefully none of my pet portrait customers are listening—actually, I don’t care if they are)—I would get sick of working on it, and I’d just say, “All right, let me take a picture of it, tell them it’s done, and see what happens.” If they liked it, then it was really done, and I was off the hook. Pretty much every time, they’d say, “Oh, it’s so great!” And I’d be like, “Good, I’m done with it.”
But I do want to circle back to something you were saying about the play. I heard a very similar story—you may have heard this too—where Jason Alexander went to Larry David and said, “I really don’t think my character would say this, and I don’t think anybody would ever say this in real life.” Have you heard this story?
Jeffrey Madoff: No.
Miriam Schulman: Okay. So, he said basically the same kind of thing you’re telling me. But as his character, George, he went to Larry David and said, “I don’t think anybody would say this. I don’t get it. Help me out. I need motivation.” And Larry David said, “What are you talking about? I said that, and that’s what I did.” And that’s when Jason Alexander realized for the first time that his character was Larry David. Before that, he didn’t know he was supposed to be modeling Larry David. So, yeah…
Jeffrey Madoff: Well, that brings up something really interesting for an artist: understanding your connection to the work.
Miriam Schulman: Mhm. Say more.
Jeffrey Madoff: For instance, when we were about to start rehearsals for Personality during our Chicago run, we began with a table read. That’s when all the actors sit around a table, hear each other’s voices for the first time, and read through the whole script. The guy who played young Lloyd Price—a wonderful actor named Darian Peer—we had a get-together after the table read. We wanted to go to a bar away from the stage so everyone could bond and get to know each other after the first day of rehearsal. So, I started talking to Darian, who played Lloyd Price. Of course, both Darian and Lloyd were Black. Darian had grown up in Iowa, and I said, “Oh, what brought you to New York?” He said, “There was nothing for me here. I wanted a different life. There wasn’t anything for me in Iowa.” So we talked a little more, and later, an hour or so later, he said, “I’m having problems with the character.”
Miriam Schulman: What did he mean?
Jeffrey Madoff: He said, “Lloyd’s life was so different from mine, and I’m just trying to relate to it.” So I said, “Didn’t you just tell me that you lived in Iowa and wanted to leave because there were no opportunities for you there, and you wanted to grow creatively?” He said, “Yeah.” And I said, “Well, what about Lloyd? He grew up in Kenner, Louisiana. He wanted to get out of there because nobody could relate to what he wanted to do. He saw the world as a bigger place, so he wanted to go to a bigger place. And guess what? Lloyd also moved to New York.”
He kind of lit up, and I said, “So, you have a lot more in common with him than you thought, don’t you? You both wanted to get out, you both felt marginalized where you were, and that drove you to make a radical change to move to the big city and express yourself creatively.”
Miriam Schulman: Beautiful.
Jeffrey Madoff: And he said, “Thank you, thank you.” It was just really cool because, if he hadn’t revealed how out of place he felt growing up, he might not have made that connection with Lloyd Price’s story. Suddenly, he had an entry into the psyche of the character he was playing.
Miriam Schulman: I love that. And since we haven’t mentioned it yet, I do have a perfect article to follow this up with—just putting a hook in there now. But I don’t think we said the name of your play. What’s the name of the play about Lloyd Price? And when is the opening for any of my listeners in London?
Jeffrey Madoff: The play is called Personality: The Lloyd Price Musical. It’s about Rock and Roll Hall of Fame legend Lloyd Price. You probably don’t know his name, but you know his music—songs like “Personality” (‘Cause you’ve got walk-a, talk-a personality’), and a much better song than that, by the way, “Stagger Lee” and “Lawdy Miss Clawdy.” He was an amazing, amazing talent. What we’re doing in the UK is two showcases for theater professionals: theater owners, theater bookers, and the press. It’s not for selling tickets to the public, but it’s to raise our profile in London because we’re headed toward a West End run.
Miriam Schulman: Okay. When we come back, I actually have an article that is about Iowa—imagine how that happened! But first, I want you to hear from Lynn Sammis. You’ve been following her success on this podcast, but I love when you can hear directly from her. All right, now let’s get back to the show. You couldn’t have cued me up more perfectly. My next article is about Iowa.
Jeffrey Madoff: All right, how about that?
Miriam Schulman: It’s like pulling the Oracle cards and getting the perfect card for the question. All right, so here’s something: conserving an Iowa school’s little-known Keith Haring mural. I wasn’t sure why I cut this article out at the time, but now I get it! They have a Keith Haring mural in an elementary school in Iowa. I don’t have much else to say about that. I’m not even sure if it’s that interesting to talk about, except for the fact that you were just talking about Iowa. So, should we dive into this or move on?
Jeffrey Madoff: Well, what’s interesting about it is, I’m old enough to remember when Keith Haring started getting attention in New York. What he was doing was almost like creating modern hieroglyphics—cave paintings in a way—but they were in the subways. It was essentially graffiti. His work was discovered in those urban spaces, and where his art was displayed was just as important as the work itself. The city, the underground subways, walls—those places became his canvas. It’s like what Banksy does now, but Keith Haring was one of the first to gain that kind of prominence through street art. So, the fact that something very urban like his art ended up in a small town in Iowa, especially in a school, is kind of fascinating. How did that even happen?
Miriam Schulman: Well, it says here that he created the mural as a gift to the school, with help from the students. Let me see… It was made in 1989, which was the year before his death.
Jeffrey Madoff: Right. He did a famous painting—I think it was shown at the Democratic National Convention, though not in the main hall—called Liberty, as in the Statue of Liberty. At the base of it, all these students had worked with Keith Haring to contribute to the piece. He had a history of using his art to communicate, inform, and engage with others, which was really wonderful.
Miriam Schulman: One of the things they’re saying here is that it’s a powerful story about how this small town in Iowa welcomed an avant-garde graffiti artist, whose work was often seen as controversial. He might not have been embraced in other places, but they opened their arms to him.
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. So anyway, I hope that gives people some motivation. My last articles here. There’s no cat bites taken out of this one.
Speaker4: I mean.
Jeffrey Madoff: I’m very impressed.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, so the headline on this is my five year old could do that and did. And the thesis is basically that people need these screwed up childhoods in order to grow up to be artists. So let’s have a vulnerable moment. How screwed up was your childhood, Jeffrey? I have no idea, actually. So this could be another womp womp womp moment that you had a perfect childhood. But go ahead.
Jeffrey Madoff: I don’t know what a perfect childhood is, but I had a good childhood, and I think that, you know, your appearance also, and to me, the most important thing that a child can get from their parents is a sense of love, respect and safety. So if you feel loved, if you are respected, meaning that if you have questions, they aren’t discounted as being stupid and that you are supported in what you are doing and you feel safe. My parents because I always drew, because I always wrote. I even drew and wrote comic books when I was in elementary school. My parents were always open to me doing that stuff, and it wasn’t that they were somehow enlightened parents. They just, I think, had an innate ability to recognize engagement, and they fostered that. And so that gave me a confidence outside the home that I would do things and not be afraid to put my ideas out there because I wasn’t afraid of those ideas being rejected. You know, because rejection is just a part. You put your ideas, your opinions, your artwork out there. You know you’re going to meet with rejection. That’s going to happen. But the question is, how do you deal with it? Does it shut you down and make you reluctant to do it, or do you learn something through it? Does it propel you forward because somebody told you you couldn’t do it? You know, art can come from a very wonderful place. It can also come from a very dark place. And both can. The net effect, the both can be great work. I just happy that I don’t feel I was screwed up, and that I had loving parents who allowed me to explore those aspects of things that I love doing, and so I felt safe doing it.
Miriam Schulman: I’m so happy to hear that. So my childhood was kind of textbook dysfunctionality. My father passed away when I was five. Many of my listeners have heard me talk about this. And because I was a child in the 70s, they didn’t really prepare me or my sister, who’s younger, for this to happen. We like basically one day we find out he’s not here anymore. And so what happens with me and I talked about this on the podcast with Jerry Saltz. So we’ll link to that one in the show notes, because he also had a similar experience where he lost a parent early on and he wasn’t prepared for it is when you have an experience like that, you grow invisible antennas because the opposite of your childhood, like you felt very safe, and that was a beautiful garden where your creativity could flourish. And that’s a beautiful thing. But when you grow up where you don’t feel safe, then you build these antennas so that you can always be looking out for warning signs of what danger might be there, because you’re being told the message that the adults aren’t going to tell you.
So as a result of that, I feel that I am a little more sensitive than many of my peers who maybe grew up in a two parent household. You know, never had a tragic loss like that. So that kind of has informed me as an artist, and it’s something that I can talk about losing a parent now without bitterness or regret. I mean, I really didn’t know him, so it wasn’t a loss for me. But the bitterness of growing up without a father has been so much of who I am and has shaped who I am as a person today. So to regret any of that happening or wishing it was different, is to wish myself to be different, if that makes sense, and having acceptance of myself. I can’t wish any of it to be different, but I felt very much sympathy. The right word for this article about this. Stories of how some of the early lives of these artists really informed them later, like how some of the things that happened to them when they were young really became the catalyst for them becoming artists later.
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah, I think that, you know, it’s interesting because in the arts you’re creating a expression of some sort, be it music, be it dance, be it painting, be it writing, be it acting, whatever. But there are people who sell insurance who are dentists, do all these things, who had difficult home lives that caused them to be who they are in certain ways, you know. And so, I mean, people have said to me, oh, you’re dealing with actors all the time, aren’t they kind of crazy? No. And they’re interesting because what makes them interesting is their vulnerability, because they have to be vulnerable to do good art. Otherwise. It’s like Muzak, right? It’s. There’s plenty of art equivalent of Muzak out there. It’s not very interesting. It’s not very engaging. It’s not offensive. But it’s—
Miriam Schulman: Marvel movies.
Jeffrey Madoff: You know, but to defend Marvel movies for a moment—what Stan Lee did when he started Marvel Comics was interesting. He took characters like Spider-Man—who is a great example of a troubled teenager with superpowers—and made them relatable. Superman, on the other hand, was created by Schuster and, I think, Simon. Their story was really about assimilation. Clark Kent was just a regular guy working at the Daily Planet. When I was a kid, I didn’t get this whole thing—he takes off his glasses, and suddenly no one recognizes him.
Miriam Schulman: I know! That always bothered me too.
Jeffrey Madoff: Right? Like, that’s all it takes?
Miriam Schulman: Yeah, it’s ridiculous.
Jeffrey Madoff: Maybe they were thrown off by the cape, who knows. But what’s fascinating is that as we create art and are shaped by it, these transformations happen to people, and they manifest in different ways. I think the most interesting thing for any artist is that their first and most important creation is themselves. Before they can do anything else, they have to come to terms with who they are—what risks they’ll take, how vulnerable they’ll allow themselves to be. The artists who keep evolving are the ones who embrace that journey. It’s a quest, and I can relate to that. The way you handle the inevitable traumas in life shapes that growth.
Miriam Schulman: That’s a great way to wrap things up. I want to make sure everyone knows where to get Jeffrey’s book, Creative Careers. It features interesting stories from artists as well. If you didn’t grab it when he was last on the show, we’ll have it linked in the show notes. Jeffrey, do you have any final thoughts for our listeners?
Jeffrey Madoff: Yeah, my advice is simple: go for it. Nike’s “Just Do It” is still the best slogan ever, despite their attempts to move away from it. It’s impossible to improve on that phrase. We all set up obstacles for ourselves, but the way you overcome those is by finding your way over, under, around, or through them. That’s how you make progress. The one sure way to ensure nothing happens is by doing nothing. And then you can create a whole story about why you didn’t act. But the truth is, you can do it—you just have to be willing to try.
Miriam Schulman: Yes, and make decisions. We didn’t dive into this explicitly, but it was a theme throughout our conversation. Like when you said, “No, the play is done. We’re not making any more changes.” One of the biggest things I see holding back both entrepreneurs and artists is their reluctance to commit to a decision they’ve already made. They stay stuck in uncertainty, and that keeps them from moving forward.
Jeffrey Madoff: Committing is huge. Yeah. That’s huge.
Miriam Schulman: Committing I mean this is what the whole Monet thing is like. Well, you know, eventually I have to let it go because I can always be making it better. So the and.
Jeffrey Madoff: The best artists, whether they’re in the performing arts or painting or whatever, are those who fully commit to the expression that they’re doing. And that’s what makes something interesting. So when you see a great actor like Daniel Day-Lewis, you know, or Meryl Streep, who’s so fully commit to the parts that they play, which is what makes it credible, and so you do what it takes to get something done, and you can’t do what it takes without committing. And along with commitment. It’s not commitment if you don’t persevere. If the first time that you hit an obstacle, you give up. That’s not commitment. Commitment means kind of like in the marriage vows, right? You know, in sickness and in health, you’re going to go through this stuff and that you’re only committed if you don’t give up.
Now, I’m not talking about fool’s errands and stupid stuff, but I’m talking about something that’s very primal, one’s ability to create and do. And you have to commit in order to do that. And you have to be able to not be defeated by giving up, because it’s harder than you thought. Because I can assure you, if you want to mount a play, if you want to be a respected artist, if you want to be a novelist, if you want to be a dancer or an athlete, you’ve got to commit. It’s hard, and a lot of people just don’t understand and think it’s going to be a lot easier because they don’t really grip. Yeah, this takes a lot. This doesn’t just happen, you know. And I think there’s a lot of delusion that takes place because people somehow think it ought to be easier. It’s not.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. And they think that if it doesn’t come easy. Well, maybe it’s because I’m not talented. Which it’s really talent is very little to do with it. Commitment is much more perseverance.
Jeffrey Madoff: That’s right.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah, absolutely. All right. We’re going to end right there. Thank you so much for joining me here today. This was amazing. And listener I hope you enjoyed it too. Stay tuned for next week. We’ll be here. Same place same time. Until then stay inspired.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to The Inspiration Place podcast. Connect with us on Facebook at facebook.com/schulmanart, on Instagram @schulmanart and of course, on SchulmanArt.com.
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