Mark Thompson: 0:00

But I think what it comes down to again, like I said earlier is this this idea of a hybrid career and realizing that real eyeballs on real paintings is the kind of fundamental basis of the experience. But you know, the online or like the back end management of a career has to be imbalanced. With that.

Laura Arango Baier: 0:22

Welcome to the BoldBrush podcast where we believe that fortune favors the bold brush. My name is Laura Arango Baier, and I'm your host. For those of you who are new to the podcast. We're a podcast that covers art marketing techniques, and all kinds of business tips specifically to help artists learn to better sell their work. We interview artists at all stages of their careers as well as others who are in careers tied to the art world in order to hear their advice and insights. On this episode, BoldBrush interviewed Mark Thompson, a British artists living and working Newfoundland, Canada, who paints landscapes that exist within a collective memory rather than the real world. We discuss his mentorship on mastery comm how tirelessly applying social media tips from the BoldBrush podcasts have helped them and even led to upcoming shows in various countries, and how a proper balance between painting and business are fundamental to being an artist who can live from their work. Finally, he gives some inspiring advice about finding your voice and how showing up and being seen are some of the keys to finding success, not only in the conventional sense, but in your personal work as an artist. Hello, Mark, how are you today?

Mark Thompson: 1:31

Hi, Laura. I'm great. How you doing?

Laura Arango Baier: 1:33

I'm so happy to see you. So I'm doing great.

Mark Thompson: 1:37

You know, it's it's it's been a while isn't it?

Laura Arango Baier: 1:39

Yeah, it has it's been oh my gosh, maybe it's been like, I don't want to say here, but almost it's gotta be coming up to that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. You have so much going on, and I can't wait to jump into it. But first, you know, for our listeners, do you mind telling us a little bit about who you are and some of your background?

Mark Thompson: 2:01

Sure. Well, I'm a painter. I'm originally from England as my accent probably denotes. But now I'm living in Newfoundland in Canada. I originally came here for a residency and two months, the pandemic it and here I still am. Yeah, my work is based in landscape and memory. They're very much the vehicle for what I do. My background, I went to the Slade School of Fine Art in London. So long ago, I tried to mention it now. I came through at roughly the same time as the y bas were really getting going. So as I was just starting, you know, Damien Hirst was tickling in shock. And so that that was it was a strange thing to kind of been to London art world as, as a landscape painter in the face of all that, but fortunately, I grew up into an art world that was pre internet, really. So I worked for London gallery, worked as a technician did some curation. And that enabled my practice to mature quite quickly. You know, the, the pressures were different. And now, I paint every day, you know, it's, I have to. Yeah, I mean, it's at this point, it very much feels like this is what life is for. Yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 3:23

Did you ever doubt that? Or?

Mark Thompson: 3:27

Not really, you know, there were times in life when I may have looked at, you know, my career and thought, What the hell am I doing? Yeah, how am I ever going to, you know, make a living at this, you know, this, this can't be a sensible option. But I think I also realize that even if I had artificially stopped and said, No, no, can't do this anymore. I know full well that I'd have come back to it one way or another. And then I'd be ultimately in the same position again, because it's the thing that makes sense of the world.

Laura Arango Baier: 3:57

Yeah. And it's also how you've come to understand the world for so long, but it's like you always will come back to it.

Mark Thompson: 4:06

Yeah, yeah. I think it's always a little nauseating. When somebody says, Oh, you know, born for this. It takes out the hard work aspect of it, which, you know, as you both know, there's plenty of that. But yeah, like I said, this is this is what I done. This is what I go continue to do. Come hell or high water.

Laura Arango Baier: 4:27

Definitely. Yes. And I've also heard from you that you became a master artist mentor on masters.com. Yes, I did. Yeah. I was actually looking and to become a master artists, you need more than a few years of experience. Yes. That's a plus and a negative. I think it's, I think it's a super plus. So tell us about what that means.

Mark Thompson: 4:51

Sure. I will be mentoring a small group of up to eight at this point emerging artists in an online But face to face community framework, I'll be tackling the problems of painting, really through demonstration of my own work. So I can almost bring them into the studio in a way that I wouldn't have in any other way. And instead of making almost like, artificial practices, I can show them what I'm talking about on my own work. And we'll go through materials and best practices and contextualize in our history. And you know, more to the point I just want people to draw, you know, get them back into drawing to push their creative practice forward. Well, I think it's also about the business side of things and how to navigate an increasingly hybrid art career.

Laura Arango Baier: 5:45

Yeah, I mean, nowadays, without business knowledge, it's very hard to get around as an artist, unless you're absolutely ridiculously wealthy. Well, exactly. I

Mark Thompson: 5:55

mean, you know, was one of your previous podcasts, wasn't it, Ryan Brown said, Marielle. But even then, you know, it doesn't take away the the internal pressure of wanting to do well, in whatever way that means. Yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 6:12

I understand that. Because on one side, it's like, well, I need to make money now. But then on the other side, it's like, yeah, but I want to take my time and improve this and work on this and tend to it with love and care and nurturing. It's kind of hard to do that when you feel that pressure on the back of, hey, you know, bills due next week? Yeah, well, it's,

Mark Thompson: 6:31

it's a time thing. Painting almost by definition takes a long time. And the way we have careers now is antithetical to that idea. So you almost have to, you have to carve it out for yourself, you almost split your personality into two sides, the bit that stays in the studio and does the necessary practice of painting that everything else has to hang around, whilst the other side of you becomes weirdly performative? Yeah, and

Laura Arango Baier: 7:01

sometimes I feel like that, that can be a little uncomfortable, personally, for me, because it almost feels like a facade, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Like, who am I? Well, my, the hard working teacher or the the salesman over here? Yeah,

Mark Thompson: 7:16

I guess in some ways, it has always been, that's just different varieties of it.

Laura Arango Baier: 7:21

Yeah, it's simply evolved from, you know, working in a collective group of, you know, like, in the medieval times really hard to be in a guild, and they have to, like work on projects together to individuals, which I feel has made things a little bit more challenging. It's the very definition

Mark Thompson: 7:36

of being atomized in society, you know, as, as artists were already, you know, the one for better phrase loner in the back room, away from the world commenting on it whilst attempting to still function within it. And that I think, increasingly runs counter to the way we we live our lives. But again, necessary evils.

Laura Arango Baier: 7:58

Yes, unless you're like super wealthy, like. Yeah, but you know, it's kind of like how on our previous interview, which, by the way, will be in the shownotes. If anyone's interested in listening, and watching because it's on YouTube, it kinda reminds me of our last interview where we were talking about social media. And since you're, you've been working in this in this art world, pre social media, and now during social media, I think that is also the best example of how the view has shifted, you know, from living in the world to living both outside and inside, which is kind of trippy. Yeah, we

Mark Thompson: 8:35

we've all gained this peculiar meta perspective on ourselves, and everyone else that is both true and not in a it's, it's so it's so weirdly, the modern life is so weirdly curated. Yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 8:49

Yeah, we all just want our lives to look like magazines now, because that's what society tells us. Yeah.

Mark Thompson: 8:55

I mean, you know, social media, we've had to learn how to film ourselves whilst attempting to be unselfconscious and yet retain a kind of honesty and integrity with the work. I mean, I certainly never expected to become a amateur filmmaker. You know, but having said that, it's still capable of a true connected social media, you know, the actual social part of it rather than the, the rapid skim past, I think is invaluable. I mean, let's face it, it is ultimately a free advertisement that yes, is can be very difficult to spot in amongst billions of people, but it is still capable of providing extraordinary opportunities. Oh, yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 9:42

But yeah, and I think that's also what we had spoken about last year, where it is this double edged sword where on the one hand, it seems to influence people's creative path. If we had existed in a vacuum, maybe we wouldn't have been exposed to certain things that would have influenced us, you know, so for me, it was you know, seeing Before I even went to GCA, I saw the juicy stuff on Instagram. And then I was like, I want to go there. And then I saw Nerdrum. And I was like, oh, I want to go there. It's like he chatted, like, grab all of these things. And it makes me wonder what would have happened if these things didn't cross people's paths? Yeah,

Mark Thompson: 10:18

I think, you know, I think we've maybe we've mentioned this last time, you know, there is the horrible dystopia that is possible that we all end up with small square paintings in big because of the social media effect. But hopefully, as time goes by, and we become more familiar with the tools at our disposal in and we actually learn how to use them, because I think the thing that we forget is, is a very young tools that have an extraordinary potential if we, if we use them well. And if we do use them, well, then like you said, we were exposed to things that there is no way we could be exposed to otherwise the world has become very small to the, you know, tiny camera and an iPhone, but also vast, and now we're able to see, you know, to see art from pretty much everywhere, and figure out what we don't like, you know, which is a wonderful way to figure out where you are.

Laura Arango Baier: 11:11

Yeah, and it's equally as important as what you do. Because then you can compare, and then ask yourself why

Mark Thompson: 11:17

Yeah, exactly. And I mean, I don't know about you, but I find that using it for using it for the power of good. It's, I actually really do enjoy sharing the process. But as it happens, rather than a false view of ease and perfection, there's nothing particularly shiny about my work as it develops. And, you know, it goes through ugly stages all the way through. And I quite like showing that not as the kind of masochism, but to show where they come from, you know, it's not clean. It's, it's almost like an antidote to the slickness that we're, we're perpetually surrounded by but I think as long as it's in service of the work, you know, so it's a byproduct of what's happening in studio rather than a thing and in and of itself, you know, so the work becomes about the process of filming it for Instagram. Rather than, you know, one leading to the other.

Laura Arango Baier: 12:12

Right. Yeah. And I that's the other really interesting that. And I've also read this about people who are writers where it's different to write in a book than it is to write directly on like a word or on the computer, because the moment you start writing on Word, you're going to self edit immediately. But when you're writing in a notebook, you don't self edit, because you know, it's a rough draft with Yeah, and with social media, it does kind of feel that way where, you know, when you're recording yourself, like, it's not good,

Mark Thompson: 12:40

just, you know, well, exactly. But then again, you know, the pressure to post makes the, you know, talking about editing, yes, there's the potential to perpetually self edit, but the speed that we need to push content that that dreadful word that content out into the world compels us to maybe not edit quite as much, maybe we should. I don't know, again, who thought

Laura Arango Baier: 13:03

it is. Yeah, it is. And I feel like I was actually going to ask you have your opinion has changed, stayed the same? Yeah, it's

Mark Thompson: 13:10

funny, it hasn't, it hasn't, you know, I think it's, it's a double edged sword, maybe in a different way, from the way we we talked about last time, again, this bifurcation is split into these two supporting, but sometimes contradictory devices, it enables links to be forged, and to be reforge. So talking, you know, when we, when we first came onto the call, about, you know, Norway, you know, the owner of the gallery there, I've known him for a very long time, but I haven't been to Norway in 15 years, but through through the wonderful power of social media, we've kept up with each other, and he's kept up with my work. So when he was to take over the gallery, he thought map and through posting, you know, continually about my my work and new work as it comes up, he's been able to see the movement through from the work that he knew to where I am now, and why that might be interesting to show. But again, you know, at the same time, the pressures, you know, to make work at a pace is the thing that I have to resist, you know, the art world already requires an extraordinary amount of volume, you know, its content again, and the navigation of that world whilst maintaining an integrity with your own work and how you get around in the real world is again, it's antithetical old time.

Laura Arango Baier: 14:35

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, it's very interesting to that. I think we'd mentioned this last time as well. You know, Instagram becomes a portfolio for a lot of artists and a lot of painters and it functions is a good thing like you said, but what I like about how you go about it, is you post the dirty part of the process, you don't clean it up and just post some nice bits you post the Hey, this is the process and the process This isn't always linear and perfect, which gives it that authenticity that I think we need more in the art. Well, thanks

Mark Thompson: 15:06

for that. But I think also there's there's a necessity in that. Because if I only posted the pretty parts I post once a month.

Laura Arango Baier: 15:16

So you're keeping the pace.

Mark Thompson: 15:17

Exactly, you know, the content is the grubby parts that I think they're fundamentally interesting to me, otherwise, I wouldn't post it. But I think they maintain my connection with for me, it's a visual diary, so that I can keep up with where the painting has been. Because, you know, without the pressure on social media, would I bother to record this process, but it also keeps me connected with the people that actually follow the work and double benefit? Really?

Laura Arango Baier: 15:47

Yeah. And I think the one of the greatest benefits for the followers to is, you know, it's it's easy to when you see someone with a lot of followers and a lot of really great work, it's very easy to think that everything they make is perfect from the beginning, kind of like how we view you know, the old masters and everything. Oh, yeah. Rembrandt. He knew how to paint from birth. Yeah, exactly. Like they were born adults, I think exposing it as a process as well. Not only does it provide good content, but you also show how you improve and how things sometimes don't have a good start, but then they develop into a really brilliant end. So it's, yeah, it's really balanced.

Mark Thompson: 16:26

Well, I think it requires a certain degree of intellectual honesty, but also bravery, you know, with yourself to say, Okay, I'm not, you know, I'm not going to sell flagellate here. But this is where the work is, this is what it's becoming. And I don't know, you know, I don't know all the answers to it. But this is, this is where my process of self enlightenment has gotten me so far.

Laura Arango Baier: 16:51

Yeah. And I think a lot of people, especially younger artists, you know, I think they're the most afraid to express that. I think that's something else you gain over time. Is that confidence to be vulnerable in front of ya people?

Mark Thompson: 17:04

Yeah, I think also, it's not thinking about it, that it's like when you're making a painting, you don't think about the viewer, or you probably shouldn't think about the viewer too much. I mean, we all know there's an audience somewhere, but you're making work primarily for yourself and not considering it when you're putting brushstroke after brushstroke down. And I think same might be true on on how you how you reveal the process on social media, otherwise, you'd never get out of bed in the morning, you know, the pressure would be too much to perpetually second guess. And second guess yourself just to create the right content. You know, it's like this idea of Oh, my God, if a post doesn't do well, should I should I delete it? Will it look bad on my profile? And, you know, it's it's timing, it's, there's so many factors to whether a social media post as well or not? And again, they it can't be pretty. Yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 17:54

And I think the other problem too, now that you mentioned, it is also people think that the quality of the work is dependent on the amount of likes, which is also not true.

Mark Thompson: 18:04

Yeah. Yeah. It can't be. It can't be the, I think it becomes a question of the fact that painting isn't a game of conventional success, you know, in order to approach it in a long term way. You have to decouple it from money shows, likes, reviews, all the rest of it, because it again, it's gonna bring you back to the the easel on the wall, you know, or none of that's real. When you're in front of the work and finding success. I think, in being there with it, getting to do it. You know, I consider myself to be extraordinary, narrowly lucky that I get to do this every day. And, you know, I don't forget that for a second. Sobering.

Laura Arango Baier: 18:49

Because very sobering. And, you know, I think the other wonderful thing about pre social media painting, since we can refer to it that way, is exactly that, like you are, it's just you and your work. There's no one else in the room with you. There's no camera, there's no big brother. It's just unless you invite someone physically, you know, it's very much. Yeah, I mean, here we are in the present,

Mark Thompson: 19:10

then again, you know, the gallery was still there, you know, the necessity of showing was possibly more important. So it's a little bit like the reverse of that Isaac Newton quote, of standing on the shoulders of giants. Everybody's looking over your shoulder and terrifying. Yeah, it's like even the projected idea of of art history, you know, is is looking as your over your shoulder because you carry everything with you. Yeah.

Laura Arango Baier: 19:40

Yeah. And, you know, I think it is it's a good thing to have that the audience you know, but just keeping keeping it outside of the studio in perspective. Yes. In perspective, which God I love having these conversations with you because you always like, work my mind about these things. I love it. Wow. cuz you know, we always do tangent. And we all have these moments of like, God, is this is this good? Should I post this? Is this worth posting? And then I just enter into paralysis or like, I'm not gonna do shit.

Mark Thompson: 20:15

Yeah, that'll do it wrong. Yeah, yeah, I think keeping a healthy skepticism that that, again keeps returning you to these or you know, reminding yourself perpetually that this is the thing that it's about not everything has to I don't know, I always get these these odd images, you know those like a Just Married wedding car dragging a load of tin cans or whatever it is behind it. It's almost like that the painting is the couple and everything else is being pulled along behind it making a noise. But keeping focused on the actual thing of it enables the rest to work. I'm mixing my metaphors I know, but I think you get the picture.

Laura Arango Baier: 20:59

Yeah. And it's a very good picture. Because if they weren't looking forward, they'd crash. Well,

Mark Thompson: 21:05

yeah. So it's important. Yeah. That's the old.

Laura Arango Baier: 21:09

Yes. And, you know, I am also curious to know a bit more about if you have faced any challenges in terms of like social media and selling your work, because it, it has happened to be a good thing for you, right? You know, this gallery, remember, you saw your work had this visual, you know, perspective of, oh, this is how his work has evolved. But have you also faced challenges in selling your work?

Mark Thompson: 21:33

Yeah, all the time, visibility is always a challenge.

Laura Arango Baier: 21:40

She's She's a green.

Mark Thompson: 21:45

You know, my painting is landscape based, you know, I grew up in London, while like I said, people were picking sharks. And particularly seeing my work is, it's more archetypal than specific. So, you know, it's not traditionally regional, you know, I don't make paintings of the Southwest, you know, there's, there's no obvious market. So it's, it can be easy to overlook, and I have to make a little bit more noise than sometimes I would feel comfortable with. And also, you know, the online art markets are so very oversaturated as well, you know, so writing to be visible anywhere, it can be, it can be a huge challenge. But I think what it comes down to, again, like I said earlier, is this, this idea of the hybrid career, and realizing that real eyeballs on real paintings is the big kind of fundamental basis of the experience, but you know, the online or, like, the back end, management of a career has to be imbalanced with that. So what I've found is, you know, spreading the net wide, not in terms of, Oh, I do a bit of this, and a bit of this, and a bit of this, but over the years, I've managed to cultivate and maintain good relationships, you know, with, with my galleries in Seattle, or Germany, or Norway, and keeping those relationships healthy, and well fed with work and being good to work with, you know, not that not being a pain in hours. Sorry, there's my British roots.

Laura Arango Baier: 23:21

Good point. No, no, is this true is true. So to continue? Yeah, it's very true. If if someone is difficult to work with, or a pain in the ass, like I said, No one's gonna want to work with them. And, you know, it's I think a lot of people don't don't take that into account, or are they, they don't nourish those connections. And I think that's a big loss of opportunity. Because, you know, they think, Oh, well, I'll just, you know, connect to this person once and then never talk to them again. And that's, that kills a lot of that future business work. Because then you know, that person is going to be like, they'll totally forget about, you know, the person, and then they'll move on with their lives. And then if anyone asks him out, it was like, oh, no, you know, yeah. So how have you, you know, maintain those connections do reach out to them, or?

Mark Thompson: 24:08

Yeah, as often as I can, in a kind of reasonable way. I mean, it's it I think it's okay to let things you know, you can't be too militant about it yet. You can let things slide a little bit, but always maintaining a level of contact. You know, I think particularly now it's a little bit easier because most galleries operate again, both online and offline. So feeding or stoking the engine of inventory is no longer a question of shipping paintings out into the world. It's a question of sending JPEGs. So the potential for contact is actually easier. Now. Also, you know, my galleries are on my mailing list. So when I send something out, the contract is built

Laura Arango Baier: 24:49

singly. Also, it seems to me from like looking at your work overall. I don't think you ever intentionally made a brand like it feels like it just flowed. It's Do these dreamscapes to me they look like dreamscapes of real places. It's very interesting because I have other people that I've interviewed who have intentionally or, you know, maybe they've had trouble, like figuring out exactly how to brand themselves. So they've had to create a branding plan. But you're using like the exception. Well,

Mark Thompson: 25:17

don't you think branding is related to the idea of a voice, you know, as your career develops and matures? I mean, that's one of the reasons why it's going to be interesting to be a mentor. You know, one of the questions that inevitably comes up a lot is, you know, how do I find my voice as an artist, ignoring the fact that it's been there all along, and you can't help your voice coming out, the only thing that happens is you covered over with things that you feel like you ought to be doing.

Laura Arango Baier: 25:41

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Mark Thompson: 26:35

I guess I've always been a bit bloody minded, really, if I'm completely honest about it, about one following it through continuing to work, you know, in sort of no matter what, and again, decoupling it from conventional success, you know, you achieve a different kind of success. You know, if I wanted to kind of splash about in the pool of money that's in the art world, I'd be making a different kind of work. And that would be a different kind of life. But it's not to say that, you know, pays called tomorrow and visa Yeah, lovely. You know, it's trying to think of a good way to describe it. I think, like I said, at the beginning, this now seems like what life is for, you know, I make the work and the work is landscape based work. You know, I'm always a little hesitant to say, these are just landscape paintings, because, you know, there will be inevitably about a whole lot of other things that require landscape to be the vehicle. But these are places that we these are fundamental to experience, you know, how we experience the world, you know, we look at the world and decode it. So where are we? We're within landscape. So it's a question of what does that then mirror back at us, which makes it fundamentally unflashy?

Laura Arango Baier: 27:47

Yeah, I don't. I mean, there's a reason why Henry David Thoreau just went out to the middle of nowhere to you know, spend time in nature

Mark Thompson: 27:54

is like to be left alone.

Laura Arango Baier: 27:58

It doesn't have to be flashy nature isn't. I mean, nature is pretty flashy, sometimes. But it's quiet about it. It's just there being itself.

Mark Thompson: 28:06

But I think also, you know, and I think this, this, this might be an important point, we'll say, but where does our work fit into our history? What does it contribute? The world is full of objects, it's full of things that we haven't quite figured out on even what on earth they are. And, you know, without piling too much pressure on myself, I'd rather be standing on the shoulders of giants in a useful way and thinking so the world is full of ugly things, you know, and beautiful things. And I'd like to contribute on the plus side of things.

Laura Arango Baier: 28:44

Yeah, yeah. And it's a very, what I like about it is, you know, these days, the trends are going by so quickly with things that it's very easy to get caught in that micro world of the yesterday and the month before. Whereas the broader art history, like you said, you know, adding something to it, adding something positive to it, what how can you make it grow, instead of you know, going sideways, you're going forward?

Mark Thompson: 29:08

Yeah, I think also, it's a question of, how do you want to be placed in time, you know, do you want your work to I mean, we can never govern this, but you know, do you want your work to be able to step forward in time with you beyond your years? Or is I think it's why I'm always not suspicious is the wrong word, but reluctant to engage in work that is overtly politically because it's about now but it's very anchored in time. And you end up becoming over engaged in identity politics, you know, which is almost like a kind of branding in in and of itself. I think, you know, branding is a very interesting word in terms of art because it's an unspoken portrayal of an ongoing body of work, but it has to alter because your work is inevitably and no matter how hard you you hold on to it. It's inevitably going to change. I've certainly seen that I resisted the changes in my work up until a few years ago. And I guess in some ways, I've had to rebrand myself without really realizing I was doing it. But I think, again, if you maintain a level of integrity with your work, and you follow where it leads, it's like every painting, isn't it, they all get to a point where they start breathing, and then they tell you what they want. And I think if you follow that the branding comes with it, you know, the paintings always look like yours, because they're our view, you know, like, don't put the cart before the horse.

Laura Arango Baier: 30:39

Exactly, exactly. It's a very good, different perspective on branding, because, you know, we're just used to the whole, like, what's your vibe? So I really like this. It's like, it's very philosophical. The whole it was already within you. I love it.

Mark Thompson: 30:58

Yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 31:00

it's brilliant. It's brilliant. And, you know, maybe, you know, saying, What's your vibe is very much similar to it's already within you, it's whatever you're already drawn to. It's whatever pulls you in that direction. It's like, Don't resist, it doesn't matter if it isn't popular in social media, or if it isn't popular with a particular group of people that you maybe care about. It's like, no, who cares about them. Focus on where this is leading you? Well, I

Mark Thompson: 31:27

think the incredibly rapid time based world branding and how social media follows on its coattails requires absolute certainty. And it requires a certainty that you can never have because your work, like Like we said, or like, is perpetually changing, even, it's very slow the changes there. So you can never be sure what you are at any given point, as you continue to and enlighten yourself. You know, it's it's a perpetual work in progress. So branding has to be a little bit more liquid, it has to pitch and roll as your career path alters, again, mixing my metaphors.

Laura Arango Baier: 32:11

It's very true. Yeah. And I think that's, you're gonna be a very interesting mentor. Because I think a lot of your students are going to be up at night looking. Because it's, it's very true, you know, he made some very good points about just just frickin do it, who gives a damn about the rest, and, you know, being painters and artists, it's already inherently selfish thing to create, wanting to do, you

Mark Thompson: 32:35

know, that's a, that's a really interesting point, you know, it is fundamentally selfish, but by whose measure, you know, attempting to be a good person in the world, and you know, all of us are going to fail on that score at one time or another means that if you don't approach it your time, selfishly, that will I believe, that will have a knock on effect on the kind of person that you are, you know, you What are you going to do prevent yourself from doing something that makes you know more about yourself so that you can interact with others better? I just think it's a double benefit,

Laura Arango Baier: 33:10

if it does have that double benefit, and it's, who do I give my time to, you know, you live your life only once, if you're giving your time to the world around you instead of to yourself like, what are you doing?

Mark Thompson: 33:22

Like you're saying, you know, we have one go at this. And, you know, I want to have been found painting, I just got

Laura Arango Baier: 33:31

a very gruesome image of like sitting in a chair in your very, very old age with a brush. Like, passed away. Now, there's a lovely image. Yeah, that would be like painter till the end. And you know what Titian was like that as well. He painted until the very, very end.

Mark Thompson: 33:51

Well, this isn't something you retired from. Yeah, it's not

Laura Arango Baier: 33:54

it's not really see. Just for the purpose of the world we live in, we call it a career. And I think that's not very true. I think it's, it's beyond that. It's a way of living I want to say lifestyle, because it's not really that every artist has their own way of expressing that. But it's definitely a way of living and understanding life. It goes beyond lifestyle.

Mark Thompson: 34:18

Yeah, well, I think I overused this word. But I think it's it's fundamental to the human condition. It's It's why we were permanently mirroring the outside world that bounces off the back of the skull and become something else is projected out, you know, paintings, I think, are there punctuation marks in the span of your life depends on how we choose to speak, you know, whether they're very pithy clips, sentences, or whether we're writing novels as we go.

Laura Arango Baier: 34:48

Yeah, like Ernest Hemingway just mastering writing a novel in one sentence. Very long sentence. Very cool. Um, But yeah, yeah, oh my god, you give me so much food for thought I love it. And you're definitely gonna give our listeners a lot of food for thought, because I think a lot of people run away from these questions. They don't, or they don't they're not aware of their existence, like, Oh, why do I paint? You know why? Why do I like this? And like you said to that, you know, we don't see with our eyes, we see their brain, and then the brain uses our past experience to understand the other is. So it's, it's beyond just the surface, you know,

Mark Thompson: 35:34

well, everything's filtered, you know, it's filtered by experience and memory and brain chemistry on any given day, like a career. There's that word again, in painting, it's, it's permanently shifting, you shift, the work shifts, but it seems to me to be a very good way to understand one's place in the world, but also to I hesitate to say this, but it seems to be a great way to understand the fabric of reality, because you're permanently observing, even if you're only only only if you're observing an internal world, it's still an observation of some form of nature.

Laura Arango Baier: 36:13

Yeah. And interestingly, you know, a lot of people would say, oh, there's no way to understand reality, why bother? But the ancient Greeks, they were like, Oh, I know. We can't understand the world completely. But we're gonna frickin track.

Mark Thompson: 36:24

Well, yeah, think about on the nature of things. There was a damn good stab at it. Yeah, I think it's unavoidable that as we go, you know, why? Why connect with anything? What, Why listen to music or read anything? Or do anything beyond the temporal, we have emotions, we feel stuff, and attempting to understand that as it goes, I think can lead to some very useful thoughts. Absolutely.

Laura Arango Baier: 36:54

Love this, this is really it's what is life? How do and how do you approach life? You know, I'm just having these philosophical conversations. We like feed my soul.

Mark Thompson: 37:10

Well, yeah, I think that they are, they are wonderful that, but they they feed into everything that we're talking about, you know, it's it's a life examined, isn't it to live live?

Laura Arango Baier: 37:21

Yeah, yeah. And even within the word philosophy, it's the love of knowledge. Yeah, literally. Yeah. So the more you know, the more you question, and then the more you question, the more you know, and then the more you know, the more you question, ladder of understanding, and it just grows and grows and grows. But, you know, this is, I still think this is very enriching for people to hear, I think, you know, it isn't just business,

Mark Thompson: 37:47

I think the business aspects of career in painting are the the mechanics and the framework through which to push the object or the thing that you make out into the world and the strategies that we employ have shifted over time and keep so keeping on top of them and figuring out what comprises a life in painting now as self sustaining life in painting is where the wonderful things that BoldBrush releases into the world and become so useful, because they they almost like the scoop up the desire that we all have, but rarely put into motion, you know, tips about how to improve your, your social media following I gotta tell you, it works. And I last spoke, I think I had about 4000 followers. You know, we talked a little bit earlier about becoming a video editor, whether we liked it or not, and I got on the rails program, you know, geez, it takes me Yeah, it was a little bit strange to perpetually be filming the process, but piecing it together at the end of the day for a couple of minutes and putting out a 32nd video into the world that just was like a diary of the day actually became kind of a pleasure. One day, I put one out into the world, and it had a springboard effect, you know, my usual kind of numbers of views for a real world, I don't know, 1000 2000 4000 If I was lucky, and this thing took off, and I think now it's had 800 and something 1000 views, which for me was bananas. I thought, well, this is exactly the same as the other one that I've done, but timing, pacing, just the thing happened at a moment, and off it went, and the process becomes exponential. So those very useful conversations and you know, articles that BoldBrush Create do have tangible real world benefits, which surprises me more than anybody else after being such a moaner about yet about having to deal with social media.

Laura Arango Baier: 39:48

Yeah, and I think you know, it all it also comes down to understanding it, once you understand it, and how it works. And it just becomes like any other tool, you know, and it just gets it Like you said, right moment, right time, you have to be there, you know, posting, and you have to do it. But it's it's true it is the business side is very important mechanism, like you said, and how many followers? Do you have?

Mark Thompson: 40:13

Teen sounds and something or other. Awesome. Yeah, it's great. I mean, it's had an actual effect, you know, the most interesting one. And I'm not sure whether the two things are exactly related, but they're certainly adjacent. Yet recently, I was contacted out of the blue by a gallery in New York, who occasionally pull artists into quite interesting group shows how they couldn't have that last gallery on orchestrate. And they asked me to submit some work to their their next group show, and it was accepted. So October 28, I have a painting that actually weirdly was the subject of that explosive post will be on show in New York. That's amazing. Yeah, it was purely an Instagram thing. If it hadn't been on Instagram, it wouldn't have been seen. Oh, my God, I can't argue with that.

Laura Arango Baier: 41:05

Yeah. And I was actually gonna ask if it's helped your sales, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna take that as a hell yeah.

Mark Thompson: 41:11

I mean, sales, I don't know. But yeah, it's peculiar. And it's become strangely busy next months, again, a contacts through Instagram and other artists who now has started working also, as a curator, woman in Berlin called Lara Mandela has included me in another group show in Berlin, which I think starts the sixth of October. So I've got five, five smaller paintings going off to that, which again, wouldn't have happened without coming into contact with her through Instagram, which is great, you know, historically, my work hasn't really gone into group shows, because it doesn't necessarily always play well with others. You know, can be a bit a bit chatty on the wall. But the world changes.

Laura Arango Baier: 41:53

It does. Yeah. And this circles back really beautifully to a couple of things we mentioned, you know, the slow growth, and then also the being there and showing up and posting your work, whether it's the piece or the process, like, the more that you do that, the easier it is for the right eyes to see, hey, this is great. This would work well with this. And here we are. Yeah,

Mark Thompson: 42:14

I honestly, I think that the most important thing that anybody has ever told me and it'll be the big thing that I pass on to my mentees, if that's actually a word is the life in painting or life as an artist is 80 years, it's not six months grasping hold of, you know, the rapid movement of time. And the frustration of not having everything now or yesterday runs counter to how the span of your life as a painter actually work, having the patience and the fortitude, the wonder of a better phrase is to do it. Anyway, paint Anyway, do the posting, do everything that's necessary and just keep working.

Laura Arango Baier: 42:52

Yeah. And then just through all that work, it builds up, it's inevitable that that glass will fill and it will tip over. Yeah,

Mark Thompson: 42:59

exactly. And also that there are multiple art worlds, you know, it might be better to terminate an art universe with various worlds within it. And it's feasible and possible to carve out a corner of your own,

Laura Arango Baier: 43:13

particularly now. One person success doesn't take from another's tide that lifts all boats. Beautiful. And do you have all of your mentees like do you already have a bunch of mentees or can people still become mentees?

Mark Thompson: 43:26

No, there is still a few places left. It's due to start on the fourth of October. And yeah, I can't wait. There will even be homework. So be brave people. Yeah, it's it still has this. So masters.com.

Laura Arango Baier: 43:42

Beautiful. Yes, masters. I think that's MASTRI u s.com. is beautiful. So we'll add that to the show notes. And if you have a specific link so people can you know, become your mentees also include that? Absolutely. And if anyone wants to follow you on Instagram, what's your Instagram? Mark Thompson

Mark Thompson: 43:57

artist perfect.

Laura Arango Baier: 43:59

And will include your website and your upcoming shows. Which is so exciting. Oh my god. I remember the last time we spoke you had when you know a group show in London for the art fair. I believe that's right. And now look at you first scripture and you got one in Berlin off. That's so awesome. Thank you so much, Mark.

Mark Thompson: 44:18

Thank you, Laura. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. Thanks for Thanks for inviting me to come on

Laura Arango Baier: 44:23

course. Yeah, anytime. I would love to have you again in the future. Like plan. Yeah, so we can get talking more philosophy and social media.