Heidi Zuckerman: Why Art Matters

What defines art? What makes one an artist? What does art teach us—and why does it matter? To help us make sense of a world elusive to many, today I convene with the singular Heidi Zuckerman. A woman I’ve known for over 30 years, Heidi has devoted her entire professional career to understanding art, the people who make art, and why we should care. Heidi currently serves as CEO and Director of the Orange County Museum of Art, where she is overseeing construction of a spectacular new building designed by legendary architect Thom Mayne of Morphosis, scheduled to open in October 2022. In addition, she hosts Conversations About Art (a podcast on which I was privileged to be a guest) and is the author of the Conversations with Artists book series. This is a conversation about art. In addition to tracking Heidi’s career arc, we discuss what defines art, what makes for great art, why we should care about art, and why artists matter. We discuss the barriers to accessing art. How art can and should be democratized. And the role of art and artists in this era of offense and content overload. On a personal level, this one is very meaningful given my long history with Heidi. I really enjoyed this conversation—I hope you learn as much as I did. Watch: YouTube. Read: Show notes Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:05Speaker 01

  What I say is that if the person who made it says it's art, then it's art. So it's all about the intention. It's about the intention of the creator. You know, I think that art matters because it's a way of communicating things that have no other way to be told. It's like an alternate language. So art, for me, communicates things that everything else fails short to do.

• 1:44Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Today, we're gonna talk about art. How to define it, how to understand it and why it matters. My conversational partner for this affair is a big shot in this world and a woman I've known since I was about 21. Her name is Heidi Zuckerman. Heidi spent 14 years as the CEO and Director of the Aspen Art Museum, where she successfully reimagined it as a world-class institution. And she's currently the CEO and Director of the Orange County Museum of Arts. Prior to both, she held posts at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and was

• 2:28Rich Roll?

  a curator at the Jewish Museum in New York. A global authority on contemporary art, who has curated literally hundreds of exhibitions over the years, Heidi also hosts the podcast Conversations About Art, on which I was privileged to be a guest, and is the author of the Conversations with Artists book series. This one is admittedly a little bit different from my usual fare, but very special, as Heidi herself is a very special person. And it's coming right up, but first.

• 3:11Rich Roll?

  Okay, Heidi. In addition to tracking Heidi's career arc, this one is about art, obviously. It's about what defines art, what makes for great art, why we should care about art, essentially why art matters. We discuss the barriers to access and how art can and should be democratized. We talk about the role of art and artists in this era of offense and content overload. We also talk about the future of art, her perspective on NFTs, and the role of the blockchain. She decodes Marfa for me and what we can learn about ourselves and the world from

• 3:52Rich Roll?

  her countless long-form conversations with many of the world's most important artists. I really enjoyed this conversation on a personal level. This one is very meaningful, given my long history with Heidi, and I hope you dig it. So here we go. This is me and Heidi Zuckerman.

• 4:14Rich Roll?

  I can't believe you're here.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Me neither.

• 4:17Rich Roll?

  The more I think about like the tapestry of our lives and how they've overlapped at certain weird stages over the years, like the more surreal it is. It's pretty wild to like sit across from you with all of this weird history.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  And I, the same. You know, I just got back from Dallas and had my YPO forum there. We spent the day with Rand Stagan and I kind of track getting back in touch with you to him. And so many things in my life kind of come from him. So I agree.

• 4:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I was just in Miami and did a YPO event there.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  I'm sure.

• 4:58Rich Roll?

  I like hosted this whole like conference recently. We'll talk about the YPO stuff.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 5:04Rich Roll?

  But I mean, going way back, just for people that are watching or listening, we met, I think it was 91, around that time, maybe 92, something like that. I was dating your sister Laura and I got quite close with your whole family. Like I've been to your house in Huntington and like-

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Which is gone.

• 5:24Rich Roll?

  I know. Yeah, I know. I know Gary and your mom. How are they? Are they good?

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we just got back from celebrating Gary's 70th birthday in London. And you know, my mom had not gone on a plane across the ocean in a really long time. And she wanted everyone to come to their lake house to celebrate his birthday. And I said, I can't. On March 24th, I'm going to be in London visiting Emerson. And I said, you guys should come. We should celebrate his birthday there. And they picked up what I put down and it kind of was a life-changing moment for them. So I can tell you a little bit more about it, but it was great.

• 6:03Rich Roll?

  It's so interesting. I mean, I have like a lot of very kind of vivid flashes from that period of time, you know, little weird memories. But I think you were working at a gallery downtown. If memory serves me, around that era.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. I mean, I started at the Jewish Museum in 1993.

• 6:22Rich Roll?

  It was before that.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I had a couple of different jobs, like Stucks Gallery and for Ann Levey. And so, yeah, 91, 92.

• 6:31Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:32Rich Roll?

  And Laura was doing acting and I remember going to a site-specific theater performance that was in like an abandoned house.

• 6:41Speaker 01

  Like in the Meatpacking District?

• 6:42Rich Roll?

  I think so. Well, that was a different one. I remember that one, too.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  That's crazy.

• 6:46Rich Roll?

  And she was working with Darren Aronofsky and had worked on Pie and Requiem for a Dream.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:53Rich Roll?

  It was just a really cool time to be in New York. I feel like it was a moment where New York was still very dynamic, but you could feel that that was not going to persist much longer.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  It was definitely edgy and, you know, the intersection between what Laura was doing, which started out as theater because she had been at NYU, but it's really veering into performance art. And it was kind of a time in the art world before people, I mean, of course, there was performance art in the 70s, but what she was doing really kind of predated a lot of the self-focused work that came after that.

• 7:34Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. And now she's married and lives in Copenhagen?

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, those kids and stuff like that. Is she good?

• 7:40Speaker 01

  She's good, too.

• 7:42Rich Roll?

  I'm glad to hear that.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  So they were, they were all in London and we did this thing where I suggested it and some people were more comfortable and other people were less comfortable. But the idea was to go around the table and everyone to say something that they love about Gary and to use that language. And then when we got to Gary, whose birthday it was, he had to say something that he loved about himself. And Mike, my brother, went first and then Laura went. And I don't know if they used love. I think they said, you know, like, one of the things I like. And then Laura's older son said, you know, one of the things I love about Gary. And it just kind of changed the whole tone.

• 8:24Rich Roll?

  Uh-huh.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  And it was very moving.

• 8:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's sweet. That's cool.

• 8:31Rich Roll?

  That phase of our lives was only the beginning because we've crisscrossed, we have lots of mutual friends in common that come from very distinct and dissimilar places. Just the other day, I was with Ricky Gates.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:44Rich Roll?

  He's in the middle of doing this thing that's called Ultra Training. Do you know about this?

• 8:48Speaker 01

  I don't think so.

• 8:49Rich Roll?

  So this is his latest project, which is taking an Amtrak train. He left his home in Santa Fe and he's just getting off at every stop and running around and doing a sort of a truncated run every street thing at every stop along the way. And he came through LA. So I went down to downtown Los Angeles. I have a back problem right now, so I can't really run. I was like, I'll come and meet you, but we're gonna have to walk. And we just ended up walking all around the Arts District and talking. And he's filming it for a documentary project. And of course, your name came up because it's so bizarre that like you're friends with Ricky Gates because of the Aspen thing.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:29Rich Roll?

  And you know how he presents himself at the intersection of like art and athleticism? Like, he is an artist. And everything he does is some amalgam of performance art and kind of ephemera. Like, running around is something that's not, you can't really capture unless you're filming it. And that becomes these projects with photography and film and his writing and all of that. Like, he's a very unique guy in that regard. But we had a very fond conversation about you.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  Thank you. Did he tell you about the Run Hut Run?

• 10:03Rich Roll?

  He did, yes. So, explain that. The idea is that you're gonna curate one of his Run Hut Run expeditions and have artists like in residence to kind of share at the end of the day of running around.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, artists and athletes.

• 10:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  And so I'm really interested in this idea of a practice. And it comes from Buddhism, right? And this idea of like a life practice. And it started for me as like a curatorial practice and then, you know, a life practice. And then this idea of, you know, who practices? So artists practice and athletes practice. And of course, musicians practice too. But, you know, what does that mean? So it's like you do something repeatedly and then you can get better at it. But also, you know, there's variety to it. Some days, you're stronger. Some days, you're tired. Some days, you, you know, are bursting with energy and ideas and other days, like you have nothing, right?

• 10:58Speaker 01

  And so Ricky and I started talking about that and how it would be really interesting because I'm also fascinated with this idea of kind of pushing the limits, which I know you are too.

• 11:09Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  And so what's that point of like stretching people to like being uncomfortable, but not like unbearably uncomfortable?

• 11:17Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  And so this endurance idea of, you know, running or trail hiking, you know, probably like it doesn't have to be a run, you know, motion for five days and five nights, a hundred miles over five days at altitude and to invite, I think it can be 12 people total. So, you know, six artists and six athletes and have everyone have that shared experience. And at the end of the day, of course, coming together and talking about, you know, what it feels like to do that. So I've sort of been training and I asked him how to train and he's notorious for like not training.

• 11:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  He's like, just like go for an hour each Sunday and then add an hour, you know?

• 12:00Rich Roll?

  When is this happening?

• 12:02Speaker 01

  So we're gonna do it in, I think, August of 23.

• 12:08Rich Roll?

  Next year.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we were going to do it this year and then when I took the job at the Orange County Museum of Art, I'm not good at saying no. And I said, look, even for me to do this hundred mile thing a month before we open the museum is like not practical. So he said, that's fine, we'll push it to 2023.

• 12:26Rich Roll?

  Well, and then he invited me. Yeah, like he's like, will you do it? And I was like, yeah, I didn't know when it was, but I was like, that sounds cool.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:32Rich Roll?

  Unique for sure. Are we gonna sleep in that crazy bus thing?

• 12:36Speaker 01

  No, we're gonna stay in these huts. So there's like a hut system, like the 10th Mountain Division had these huts at altitude.

• 12:43Rich Roll?

  Right. This is the original idea behind this.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah. All right, well, that'll be cool.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  We're putting together the list.

• 12:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Who else is?

• 12:48Speaker 01

  Lance said yes, too.

• 12:49Rich Roll?

  Oh, cool.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:50Rich Roll?

  And who are the artists that you're thinking about for this?

• 12:53Speaker 01

  So I have a couple of ideas and oh, I also asked Gretchen Blyler and she's actually the one that introduced me to Ricky and so she's a yes too. So the athletes are easier.

• 13:06Rich Roll?

  She's a badass.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Than the artists. Yeah, she's a total badass and really, really close friend of mine. So I don't have any of the artists committed yet, but I've tested it on a few people. But we can use this conversation to, you know. And part of it was for me, you know, when he asked me about it, I said, I really only feel like I can say yes if I go. And I talked to him about it a lot and I talked to Gretchen about it because at first I said, you know, I don't think I can do this. And interestingly, two days ago, I had this conversation. So I just did the Orange County Half Marathon. I've never done anything like that before.

• 13:42Rich Roll?

  Congrats. Then you could do Run Hut Run.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Well, yes. After I did that, I do think that I can, but it was kind of a mental thing. And so on Friday, when it was on Sunday, I texted a friend. I said, do you want to do this? She said, yes. And we signed up. So like no training, no, but I, I mean, I, I spent a lot of time on the trails. So anyway, I was happy with myself that I did it. And I was saying to my boyfriend, you know, like I'm just not physically brave. I said, I'm intellectually fierce, but not physically brave. And he's like, what are you talking about? He's like, you ride a bike around London, you did this, you know, half marathon, you, you know, kayak across these things and you know, what's your definition? Like, what's the threshold?

• 14:27Speaker 01

  And I think because I know all of these like incredible athletes and extreme athletes, you know, my perception of myself is not that.

• 14:34Rich Roll?

  Well, can I suggest a bit of a reframe on it?

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:38Rich Roll?

  Rather than thinking about it as something that requires you being physically brave, maybe just think about curiosity instead because you're a very curious person. So it's just a different lens for that curiosity. It doesn't necessarily require braveness.

• 14:55Rich Roll?

  But it does require inquisitiveness, like hmm, I wonder what that would be like to have that experience.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:00Rich Roll?

  Hmm, oh, I feel a little bit of fear. That's interesting. I wonder what that's about. Do I need to be afraid of this? You know? And I think that like placates a lot of that anxiety. And if you've run a half marathon, there's nothing really to fear.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Run, walk.

• 15:14Rich Roll?

  Well, fine, but that's what, I mean, look, the thing with Ricky isn't going to be a race, right?

• 15:20Speaker 01

  No, not at all. And the idea is to have that shared experience and be, as you're right, curious about it and, you know, get to pair up with different people at different points. So, yeah, it's not a race.

• 15:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cool. Well, let's talk about art. I mean, first, let's just walk through like, you've had this robust history and many different, you know, interesting positions in the art world. I mean, you're a badass in the art world now. Like, you're just, you're like, I mean, it's crazy, like, the influence that you wield in this very interesting world. But like, what got you interested in art from the beginning?

• 15:53Speaker 01

  When I was growing up, I have this story that I tell, and you never met our grandmother, our father's mother, her name was Blanche. And she decided at a young age that I would collect paperweights and that Laura would collect boxes. So every year for our birthdays, you know, instead of a dress or a doll, she would get a box and I would get these paperweights. And so, you know, that idea of being around art objects and kind of owning things and having them in your space is something that I can't ever remember not doing or having or being. And I really put it all back to her because I was the oldest grandchild.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Our grandfather didn't like to travel, and so from the time that I was about eight, she would take me with her. And she, you know, classic American story, you know, born in America, first generation. Lower East Side of New York, they're furriers. She's allergic to mink. She gets sent to an orphanage at age eight. Third grade education. And then in marrying my grandfather, who was from a wealthy Canadian family, she started buying real estate in New York. And she'd buy the apartments with everything in them. And that's how she started to collect art. And when she would run out of space, she would send things to our house. And so our house was filled with, you know, fine and decorative arts. You know, all the furniture came from my grandmother, the rugs, the paintings. And my parents were not interested in any of it.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  It was like decor. But I was interested. And I can't really remember a time that I wasn't interested in it, but I never thought I would pursue it as a career. I thought I would be, I thought I'd go to law school. And I wanted to be a judge from the time I was a kid. And I have a burning of the boats moment, like Joseph Campbell style, that I can share.

• 17:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, what is, what was that crossroads?

• 17:48Speaker 01

  So I was in my, I guess, junior year at Penn. And I had had some kind of art experiences. The summer after my freshman year, I came home, looked in the phone book, saw art galleries, called everyone, lied, said that I was an art history student, you know, looked for a job, got a job in an art gallery, did my first studio visit with an artist named Sam Francis.

• 18:15Rich Roll?

  This was in the Bay Area?

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, Palo Alto. And, you know, second generation abstract expressionist, really important artist. His kids were around, you know, my, our age. Hung out with them and went back to school. Got a work-study job at the ICA Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. Met Mary Boone, David Sally. These things that now sound like really big, important things, but they were just the path, right? Without even, with any kind of reality or cognizance around it. And then I mean, a friend of mine, a guy by the name of Jonathan Guinness, who's an architect, told me that there was this program at Christie's Auction House. He said, "You seem to like art,

• 18:57Speaker 01

  you know, like you seem to talk about it." And, and again, I wasn't aware of it. I didn't have any awareness of it. And he said, you know, "There's a program. It's four months in New York, four months in Paris, four months in London. You know, maybe you would like to do that." And I had just, again, never thought of that as a possibility. And told my parents I wanted to pursue a career in art and I wasn't going to take the LSATs, you know? And they were like, "What? Like, that's a terrible idea. No one can make money in the art world. That's not a career." But I got into the Christie's program. I took the train to New York. I did the interview. It was hard and scary and strange, but I

• 19:40Speaker 01

  guess I did a good job. And my grandmother said she would pay for me for the year. So I left for London and actually Laura came. And she was doing her, her junior year abroad. And so we lived together for a semester in London. So that predates, I guess, probably right before.

• 20:00Rich Roll?

  Right. So on some level, it's sort of the equivalent of like getting a job in the mailroom at CAA or something like that. It's like an entry level internship, but it gives you exposure to so many facets of what this world is all about.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Yes. And, you know, I've heard you say, you know, "Success looks like it happened overnight, but it's like years of like grinding through, you know, all sorts of uncomfortable situations." And I guess that's, I have the self-reflexivity at this point, you know, to be able to look back and say, "Yeah, I can draw a line through it."

• 20:34Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  You know, "But it wasn't intentional."

• 20:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah. In retrospect, it all makes sense. But of course, these are experiences collected over a long period of time. I mean, in the series of books and in your podcast, you know, how many times is it like, "We met in 1994." Like, these artists are people who you've known for a very long time, like that you sought out, that you were curious about, that you were interested in, and developed a relationship. Like, I don't know whether it was intentional or just a result of that curiosity, but it seems like you made a concerted effort to, you know, figure out how to, you know, be connected to people who you felt were on the rise or doing something interesting and worthy of note.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, so a really good friend of mine is a guy by the name of Michael Govan. He's the director of the L.A. County Museum of Art. And he loves art, and I love art.

• 21:22Rich Roll?

  I hope so.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  You know, and but not everyone necessarily in our role does, you know. So I think it's important to kind of point that out. And some people love art, but they don't love artists, you know. So I love artists, you know, Michael does too. And he shared this wisdom with me at some point. And he said, you know, it's really up to us to write our own histories and to tell our own stories. And he said, you know, like a museum director, like their history is amongst the artists that they choose to associate themselves with. And he said, so, you know, who are your people? You know, who are the people that you want to be aligned with, you know, throughout history? And so they're artists who I've known, as you said, a really long time, who I've done, like Doug Aiken.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  I met Doug, he got off the plane, flew from L.A. to New York. He was renting the studio of an artist named Lawrence Carroll, who unfortunately passed away in the last few years. Keith Edmire, another artist, and I were there. Keith was hanging sheet rock because he had rented the studio for the summer. And we were the first people that Doug met. And, you know, Doug was in the first show that I had an idea for. I pitched to Doug. And, you know, classically now, he's like, well, that's a good idea. What else do you have? And I was like, oh, my God, it took me like a year to come up with one idea. Like, what do you mean, what else do I have? But he was in the first show I curated, which was in Paris. I did a solo show with him at the Berkeley Art Museum, bought a major work of his, did a solo show at the Aspen Art Museum. He's in my book.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  And in the most recent version of this book, it's the only conversation where he's, they're not interviews, they're conversations, but he asks the questions of me. You know, we've known each other 30 years.

• 23:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the book opens with that. I mean, you have a brief foreword, and then it's that interview where he's really, you're really the focus of it. And yeah, he's like, remember when you guys talk about, like, remember when we had to schlep all the artwork to Paris? It's like back in the day. And it's like, these relationships are genuine and authentic because you were there at the inception of a lot of these people's careers that are now, you know, at the, at the kind of, you know. Sharp edge of what's interesting about the art world.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, I mean, that's true.

• 23:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So you have this Christie's experience, you work in a bunch of galleries. And then you're at the Jewish Museum after that, right? And that seems like that was kind of a tipping point for you, though, to kind of be not just one of the many people who come to New York and end up working in these galleries, but like, okay, this is, this is like a serious, potentially sustainable career path.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's interesting because once I decided I wanted to work in the art world, and you're right, like, I was there exactly when you knew me. I was kind of a gallery girl, right? And there are tons of them.

• 24:08Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  If you're pretty and young, like, you get invited to every party. And, you know, it's super easy to, like, enter the art world. People think it's hard, super easy to get in. And it's like, right place, right time, right outfit, you know, kind of thing, right?

• 24:23Rich Roll?

  But that's different from being taken seriously.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  Exactly. And so pretty quickly, I said, like, I want to earn my place here. I don't want to just be someone's guest, right? And I got involved with a emerging gallery that was called the A.C. Project Room. And an artist named Byron Kim, I've always been good at talking to artists. And he had the idea for me to do these conversations. So I've been doing these conversations with artists for a really long time. And I didn't kind of formalize them until not that long ago. But that's part of what I've done. I really love the conversation and the dialogue. And at some point, I wanted to work in a museum. Because I thought, at first, I don't want to work in a museum and I don't want to teach.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  But those were the things that I realized you could have a much broader impact. You know, having my own gallery or whatnot, which I did a little bit with my first husband. I was already just talking to people who already cared about art. I wanted to kind of proselytize, you know, about art and the role that it could have in people's lives. And moving to the Jewish Museum and doing shows there. I felt like I had to sharpen my, my skill set, you know, to convince people that didn't already, like, know and like me, that these things were important.

• 25:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah. But you had this practice pre-podcast.

• 25:41Rich Roll?

  Of seeking out artists and having a conversation with them and then either recording it or taking notes and you've saved all of that, right? Like, it's a very cool practice that reminds me of Brian Grazer, you know, the producer?

• 25:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:54Rich Roll?

  Who talks often and fondly about a similar practice where, you know, going back all the way to the beginning of his career as a young person, he would just seek out these mentors or cold call people and take them to lunch or convince them to go to lunch with him so he could learn from them. And then he would write up all these notes and he has like, you know, a library full of wisdom that he's accumulated by just, you know, pursuing that practice. And it feels like what you've done is pretty similar to that. Yes or no?

• 26:25Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. You know, it's, I've been thinking about legacy in the last few years and it started sort of going to a college reunion around when my son graduated from high school. And it was the 40th anniversary of the Aspen Art Museum and we had commissioned this essay around the museum. And it was supposed to be, I don't know, 2,000 words or something like that. And it ended up being like 15,000. And it wasn't about me, but I was like a key character in the story. And I remember reading it on the plane on the way to my college reunion and it just felt like this punctuation, you know?

• 27:09Speaker 01

  And I wasn't planning to leave the museum. I didn't have any thoughts of it. And somehow I had this really strange sensation, reading this story where it's like someone else giving me this perspective on, you know, what I had done. And you're sharing that with me just now and you're knowing me for such a long time, is this, it has a weight to it, like a veracity that...

• 27:41Speaker 01

  Maybe someone else saying it, you know, I would kind of brush off. And it's an incredible gift to have someone who knows you well, or knows you for a long time, or who pays attention to reflect back your life. It's pretty amazing.

• 28:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Thank you for that observation. I think it's well earned on your part. And in terms of legacy, like I was trying to figure out, like I sensed a little bit of emotionality around that. And I wasn't sure whether it was like healthy pride for cool things that you've done that have meaning, or whether it's that sense of like it being an epitaph, like I'm just starting, like this is the story of my life. Because if you think about legacy, all you have to do is look at the Aspen Museum of Art. I mean, that building will outlast all of our lifetimes. And it's, you know, basically a symbol of that entire city, right? So, and you made that happen, which is like unbelievable, right? Like, you must feel like amazing about that.

• 28:44Rich Roll?

  And I know it was, it's controversial in the community, but it feels like everyone's kind of come around to embracing it. But with that probably comes like, okay, well, what's next? Or do I have to top that? Or where am I going? And I remember you reaching out to me after you left Aspen. And you're like, I'm, you know, I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do next. And you had this Hy-Zee art thing. And it had to do with these conversations and how to figure out, how to create a digital platform for them. And then, Orange County called.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  Yep, that's right.

• 29:16Rich Roll?

  So Hy-Zee.art got like sidelined for a bit? Or it just got turned into podcasts in the books?

• 29:22Speaker 01

  I think both, you know? I had an idea when I left the museum. And, you know, I set out on this kind of journey, like of self-discovery, right? I literally, you know, went halfway around the world. I went to, I booked a ticket from, you know, Denver to Bangkok. And I figured I'll just figure it out once I, once I land. And it was the first time, I mean, I'm super lucky. I've traveled a ton. And it was the first time that I ever went somewhere by myself. And with no itinerary and I ended up doing a yoga retreat in Laos, which was something I had wanted to do. The idea of a yoga retreat my whole life. I basically have had kids my entire career.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  So, you know, focused on kids and career, not really on self. And then ended up going to Angkor Wat and then to a Buddhist meditation training in Thailand. And, and when I was there, you know, I had this realization, which, you know, maybe sounds trite, but I was like, everything I'm looking for, I already have. You know, it's like right here. So coming back, I was like, okay, I'm going to do these conversations. I'm going to travel around. I'm going to create this platform. And then COVID happens and, you know, it's like the music stops and you just are in whatever chair, you know, was empty, right? And we were in Scottsdale and like, no offense to anyone, but Arizona is not my place.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  And through the course of being there, it was really, really lonely, you know? And so absent of a team, because I had worked with a team for a really long time and absent of like pretty much any friends. And I just thought like, hmm, I thought I wanted to do this thing on my own, but I didn't like it. So, yes, the Orange County Museum of Art called and I said, I'm not sure, you know, what I want to do, but I was coming to Orange County for a horse show with my daughter, who's an equestrian. And I said, I'd like to go on a hard hat tour and check it out. And I, I did, and I could see what it could be. And, um, yeah.

• 31:26Rich Roll?

  So when was that? Like a year and a half ago?

• 31:29Speaker 01

  That was in July of 2020.

• 31:31Rich Roll?

  Right. And the difference between Aspen and Orange County, when you were at Aspen, you raised all this money. You commissioned the architect, Shigeru Ban, to build the building. You saw, you know, that whole process from, from origination through completion. But in Orange County, the construction of the new museum was already underway.

• 31:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:51Rich Roll?

  So Tom Main had already designed it and it, construction was happening. I'm sure it was slowed down by the pandemic, but you're kind of stepping into a situation that you're familiar with because you experienced that before, but probably not coming in with the same level of, of agency.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, really interesting process. So, and a couple of different points again that you can't make this stuff up. In 2008, when the Aspen Art Museum was looking for an architect, there were three finalists. One was Shigeru Ban, one was Tom Main, and one was a Swiss firm, Shigon and Geyer. And in 2008, the Orange County Museum of Art was also looking for an architect, and their three finalists were Tom Main, Shigeru Ban, and an Argentinian firm. So I knew about this project for a long time, and I had known Tom a little bit, you know, since then. And so I had my eye on the project. And, yeah, I mean, part of the reason I took the job is because I wanted to kind of prove to myself that I wasn't

• 32:52Speaker 01

  like a one-hit-wonder, you know, that it wasn't just like a certain place that I could do this thing. And the, I think one of the reasons I was interesting to the Orange County Museum of Art is because I had done it before. And when the project opens, I'll be the only woman in America to have done two ground-up museum projects.

• 33:13Rich Roll?

  That's pretty cool.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  So, so the project had started, the construction had started, and although there were 17 designs over 14 years, there were still opportunities for me to enhance the design and to add my experience as an operator to the design. Because Tom has designed other museums, but not other art museums. And so I was able to come in and say, hey, you know, we need to change the lighting. There, you know, people will use the building in this way. We need to make these enhancements. You know, they had pulled out the photovoltaics for, you know, value engineering. And I said, you know, I'm an environmentalist, like, we

• 33:57Speaker 01

  have to have the photovoltaics. So, so I do feel like even though I inherited the architect and I inherited the design, I did get to personalize it a little bit. I could add to it. There was something for me to do.

• 34:11Rich Roll?

  And it's on schedule for October to open?

• 34:13Speaker 01

  October 8th, 5:00 PM, 24-hour opening.

• 34:16Rich Roll?

  And it's like, it's a cra- it was like a $97 million budget or something like that, that I read? Like, this is no small project.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  Hopefully it's 94.

• 34:25Rich Roll?

  And I know, I re-listened to the podcast that you did with Lance on Lance's show, and you were talking about keeping it on schedule. Like, it just had to open at that date, and everybody was gonna say, "Well, you know, it's inclement weather, like, we're gonna need a couple more months." And you were able to, like, stick the landing and open it as promised.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  That is true. Yeah. And that was the first podcast I was ever on. And Lance is a, you know, great, longtime friend, and he was a supporter of the Aspen Art Museum. And the story that you're referencing, you know, I sat down, the head of the building committee, you know, invited me to lunch, maybe in New York, and he, you know, said, he was kind of trying to give me like a, you know, like a, I don't know if you can say, like, come to Jesus, right? He was like, "This isn't gonna happen." And I was like, "Yes, this, this has to happen."

• 35:14Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  You know, and we kind of went back and forth, and he's like, "I don't think you understand." And I was like, "No, I don't think you understand." And, um, and he was great, you know, great to work with him. And yeah, a lot of things can get done through sheer will.

• 35:27Rich Roll?

  So this one will open on time as well?

• 35:29Speaker 01

  Yes, it will.

• 35:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Another interesting, kind of weird, thread is that Tom Main was the mentor to Lorcan O'Hurley, who's the architect that we worked with on our house. So, those threads Yeah. layered even more.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  And Tom's, Tom's amazing. He's got a great story.

• 35:47Rich Roll?

  He's a visionary.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. And he, you know, he's a, he's a son of, you know, Orange County, LA, you know, born in Indiana, maybe in Indianapolis, I can't remember. But anyway, somewhere in Indiana, and moved out to California, raised by a single mom. And, um, you know, also through sheer will, has built this incredible career. And, I mean, genius. He's a genius.

• 36:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, he's responsible for kind of creating the architectural iconography of Los Angeles in many ways. Like, it all tracks back to him. So, that has to be a cool, enriching experience.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:29Rich Roll?

  Let's talk about art in general. I think art, it's like, how do we talk about art? Right? Well, this is what you do for a living. Art means many things to many people. So how do you think about what art is? Like, how do you define it for yourself?

• 36:44Speaker 01

  So, the way I define it for other people is also kind of how I define it for myself. But people often ask me that, and I have a super simple definition. What I say is that if the person who made it says it's art, then it's art. So it's all about the intention. It's about the intention of the creator. And so if you go through the galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and you see like a beautiful Islamic bowl, you know, from the 9th century.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  I love that. You know, that's part of my aesthetic. You know, is that art? Or is that artifact? Well, you know, probably it's artifact because it was used to prepare food, to present food, right?

• 37:33Speaker 01

  If it was created to be put up on a shelf, to, you know, represent something that is not utilitarian, then it's an art object. So if I take this and I move it over here and I say, "Do you like my art, Rich?" And you're like, "Uh..." You get to have an opinion and you can say like, "Yes, I think that's so amazing, the way the light hits the water." You know, or you can say like, "No, because, you know, it's only 3/4 full and I would like it if it was like 100% full." Like, you get to have an opinion about it. You get to judge it, whether it's like good or bad, or you like it or you don't. But no one gets to say that it's not art, you know, if I made it and I said it's art.

• 38:16Rich Roll?

  Intentionality is all of it, then. So anybody can say anything is art and we're not able to say, "No, it's not."

• 38:24Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 38:25Rich Roll?

  That's a pretty bold definition.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:28Rich Roll?

  That might make some people angry.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  That's okay. You know, so I did a, I did a donor trip to New York some years ago. And we went to the art, the studio of an artist named Getty Sabone. And he, he does lots of things, but at the time, he was taking carpet remnants and turning them around and hanging them on the wall, kind of like paintings, right? And a guy who was on the trip was so mad. He was like so offended by this because I was like, this is so interesting. Look at the tape mark on it and how it's been cut and, you know, how it comes off the wall. And he was like, is this Emperor's New Clothes thing? Like, are you, like, are you trying to embarrass me? Are you trying to make me feel stupid? Like, he was really angry.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  And he even insisted that we go out to dinner once we had gotten back to Aspen because he wanted to talk about it. It still bothered him like two weeks later. And I won't use his name, but I said, you know what? Maybe the fact that you're still thinking about this and still angry about it means that it's actually good.

• 39:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, who, who wins in that situation? If it's haunting him, then that obviously is an argument that it does have some level of artistic merit.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, or at least just worthy of being considered.

• 39:41Rich Roll?

  As a piece of, you know, being, being a provocateur, a provocative piece of something.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I would much rather have someone. It's not like I want to make anyone mad. That's not what I'm saying. And I want people to care about stuff, you know? I think like lack of curiosity and like apathy are what's going to kill not just individuals, but like society. So I, I think it's great, you know, for people to have a strong reaction.

• 40:09Rich Roll?

  Then like, why does art matter? Right? I'm sure you get asked these questions all the time.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  No, I'm just laughing because, you know, on my podcast, the one thing that I ask everyone is why does art matter? And I figured you knew. And I've had this kind of personal campaign since I, since I took the job in Aspen in 2005, where I wanted to kind of make the statement that by asking the question, why does art matter? It's not, does art matter? It's why does it matter? So inherent in the question is like the assertion that it does.

• 40:46Rich Roll?

  That it already does.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  Exactly. So that was, that was intentional on my part. And, you know, I think that art matters because it is.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  It's like an alternate language. It's a way of communicating things that have no other way to be told. And earlier today, I had a meeting with a journalist and she was saying that she had studied poetry. And she went to her kid's class and they were doing a poetry project and they had a similar thing, like, you know, why does poetry matter? And she said, or maybe they said like, what is poetry? And she said, poetry is extraordinary language. And I was like, that's amazing. Like, I love this idea of the extraordinary. And, you know, she was saying like metaphor and simile matter, not because we're trying

• 41:38Speaker 01

  to compare everything, but it's a way of giving us an ability to talk about things that we don't have an ability to talk about otherwise. So art, for me, communicates things that everything else fails short to do.

• 41:55Rich Roll?

  There's a difference between art and that kind of expanded concept versus the experience of art in the museum setting. Like, when we think about art, we think about paintings hanging on a wall, or we think about a statue that's in the middle of a room in a museum. And when we think about museums, and I'm as guilty of this as anybody, and I'm certainly no savvy art person, but that experience conjures for me, like, names on a wall of donors who tend to be kind of robber baron Vanderbilt-type people that you'll never meet, cryptic descriptions of the artists and the art that would confound even the

• 42:37Rich Roll?

  most earnest person who's trying to understand what this is, and kind of an environment that can be cold and intimidating and somewhat off-putting. It's like, the museum is about money, endowments, donors, prestige, power, and fancy parties.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:00Rich Roll?

  So disavow me of this idea, or help me understand how we can, because I know like at the center of everything that you do is this deep desire to democratize the art experience, to make it accessible and meaningful for everybody, because under your definition of what art is, it should be speaking to all of us. It has the power to elevate all of our life experience, but we need a better way to communicate about it and a better way to like, access it.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  I agree with that last statement a lot. And I have spent a lot of time thinking about why, you know, why do a lot of people not care about art? Because a lot of people don't care about art. And that was really, that was kind of my sabbatical project, you know, and that was part of the hizie.art platform is, you know, like, what can I do personally to take art directly to the people? How can I, how can I mainline art? And I thought that I wanted to move away from a building that can be intimidating or associative with exactly what you're talking about. So, you know, is there a more direct vehicle

• 44:11Speaker 01

  to communicate with the broadest possible audience about art? And I have been listening to the recent Brene Brown book. And one thing that was in there that really stood out for me was about this idea, and you know, you may have read it or, you know, heard it as well, which is that it was about curiosity and brain function, and how we literally cannot be curious about something that we know nothing about. You have to have some seed from which to be curious. And so if people have no knowledge of art or no access point for art, then of course, they're not going to be curious about it. And people don't care about things that they're not curious about. So how do you get over that

• 44:54Speaker 01

  hurdle, those associations of contemporary art with, you know, an Andy Warhol silk screen that just sold for $195 million to Larry Gagosian, right? Like, All these things that work against this notion of art being this system of energy, this means of communication. So, you know, we make some progress and then something like that happens, right? So there's this kind of push-pull, you know, within that. So for me, part of what I'm trying to do with the Orange County Museum of Art is to build what I'm referring to as a museum of the 21st century. And part of the way that we're doing that is through an exhibition program that has three tenants.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  One of the tenants is looking back to look forward. And so this idea of not, not thinking like you're the first person that's ever had this idea, right? Or not thinking like, you know, it's only about us and, you know, right now and what can we consume and what do we need and how are we satiated, you know? And, you know, the next tenant is about place and being really cognizant that, you know, particularly during the COVID period and after, like, you know, as I said, like, the music stopped and you were, you know, you were where you were. And so like, you know, what did you learn about like yourself absent of motion? You know, so many people spend, myself included, so much time in motion, you know, that there

• 46:22Speaker 01

  was, you know, a time that we wouldn't maybe otherwise have had to say like, well, who am I? Not just where am I? And then the third tenant, we're calling caring and sharing, you know, and it's about this idea, we want the museum to be like, you know, a Netflix series or a great restaurant or, you know, something that you say to your friend like, hey, you have to check this out. Like, let's go and do that together. I'll take you there. And so to not have the museum be like, I'm telling you what's great and what you should care about because I'm some authority figure.

• 46:55Rich Roll?

  Right. Or it feels, it feels like homework.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 46:58Rich Roll?

  As opposed to something you're excited to check out.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 47:01Rich Roll?

  So it's one thing to say that or to set out to achieve that, but like, what is the mechanism to hook people in? I mean, I know one big thing is you have a donor that's allowing you to make the museum free for the first 10 years. So you've removed that hurdle, which I think is huge. But how do you get people talking about it and excited?

• 47:25Speaker 01

  So in Aspen, we did a project called Arte en Espanol. And, you know, we really wanted to reach out to the Spanish-speaking community. And, you know, a lot of times institutions would say like, hey, you know, we have an artist from Mexico, like, you guys should come. And it's like, well, you know, why, right? So we developed this partnership with a Spanish-language radio station called La Tricolor, and at the time, the director of learning and myself, you know, spoke Spanish and, you know, went on the station and invited people to come. And so the first time, we thought, you know, maybe we'd get 15 people, and we got 50. You know, and the second time, we thought, maybe we'd get 15, and we got like 300.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  And so that, the learning from that was something that we'll put in play here, too, which is, people want to be invited, you know? Like, there aren't, like, no one wants assumptions to be made about them or their values, or, you know, what they should care about, right? People want to be seen. People want to be heard. People want to feel like you want them specifically. You know, it's like you get an invitation that's like to a whole bunch of people, and you're like, yeah, I mean, maybe I'll go. But if you get like a handwritten note, or someone comes by your house, you know, or your office, and they're like, hey, I'm doing this thing, and I'd really like you to be there, it makes a huge difference.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  So I think that's part of what we're doing, is, you know, working really hard to be aware of the, like, unassumed biases, or assumed biases, or, you know, to really be open and courageous about having conversations that are uncomfortable. And to say like, okay, maybe it was this way before, sorry, you know, like, what else can I do?

• 49:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah. One of the things that I thought was really cool about what you did in Aspen... Was the outreach to the community. I mean, Aspen's a very interesting place. We think of it as being this, you know, ski resort town that's very hoity-toity and movie stars, et cetera. But that's not the legacy or the history of that place. That's a sort of recent development. I mean, there was this counterculture hippie situation and then the vast history that preceded that. Ricky was filling me in on a bunch of this the other day. But the fact that the museum, through your leadership, was connected to like a nearby rehab facility and the work that you did with like the veterans community

• 49:55Rich Roll?

  to bring them into that art experience as a healing modality.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's super important to me, you know, and I think that the, the sort of, the highest order of living is to be of service. And so, you know, we hear about like servant leaders and, and I really put that at the forefront of, of what I do every day is, you know, like, how can I help? And so I'm an ideas generator. I'm like a visionary, right? But I also am great at executing.

• 50:25Rich Roll?

  Ever since Doug Aiken said, what, what else? You're like, I need, I need to be better about my idea generation.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  Quicker. Yeah, I got way quicker at it. But, you know, it's one thing to have an idea. It's another thing to execute. And so I've spent a lot of time thinking about, how can we help? Like, what can we do? You know, and a story that I love to tell is a collaboration that we did in Aspen. And I'm talking kind of about that now because the Orange County Museum of Art isn't open yet. So like you said, I can say things, but we have to do them. But these are things, you know, that, that were done. And, and I reached out to the, the Hope Center, which is a suicide prevention center in, in Aspen. And I, I've lost some really important people in my life to suicide. And that's one of

• 51:12Speaker 01

  the causes that I, you know, work on behalf of. And, and I said, you know, I'd like to help. Can you come to the museum and have a meeting? And let's, you know, brainstorm. So, you know, I met with the founder and the director and at first they said, "Well, you know, can you raise money for us?" And I was like, "No, I can't raise money for you." Like, maybe personally, but not as an institution. And then they said, "All right, well, can you show art that's made by, you know, our clients?" And I was like, "No, you know, we can't do that either, but tell me what you do." So, you know, people call there. If they're in immediate danger of personal harm, then 911, hospital, etc. And if people can be, like, moved to a different place psychologically, then they're given a list of safe spaces to go. And I said, "Great, can we make the

• 51:57Speaker 01

  museum a safe space?" So, we did frontline training for all of our employees so that the museum could be a safe space. And the idea is that, you know, sometimes all it takes is like one person being kind to you, to move you from like this moment to this moment, and it's in between those moments that you're at risk. So, I can't remember what the question was.

• 52:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, it was, it was really about how you leverage your position and your love of art and your belief in its ability to be this vehicle for healing or community or, you know, anything really, like, that is aspirational, right? And how you channel that into service. Like, "Okay, I'm in this privileged position. I have this job, this role, but I have the opportunity to be creative within that. And how can I give back to the community and instill in them some version of this passion that I have that is so meaningful to me personally?"

• 52:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, you know, museums, you know, so I'm back in the museum space, I'm back in a building, and there are certain constraints around that, you know, but on, in other ways, it's also incredibly expansive. You know, it's associative. People know that's a place for art. Museums are places that are often quiet, you know?

• 53:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  And so, it's great for people with autism, you know? Like, it's reduced stimulation of, you know, sound and light, because everything's super controlled, right? So, there are things that we're in a really great position to be of, of help with.

• 53:26Rich Roll?

  Hmm. When you think about education and the way that kids are, are taught art, like, what is your, what are your thoughts on that?

• 53:34Speaker 01

  So I had, you know, we learn from things that are positive and negative, right? So I remember being at the Rothko Chapel in Houston once, and that's one of my like favorite places. Like it's a go to place for me. And there was a group of kids, they were coming from school, they were dressed in their school uniforms. And their teacher said, okay, go in, keep moving, don't touch anything, don't stop. Walk to the end, take a left, walk to the end, take a left, come back out. And I was like, oh, my God, like this is this incredible place of contemplation and quiet and solitude and like, you know, magnitude and humanity. And here they're being told like, you don't belong, right?

• 54:18Speaker 01

  Like, don't do all these things. I'm going to assume that you're going to do everything negative instead of like, hey, go inside. You know, tell me what, which one is your favorite when you come out? Like, what do you think of? You know, like, keep your voice quiet so other people can have contemplation. There are ways to say the same thing, you know, differently. So I don't know what kids are being taught about art now. Uh, you know, my kids went to Aspen Country Day School at first and, you know, they're three years apart in terms of grades and they had the same assigned art project. Like it didn't evolve.

• 54:53Rich Roll?

  Didn't evolve at all.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  No, and it didn't evolve any kind of creativity for sure.

• 54:57Rich Roll?

  Draw within the lines and if you do anything creative, that's, that's no bueno. Like it's really a creativity killer, which is the opposite of the whole intention behind it.

• 55:05Speaker 01

  For sure. And I remember one of my kids actually got in trouble because they didn't follow the assignment. And I was like, but art is not about an assignment. What do you mean? Like, I would think you would get an A if you don't follow the assignment.

• 55:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's so interesting, isn't it?

• 55:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:21Rich Roll?

  How do you think about the role of art in this area of offense? Like, we're very hypersensitized right now and we're going through, you know, a lot of cultural shifts at the moment, for better or worse, like, you know, this is part of what moves us forward as a culture. Um, but there does seem to be trepidation around saying the wrong thing. And how does that fit with art, which is about being provocative or pushing the envelope or making people uncomfortable?

• 55:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, I like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, you know, and that's how I like to just approach my life, you know, and like, yeah. Sometimes people say things that are triggering or offensive or, you know, and I like to believe that, you know, everyone does the best they can with the information that they have at the time.

• 56:17Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  And, um, and sure, like, I'm gonna say things wrong sometimes, and other people are gonna say the wrong thing sometimes. And, you know, to come at things with, again, this kind of grace for people, you know, and a belief in, like, the inherent, you know, goodness, um, I think is how, you know, I try and approach art, too. And I think, you know, I've been in situations where I'll say like, you know, "I'm not really sure if I can say this," or, you know, like, "Is this okay?" And that kind of humility, you know, to be open in that way, you know, um, with that kind of grace and dignity for whomever you're talking to or about, um, I think that's the only answer I can give.

• 57:01Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. And what about the role of the artist themselves, though? Because they play a role in how we think about what's happening around us, how we contextualize and make sense of, you know, confusing things about our world and what it means to be human. And in a confusing time, I suppose you can make the argument that the artist plays a role in trying to create clarity.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  I hope so, you know, but clarity for who, right?

• 57:29Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 57:29Speaker 01

  So, I mean-

• 57:30Rich Roll?

  Well, usually through their personal experience.

• 57:32Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 57:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so there's an amazing Barbara Kruger show up right now in L.A. And, um, you know, she's interested in the dynamics of power, right? And that's something that I'm interested in, and that I've changed my perspective on, you know, certainly as I've grown up. Um, and, you know, what is the responsibility of power and who has it? And, um, yeah, I think art can shed the light on that. You know, I'm less interested in art that is didactic, just like I'm less interested in people who are, you know, prescriptive or didactic. You know, I'm interested in openness and expansiveness, and, um, and I'm more interested in questions than I am in answers.

• 58:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Kruger's interesting because she's been doing this for a very long time and has been very consistent in her messaging, and yet- Has there been a time where her message could be more resonant than it is now? Like, I just saw that when I went down to see Ricky, there's a huge, the side of the Mocha is like painted in a giant billboard, like the whole side of the building is painted with one of her pieces.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:40Rich Roll?

  So it's cool.

• 58:41Speaker 01

  We have to keep learning the same things over and over again.

• 58:44Rich Roll?

  I know, right?

• 58:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, not just personally, but also as a society.

• 58:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 58:49Speaker 01

  You know, and it's like, that can be depressing, or it can just be a truth, you know? And I said to my son the other day, you know, I mean, I don't think life is like really circular anymore. I'm thinking about it like as a corkscrew, you know? So it's like, yes, you keep coming back around, one keeps coming back around, and hopefully you're in a slightly elevated place, you know, to experience the same thing. So you're not the same as you experience the same thing.

• 59:18Rich Roll?

  That's almost like a weird, like, kind of inception way of thinking, like a metaverse, sort of parallel universes way of thinking about life and sliding doors.

• 59:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I mean, I catch myself in some of the same situations, and it's like the knowledge I've accumulated allows me to make different decisions.

• 59:42Rich Roll?

  Meditation has played a big role in this.

• 59:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 59:46Rich Roll?

  You've been, you're on like a tear. How many days without missing a day? It's like 1,300 days or some crazy number like that of consistently meditating? So what has been your experience of being so consistent with that practice?

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  I'm a totally different person. I'm like certain that my brain has been like rewired, like the space between stimulus and response, right? It's much longer. So not every single time, you know, there are moments when I still react, and most of the time, I respond, and that's because of meditation.

• 1:00:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Anything else?

• 1:00:27Speaker 01

  You know, I'm a super ritualistic person. I do the same things, same five things every day, and I eat the same stuff. And, and, um, and actually, I apparently I need a little more variety.

• 1:00:40Rich Roll?

  I don't know if it's working for you.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  I know. I'm going back and forth about it, you know, like, my naturopath said I need more variety, but my homeopath said, like, it's good, you know. So I don't know. Who do you listen to? I mean, I guess you listen to yourself. But I, um, I'm doing this. I like, um, I like to do things that are hard, right? You know, we talked about Ricky's project. And so one of the things I'm doing in 2022 is, is 365 days of yoga. And so it's, I'm less about like, how long I meditate, or, you know, how long I do yoga for, or whatever, but it's about the consistency. So I do these same things every day. And

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  somehow, there's a lot of comfort for me in knowing, like, these are just my things.

• 1:01:29Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. It's interesting, in your conversations with artists, that ritual comes up, like, you ask people about their habits. And I'm just remembering your conversation with, um, Tom Sacks, and he's sharing his morning routine. And that really, like, hit me hard. Do you remember what he said?

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  You know, I don't. I remember what he said about, like, how he knows what kind of artist someone is based on what they're wearing.

• 1:01:56Rich Roll?

  Oh, yeah. That's a very Werner Herzog thing. Or he's like, he gives, he gives them a broom and says, sweep the floor. And he watches how they sweep the floor. And then he knows whether they're gonna be a fit.

• 1:02:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. But I don't remember what he said. I think something about his coffee.

• 1:02:09Rich Roll?

  So, well, he was talking about how we need to be very mindful of not squandering those morning hours, because sleep is this precious thing where your unconscious mind is coming up with all of these ideas and like, processing all of this information. And when you first wake up in the morning, it's, it's accessible and present. And to do anything but respect that and channel it into something creative, is to kind of waste that gift that you get every single day. And so he had a couple sayings, one of which was, like, don't read the newspaper until your hand has touched clay, or something, you know, which can be a metaphor for many things, obviously. But to treat those morning hours as something very special and sacred.

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. Thank you for that. I do remember that now. And I think a lot about that, too. And that's a big part of why I have this morning ritual. Because I do believe that, and it's not just me. I mean, a lot of people think this and have said this. But the way that you start your day sets the tone for your whole day. And if you populate your mind with other people's thoughts or problems, or whatever, it changes your emotion. And so I love the morning. And that's my most creative time, most productive time. And it, yeah, it sets my tone for the day.

• 1:03:37Speaker 01

  And any day that I even don't meditate until later in the day, it just doesn't go as well.

• 1:03:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you gotta do it first thing, right? Among all of these many, many conversations that you've had with artists for many years, obviously, there's going to be recurring themes or things that connect all of these people in some sort of unified theory. So what is that for you? Like, what do you glean from speaking to all of these highly creative people that would be meaningful for somebody who's listening to this, who maybe doesn't feel that connected to art or the creative process?

• 1:04:18Speaker 01

  I think one of the things that comes up a lot, and people use different terms for it, but it's the same thing. And it's about the flow state. And what do you do in your life that allows you to forget everything else? And when do you most feel like yourself? And it's when you're not aware of what's happening. And so I had a friend of mine, who is the CEO of the Aspen Skiing Company on the podcast, and he finds it on the mountain. He finds it in skiing, right? And so everyone does something when they feel that in the day. Some people, it's washing the dishes.

• 1:05:03Speaker 01

  It's like the warm water on your hands. Some people, it's running.

• 1:05:10Speaker 01

  You know, walking the dog or, you know, for most people, it is like somehow being in motion and/or being removed from your devices, you know, so for me, it's also in the shower, you know, and I think that in that space, like that's where art happens and it's like the art of life as well, you know, that's when you solve a problem that, you know, has been plaguing you, even, you know, whatever it is, you know, it might be something that's technical or mechanical, or it might be something that's, you know, conceptual or emotional, but being able to tap into that space, this is something that everyone talks about.

• 1:05:49Rich Roll?

  That's the mystical side of it, but I think there's also a very practical side of it. I had Van Nistat in here who worked with Tom Sacks, back to Tom Sacks, worked with Tom for a long time, and that episode was great because he's like, disabuses you of any idea that, you know, the artist is walking around just having lightning bolt moments constantly and just, you know, sort of expressing, you know, without any kind of toil or turmoil, and that in truth, it's the result of a very diligent commitment to a practice that is organized and well thought out and often extremely difficult and time consuming.

• 1:06:27Speaker 01

  All those things are true, and what I would add to that as well is that it's often lonely, you know, and I think that loneliness is something that people don't talk about a lot, and I think that it is like a super broad societal problem, you know, and there's a benefit to loneliness or alone time, and it's not, they're not necessarily the same, you know, you can be alone and not lonely, and I think loneliness is more prevalent than people allow because it seems like, you know, like maudlin or, you know, like self, you know, negative in some way, you know, but that idea of...

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  Being alone and/or being lonely is necessary for creativity as well, and that's something that comes up too.

• 1:07:20Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, that plays into a bit of a stereotype that to be a brilliant, successful artist, you must be tortured and alone and isolated and self-flagellating and all of these things. But you know lots of artists, like can you draw a conclusion about the general disposition of the artist? Or do they just come in all shapes and sizes?

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  Artists are people, you know, and all those adjectives that you just used, like they can all be teased out, you know? So it's like, you can be, you know, heady and contemplative without being tortured, right? You can be, you know, tortured but still like into it, you know, like maybe that's not negative, right? So, I mean, I, I think that, you know, artists are people who make things for other people, you know, and this idea of like the mythology of any kind of like group is almost always wrong.

• 1:08:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that idea of artists make things for other people is, is an interesting one, and I feel like very dynamic. In our age, we were talking about Daniel Arsham before the podcast and how his work is one of constant collaboration with like corporate partners, some of which are super cool, like, oh, Adidas and stuff, and some, and like, some that are like, really? You're gonna work with that brand? But in so doing, he's able to create these sort of iconic works that live outside of the museum space and, and kind of penetrate culture in a really interesting way. It feels like that kind of sensibility maybe began with somebody like Warhol, but, and he's carrying on that tradition. But now in this hyper corporatized

• 1:09:09Rich Roll?

  social media world, us being Gen Xers and having hangups about selling out is like, not a thing anymore. You know, it's like, oh, cool, you're working with that brand? Or you're taking money from these people to make? That thing, we have a very different relationship to than when we were in our twenties.

• 1:09:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I spend a lot of time thinking about two things. One, I really try and ask myself, like, what would I love? You know, and it goes back to the story that I told at the beginning about Gary, you know, my stepfather. And, you know, not what would I like, you know, not like, who do I love? You know, but like, what would I love? You know, that allowance of the thing that would be, you know, the greatest, highest, best use, etc., you know? And then, the other thing I think a lot about is, why does it matter? You know, or what matters most, or who cares? You know, it's kind of like the same question. And being able to answer that. And, one of the things that that matters a lot to me is amplification.

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  You know, it's like, if you're gonna do something, like, you gotta make it worth doing. And part of that is about its impact. And so, you know, brand collaborations, or things that, yeah, previously, maybe, I would've said, like, well, I wouldn't do that, or like, you know, no way. I'm like, okay, that's a vehicle. You know, so, like Malcolm McLaren, like, you know, what's the message? What's the medium? Right? And, and being okay about that.

• 1:10:37Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  And actually being grateful for it.

• 1:10:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, when you, I'm just remembering, like, around the time when we were living in New York, everywhere you would go, you would see Revs painted on the side of buildings, or you would see Andre the Giant. And you'd be like, why is Andre the Giant everywhere? But there's something cool and provocative about that. There's a mystery. Like, what is behind this? Like, why are there pictures of this person all over the city? And, who's doing this? That I think is really interesting, in that sensibility, like, the urban landscape is the museum. And I think that's why street art is so kind of compelling and interesting, because it is solving that accessibility problem, and it is obviously democratizing the experience of art.

• 1:11:22Rich Roll?

  And it feels like it's this merging of, kind of, culture with art in the most seamless way possible, right?

• 1:11:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:30Rich Roll?

  So how do you take the best of what that is, with you being somebody who's in charge of, like, a building, you know, and encapsulate that in a way that is meaningful for somebody who's coming in?

• 1:11:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, and what I would also share in response to that is like Claude Monet's Waterlilies, right? I mean, I had a time like in my twenties where I'm like, oh, God, you know, if it's on a dish towel, like, I'm never looking at that art again, right? And then going and on Neoshima Island, seeing these, you know, incredible Claude Monet Waterlilies with natural light and remembering like, oh, the reason that this like Jump the Shark, you know, and became part of popular culture is because it's amazing, you know, because it's beautiful. And I like things that are beautiful.

• 1:12:28Rich Roll?

  I wanted to read from your book you had mentioned earlier about the idea of what would you love? And you say in the latest book, in this volume, "So what if we ask ourselves in every moment of every hour of every day for the rest of our lives, what would I love? What if we allow ourselves the incredible gift of connecting with our truest and deepest desires? What if we believe we are not just able or entitled to do so, but that we also know that by granting ourselves this gift of connection, we make the world better, better for ourselves, our partners, our children, the planet? What if the space of art encourages and reinforces this notion?

• 1:13:11Rich Roll?

  What if the artist, by living fully and outwardly and inspiringly and generously, shares this notion as a woman, a mother, a partner, a yogi, a generator, a friend, a community member? What if paintings and sculptures and installations can become incantations, prayers, experiences? What if all the things are not just what they are, but also more? What if the entire universe can be not only captured, but also encompassed both in the work of art and in the experience of it? This is not just what I believe, but also what I know. This is how I am inspired. This is how I practice. This is how I learn. This is how I love. This is how I am.

• 1:13:56Rich Roll?

  Amen." So it is a prayer in and of itself. It's beautiful.

• 1:14:01Speaker 01

  Hmm, I haven't had, I haven't had that read to me.

• 1:14:05Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:14:06Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:14:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:07Speaker 01

  It's.

• 1:14:08Rich Roll?

  So how did that, how did you come to that approach to how you think about art?

• 1:14:14Speaker 01

  You know, in listening to you read that, I'm like, how audacious of me to say that.

• 1:14:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but you're entitled to own that, you know?

• 1:14:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. How did I get there? You know, there are so many answers that I could give. And it's sort of like the question of, you know, how did I find my way to art? And I, I, I trace kind of, I don't know if it's Heidi 2.0 or 3.0 or 6.0 or whatever it is, but whoever I am, like right now, I trace a lot of it back to the opportunity to meet this guy, Rand Stegan, who has something called the Stegan Institute in Dallas. And, and his introduction of me to Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey.

• 1:15:10Speaker 01

  And giving me a framework for understanding my life up until that moment. And then marking that time with a, a public talk, you know, for 300 people, all YPOers. And then having him, you know, hug me at the end of it and say, you know, you just made a declaration in front of your community. And I'm so excited to see what happens. And I was like, what's a declaration? You know, like, what do you mean? And it's a big part of, of that. You know, this idea that there is some kind of system or structure by which to quantify and, and allow things that.

• 1:15:55Speaker 01

  At the time seemed like terrible, you know, or difficult, or awful, or embarrassing, or shameful. And to see them within this space of gratitude, you know, for every single thing that's happened.

• 1:16:11Rich Roll?

  Right, because they all hold meaning that led you to this place, right?

• 1:16:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know, for me, art is my, my north star. You know, I love nature and that is a place of like centering and grounding for me, you know, and like the consistent thing through my life for inspiration and, you know, joy and company is art.

• 1:16:40Rich Roll?

  You obviously have a really good radar for

• 1:16:45Rich Roll?

  people who are doing something interesting and seeking out these artists. So, you know, what is that? Like, what are you looking for? Or what is it that triggers in you like, oh, that person's interesting? I want to know more about who they are.

• 1:16:57Speaker 01

  It's often something that I don't understand. And we had an interesting conversation. So, we spent Thanksgiving in Copenhagen with Laura and, and her husband and kids. And we had a conversation around the table around, you know, how we grew up. And our, our father was an inventor, you know, 47 patents. And he would talk at dinner about these really complicated things that no one understood. And instead of feeling uncomfortable, so we were both talking about like, how did that inform us? And, you know, Laura had informed her to like be in, you know, an inventor, a creator, that like a kind of intergenerational gift that way.

• 1:17:41Speaker 01

  For me, it manifested as being like comfortable being, like not understanding things. Like, so I don't feel threatened by things that I don't understand. I'm like curious about it, or I'm like, okay, you get that, and I love that you're passionate about that. Like, that's not my thing, but like, that's cool, right? So. What I'm often drawn to in an artist, like that thing, is something I don't understand. And it's not to say I understand a ton of things, you know, but I understand a lot of things. And so when something happens that I don't quite get, you know, that's what draws me in. Like whether it's the intention, well, like, why, like, why did you do that? Or why does that matter to you?

• 1:18:24Speaker 01

  Or, or like, why are you thinking that? Somewhere in those two spaces, that that's what I'm looking for.

• 1:18:31Rich Roll?

  Interesting. What do you think about, like, so who's who's interesting to you right now? Like, who's excited? Like, I'm not going to ask you who your favorite artist is, but I will ask you, like, who's top of mind at the moment? Who you think you're like, wow, that person's doing something next level? Or like, that is really cool.

• 1:18:50Speaker 01

  So there are so many artists, right? And we can only show a super small number, right? So for us to give that kind of time and space and, you know, to spend those funds, you know, it has to be someone who, you know, hits those three tenants, you know? And sometimes it's someone that, you know, I've known for a long time, but haven't had the chance to work with yet. And sometimes it's because I want to know more about someone and, you know, spending more time with them. And so there's an artist named Jennifer Goodie, who I really like. And she's in one of the books.

• 1:19:33Speaker 01

  And, and I, I like her ritual. You know, I like her approach to making art. I like that she's creating these kind of contemporary mandalas, these objects for generating energy and sharing.

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  Like that energy and it's, you know, it's painting and it's made with sand and you know, so it's not necessarily like a medium that I've never thought of before. I just returned from Marfa, Texas and spent some time with Leo Villarreal. He's an artist I've known a really long time and he just made these NFTs and I've been like, oh, NFTs, you know, like we're talking about them on the podcast and whatever, because like you have to, because a big part of what I do is, is cultural consciousness, because artists are like, they're sponges and they're reflectors, right? Like, and that's what I am too, like simultaneously pull things in, reflect things back, right? And he has this great project called Cosmic Reef and he explained it. I took a bunch of Orange County Museum of Art

• 1:20:40Speaker 01

  donors and, you know, he explained it in a way that made so much sense to everyone. And you know what? They're beautiful. Like, they're really beautiful.

• 1:20:49Rich Roll?

  And they're NFTs? Yeah. So there were two things that I wrote down on like my outline that I wanted to talk to you about. One is Marfa. I want to understand, I've never been to Marfa, but like, I know Marfa's a big deal. I want to understand why. And then the NFT thing. So we'll, we'll put that aside for, for the moment. Like, walk me through the whole Marfa thing.

• 1:21:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the Marfa thing is fascinating for a lot of reasons that I'll put in kind of a context. So this is my second visit and I saw some things for the second time on this trip and some of them I remembered in a way that was true and some of the things I remembered differently than, than they were true. So there are a lot of spaces that can be productive for art and sometimes art and artists go into places that other people don't want to be because it's cheaper, it's far away, for whatever reason, right? So Marfa is

• 1:21:54Speaker 01

  Literally in the middle of nowhere. It's like not just far west Texas. It's like far, far west Texas. It's a, it's a solid. The first time I went there, to be super transparent, we flew privately from Aspen and I was like, oh, it's not far. You know, it's like so convenient, right?

• 1:22:10Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:22:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:22:11Rich Roll?

  But for people that don't know, it's like, it is, it's this place in the middle of nowhere and there's a bunch, there's a couple of buildings. It's not much, right? And there, everybody knows the Prada store that ends up on Instagram.

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  Prada Marfa. Yeah. So, um, so there are two ways to get to Marfa. Driving. Okay? Um, you can fly in privately, um, but it's an airstrip and it's like the length of this table. Okay? So you can fly to El Paso and it's a solid four hour drive going 90 or 100 miles an hour. Okay? So it's not close to El Paso, but that's the closest hospital. Okay? It's also a, you know, two hour and 45 minute drive from Midland, Texas. Okay? That's where I went. And the drive from Midland, Texas is through, I mean, oil fields and trailers. And, you know, I mean, like, it's a part of America that, you know, I haven't seen much of. Um, and, you know, you're driving along the border if you're coming from El Paso and

• 1:23:05Speaker 01

  they're like the big blimps that are looking, you know, for people that are trying to cross the border. I mean, it's like harsh. Um, it's at 5,000 feet in elevation. Um, so, you know, it's, there's the altitude issue. Um, and Donald Judd, um, who's really the father of minimal art, um, was looking for a place to live and work. And he had tried a lot of other places, including Santa Fe and some places in Colorado. And he had seen Marfa, um, while he was in the military, while he was on a train that went through town. And these long boxcar trains still go through town, you know, every couple of hours. So,

• 1:23:45Speaker 01

  you know, 200 cars, you know, the train engine, um, west Texas light at altitude. So it looks different. Um, the light at altitude is different. So he bought up a bunch of military, former military barracks, um, places that German prisoners had been held. And then he invited some of his friends to do site-specific art there. So Donald Judd, um, Dan Flavin, who's the artist that makes the, um, the work with, um, fluorescent bulbs, John Chamberlain, who's the artist who makes the, um, compressed car sculptures. None of them are with us on the planet anymore. And because it's a mecca, you know, younger artists have moved there.

• 1:24:28Speaker 01

  And we're not even necessarily, I mean, they're younger artists, older artists. We went to Christopher Wool's studio. The head of the Chinati Foundation, which is where the Donald Judds are and the Chamberlins and the Flavins and the Robert Irwin. She said, "You can find a Donald Judd behind every doorway here, but good luck finding a sandwich on a Monday." Fourteen hundred people live there. It's the poorest county in Texas, and it's just a place with a lot of dichotomies. And that's part of what makes it interesting. The light is beautiful, it's quiet, it's far from other places, and it's, you know, worth going to.

• 1:25:08Speaker 01

  The Prada-Marfa that you're talking about was commissioned by the Art Production Fund and by the Ballroom Marfa, and it's two artists, Elm Green and Dragstedt, and it was their idea. And they actually were going to do Prada Vegas. And then Yvonne Force, who's one of the founders of the Art Production Fund, said, "No, no, I have a better idea." You know, Prada-Marfa. And it's been shot at, it's been, you know, the door was pulled off, people stole the shoes and the bags. And I don't know, some people love it now. There's, they put up a fence around the back of it, and people have put locks on it, like, you know, one of the Paris bridges or... But it's, it's an unusual place.

• 1:25:53Speaker 01

  So, yeah, it was a cattle town. And now it's, I don't know if I would call it an art mecca, but it's definitely a place that draws the art world.

• 1:26:03Rich Roll?

  And it's a functioning art commune, where working artists are actually living there.

• 1:26:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a little aggrandized, you know, to what it is. It's a place where artists have found, you know, some like-minded people and have now driven up the cost of houses, because people went on Zillow to check when we were there. But I think it's, it's pretty lonely and pretty isolated. And there's a little bit of a battle for the town, the soul of the town, I think, that's going on.

• 1:26:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's fascinating. There's something about it that is very resonant, though. There's lots of, you know, kind of artist communities around the world, but there's something about Marfa that, that really draws a lot of people in. And in a kind of special intangible way.

• 1:26:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think anything that's hard to do makes something more interesting. You know, so I mean, I think.

• 1:27:01Rich Roll?

  It weeds out the the looky-loos, right? Because it's so difficult to get there.

• 1:27:04Speaker 01

  Yep, and I, you know, I talked to the the people that I brought with me and I said, you guys are art pilgrims, you know, you don't need me to take you to Miami, you know, I'll take you to Inhochin, you know, in Brazil, or I'll I'll take you to Marfa, Texas.

• 1:27:21Rich Roll?

  Let's talk about the NFT thing. So in addition to being kind of in the era of offense, we're also in the in the era of like content and the era of like ephemera. There's so much coming at us.

• 1:27:33Rich Roll?

  You said art is about intent, but if everybody's putting all this stuff out into the world on some, you know, somewhere on the spectrum of this is art or this is just me sharing, like, A, how do you make sense of all of that? I mean, who is to say like TikTok isn't art? I don't know, like, maybe you have a grip on that. But that begs the whole NFT thing now. So it's a very strange time where I feel like art is at this pivotal moment and at the center of the conversation about what the evolution of the Internet is going to look like and how we make sense of it. And so it sounds like from what the way you described it, like you're kind of like, I don't know about all this, but you're slowly being lured in or converted to this

• 1:28:18Rich Roll?

  idea that real art can exist on that plane?

• 1:28:24Rich Roll?

  I mean, there's a difference between, I suppose, like what Beeple's doing, like grabbing headlines for commanding these massive auctions or the Bored Ape Yacht Club versus, you know, a bazillion JPGs on OpenSea. So like, how do we make sense of all of that?

• 1:28:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, so. When people are trying to understand something, they often conflate things, right? And so you'll hear people talk about like why NFTs matter because they'll say like, "Well, you know, an artist makes something and then it goes out in the world and then it resells and they don't get anything for it and this solves that problem." And I'm like, "Well..."

• 1:29:01Rich Roll?

  That has nothing to do with the art, though.

• 1:29:02Speaker 01

  At all. And that's like the blockchain, right?

• 1:29:05Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:29:05Speaker 01

  And that's about...

• 1:29:06Rich Roll?

  Which is cool.

• 1:29:07Speaker 01

  Which is super cool.

• 1:29:07Rich Roll?

  And very empowering for artists out there.

• 1:29:09Speaker 01

  Totally. I'm all for that, you know? But then it gets back to the McLaurin thing, right? Like the medium or the message. So you have to separate the technology out from the content. So the technology is cool, you know, for that purpose, right? Now, when something's new and then there's, you know, a huge amount of money being associated with it, then you have, it was like internet stocks in, you know, like the, you know, early 2000s, right? Or, you know, you have people that just seize the opportunity and, you know, someone's like, "Well, I'll make my own NFT and I'll put it out there."

• 1:29:51Speaker 01

  So a lot of the NFTs, particularly early on, it really wasn't about the NFT. It was really about crypto and a way of like validating crypto and turning something that, you know, seemingly had value but like didn't have any practical application into something, right? So that was like the primary driver, in my opinion. The art has been secondary. I think it's only recently that people are trying to make things that are art instead of what they said. I don't know, I want to be clear about it. When I explained to you about my definition of art, very quickly I said, "You get to have an opinion about whether it's good or it's not," right?

• 1:30:36Rich Roll?

  You can't say it's not art, but it doesn't have to be good art.

• 1:30:39Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. And so separating out like, and aesthetics are a thing, you know? I mean, they just are and people don't have the same interest in them. And, you know, I'm curious about, you know, when and how often people will use a technology to do something that can only exist on that technology instead of being able to exist in another form.

• 1:31:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, there's something very interesting about the technology, but we're so early in this process that it's hard to make sense of what should legitimately, you know, command our attention versus what's a bunch of bullshit. I just see like a lot of nonsense and I see a lot of people losing money because they're getting caught up in something without fully understanding it. And now we're in the middle of this crypto crash. You know, I think that's gonna sort out a lot of this problem and have people thinking differently about this. But it's interesting to see so many things in flux as a result of it. But I guess if there is, you know, something interesting about it or worth saying about it, it's that people are talking about art in a way that maybe

• 1:31:57Rich Roll?

  they weren't before all of this.

• 1:31:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, art has always been, it's always had its place in popular culture. And often it's about art and money. You know, it's about like the Leonardo da Vinci that's sold for X number of amount.

• 1:32:10Rich Roll?

  500 or some crazy thing, a million dollars.

• 1:32:13Speaker 01

  Yep. And so that's often what it is. I think that in general, having people talk about art is better than not having people talk about art. And I think anything that people are trying to learn about and expand their mind around is good, you know. So for me, I, I'm interested, as I said, in, in culture, right? And so I'm interested in, you know, I've had a Coinbase account, you know, a long time because I wanted to see what it was like to buy Bitcoin, you know. I have a wallet. I uploaded my first NFT. I learned about gas fees, you know, I kept going back and checking, you know, I was

• 1:32:57Speaker 01

  like, I'm not paying $400 for something that's free, you know. And then I'm like, well, who's getting that money? And what does that mean? And what does mining mean? So I like learning things. And so that's where I am on this. You know, I'm curious about it. I'm not invested.

• 1:33:14Rich Roll?

  But that has nothing to do with art.

• 1:33:16Speaker 01

  It has nothing to do with art.

• 1:33:18Rich Roll?

  I think at some point, an artist will do something really interesting with this. I just don't know that I've seen that yet.

• 1:33:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know, I mean, I remember when there was, what were they calling it? Like, it was basically like computer art, you know, which was in the, in the early aughts. And it was like, okay, the next thing is going to be this, you know, computer art. I just can't remember what it's called. I mean, because it's gone, right? So every 10 years, every 20 years, you know, once a generation or whatever, like this new thing comes on. And, you know, something stays, but very little, you know?

• 1:33:54Rich Roll?

  Well, now it's about AI creating original pieces of art.

• 1:33:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's not gonna happen.

• 1:34:00Rich Roll?

  Is that art? What if the AI intends it to be art, is saying, this is my art?

• 1:34:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the AI...

• 1:34:08Rich Roll?

  If you can infer consciousness in that AI, would that make a difference?

• 1:34:13Speaker 01

  Yes, it would, but, but I can't, and I don't.

• 1:34:17Rich Roll?

  We're not there yet.

• 1:34:18Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:34:19Rich Roll?

  We're not there yet.

• 1:34:21Rich Roll?

  I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about leadership. I mean, you're somebody who knows how to raise a tremendous amount of money. You're somebody, you talked earlier about execution, like you know, follow through. You know how to execute on these ambitious goals, get these buildings built, you know, instill these programs that then, you know, are impacting lots and lots of people. You know how to lead teams. Like, I don't know that I would think of you as like a business person, but ostensibly you are, right? So what have you learned about business and leadership? And, you know, basically making good on these goals and promises that you make?

• 1:34:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I've, I've been a CEO for like 15 years, you know? And, and that was a, that was a learning for me also, is that, you know, I realized I'm, I'm super entrepreneurial, I have a super high tolerance for risk. I run all of these kind of micro businesses within this large umbrella. And...

• 1:35:18Speaker 01

  And I have a clear leadership style. I have a clear, you know, area of expertise, you know, like my thing, right? Like trend identification and brand building for goods and services aimed at high net worth individuals. Like, that's what I do. That's like my pitch. I know.

• 1:35:35Rich Roll?

  I don't even know what you just said.

• 1:35:36Speaker 01

  You can unpack that if you want. You know, so I'm really good at finding talent, right? That's why I'm good at picking artists. So I'm also really great at building a team. And the way that I lead-

• 1:35:48Rich Roll?

  But you could have been an agent for artists with that talent.

• 1:35:56Speaker 01

  I don't think so. So what I don't do really is, I don't know, it's interesting. I was gonna say like, like I don't sell things, which I don't, but I do. Like I sell ideas, you know, I sell concepts, I sell, I sell meaning, you know, I sell experiences.

• 1:36:19Rich Roll?

  And when you're raising money, you have to sell these people on an idea or that their money will be funneled into something meaningful for them and for the world.

• 1:36:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:36:30Rich Roll?

  Like you're in marketing.

• 1:36:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, part of it, yeah. I'm in a bunch of different things, you know. I'm also in product development, you know. I'm also in, yeah, learning systems.

• 1:36:42Rich Roll?

  Construction.

• 1:36:43Speaker 01

  I'm also in construction and development, you know. And, yeah, I'm also in, you know, retail. So food service, you know, all these different things. That's what's so interesting about a museum is that it's, it is a non-for-profit, but it's a business. And with all of these different, all of these different verticals. So what I am really good at is finding the right people and, and giving the sort of 30,000-foot view and then letting people execute. So it's sort of like a constellation of a lot of different planets, you know, coming together under the same umbrella.

• 1:37:21Rich Roll?

  And what are the lessons that you've learned about how to lead teams of people or empower the people that are, you know, working below you and in cooperation with you?

• 1:37:32Speaker 01

  Authentic leadership, for sure. You know, telling people the why. You know, everyone wants to know the why. And so, all these different things that I do, they all intersect with each other. So, it's like, I want to know the intentions of the artist. I want people to know what my intention is. Like, why am I asking you to do this? Another thing is like, everything matters. Like, literally, everything matters. You know? And there are these, not everything matters the same, right? You know, so like, 20% of the things matter. You know, like 100% and 80% of the things matter. You know, like 20%. And, you know, I mean, that doesn't add up. But it kind of does.

• 1:38:14Speaker 01

  So, that, the other thing I've learned is like, you gotta be courageous and have the difficult conversations. And that's what I mean when I say like, everything matters. Like, you can't let one thing go. And one of the things that I say a lot is that, you know, like, I'm not a lawyer. Like, I'm not an accountant. I don't have any special skills. You know, all that I have really is my integrity. And, you know, that's what I have to defend, you know, at all costs. And so, I wake up most days and people want me to do something or say something, you know, and it's often not in alignment with, you know, what I know is right.

• 1:38:58Speaker 01

  And so, you know, not flinching from having those difficult conversations and doing it diplomatically, of course. Allowing other people to have wins, you know, not needing to be right. Those are some of the things.

• 1:39:14Rich Roll?

  I would imagine all of those skills are enhanced by meditation, right? Finding that moment of pause where you can process how to best respond versus react, how to be tactful in your communication, all of those things. Do you have a sense of what your leadership was like prior to meditation versus now?

• 1:39:35Speaker 01

  Yes, I was a yeller.

• 1:39:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:41Speaker 01

  You know, and that's, you know, I had a, I had these charms made and I wore them around my neck and one was like a two stick figures, like a boy and a girl and had the initials of my kids, E and O. And then I had another one made and it said, be graceful, yelling doesn't work. And that's what I had before I started meditating and I would kind of, you know, rub it. And, and that's what I learned because it's, it's terrible, you know?

• 1:40:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:16Speaker 01

  And, and that is like, I can't ever imagine now yelling. Like, I mean, and how horrible, like to yell, like at my kids or, you know, at, at my team or, you know, like a random person, you know? I mean, how awful.

• 1:40:34Rich Roll?

  What is the modality of meditation that you practice?

• 1:40:38Speaker 01

  So I, I do different things. Sometimes it's silent and, and sometimes it's guided. Recently, I've been doing a lot of guided meditations because my, my mind is pretty active. At different points, I've been able to do silent meditation, but now it's, it's often guided. I'm a huge fan-

• 1:41:00Rich Roll?

  Like on a particular app?

• 1:41:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, huge fan of Insight Timer. And it keeps track of my days and my minutes and my hours. And, and there are certain practitioners on there that I really like. I like this woman, Sarah Blondin. And there's one particular meditation that she has, it's maybe 12 minutes long, and it's called Learning to Surrender. And I listened to it on my way here today, you know, when it took me longer than I had anticipated. And, you know, it's like, I can't be reminded too many times to surrender.

• 1:41:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah. What is the, the ambition for the museum?

• 1:41:36Rich Roll?

  Like if you have your druthers and everything goes your way, and it's five years down the road, and you're looking back, what is it that you hope to accomplish or express?

• 1:41:50Speaker 01

  I want people to feel welcome. You know, and it gets back to this idea that I talked about earlier that, you know, like I know for myself, and I use myself as a metric. You know, like if I don't care about it, why should I, you know, want anyone else to care about it or hope that they will? And I know for myself, like what I wanted most in my life, and which I have so much gratitude that I actually have, is, you know, I wanted to feel seen and loved. You know, and so much so that I put it in my phone, in my calendar every morning at 7:00 a.m. And it still buzzes, you know, 7:00 a.m. Pacific. Every morning it says, "I feel seen and loved." And I put it in there.

• 1:42:34Speaker 01

  When I put it in, I didn't. I didn't feel seen and I didn't feel loved. And, you know, I manifested it. And so that's what I want. That's what I use my platform for. And that's what art for me is a vehicle for is, is to have people feel that they're seen and feel that they're loved.

• 1:42:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, I have this sense that all of these many artists that you've known and that you chronicle in books and on the podcast, see you and respect you and revere you. I know they think incredibly highly of you and you commandeer like a level of respect because of that integrity that's so important to you, which I think is really cool. Like, as you said, like all you have is your reputation and your integrity. And for this creative community of like brilliant artists all out there who speak so highly of you and think so highly of you, it has to be, I mean, that is the fulfillment of that 7:00 a.m. like, you know, little thing that you get to see every day.

• 1:43:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, it's... You know, I heard this thing some years ago about like, compound interest, you know, and it was like about retirement, you know, and it's like, if you don't start saving in your twenties, like, you can never catch up, right? And that really stuck with me, and, you know, I really don't drink, I, you know, I have a mostly vegan, you know, diet, I, you know, I just, I make these kind of hard choices, right? And part of it is because, like, I'm thinking about the future. And so I'm living in the present, but I know that, like, all of these years, you know,

• 1:44:18Speaker 01

  of meditating and, like, standing up for what I believe in, and defending people's rights to show the art that they want to show, and having the difficult conversations, you know, like, that's, that's like in my, like, the bank of my soul.

• 1:44:37Rich Roll?

  Right, yeah, you're making deposits in the integrity bank account, the karma bank account, right? That's been compounding interest all these years.

• 1:44:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's cool. Well, the last thing I want to ask you before we wrap it up is, you know, it's kind of harkening back to what we were talking about at the beginning of the conversation, but just like, for somebody who's listening to this, who is still grappling with this idea of like, should I care about this? Like, I just want to, like, leave people with, like, a little spark of inspiration to get them in the door, or get them thinking about art in a way that maybe historically they haven't.

• 1:45:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, what I would say is, like, what have you got to lose? You know? Like, why not try it? You know? And one of the things we say at the museum is, like, if you don't like what you see, come back again, you know, because it's going to be different. Like it's gonna be different and you're gonna be different, you know? And I did this show in Aspen, it was called Zombies: Pay Attention. And it was inspired by this Bruce Nauman work, which is one of my favorite works of art of all time, and I may have talked to you about it before, but it's, it's writing in reverse, as if it's like in a, like a mirror and it, I don't know if I can swear, you know?

• 1:45:56Rich Roll?

  No, you can swear.

• 1:45:56Speaker 01

  But it says, "Pay attention, motherfuckers."

• 1:45:58Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:45:59Speaker 01

  You know, and like that was kind of my mantra for a long time. It's like, "Pay attention, motherfuckers." You know, like, "You only have one life." Like, "This moment, gone." "This moment, gone." "This moment, gone." You know, so it's like, "What do you want to do? Like, what are you here to do?"

• 1:46:14Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:46:15Speaker 01

  And Rand Stagan said to me, like, "You're doing the world a great disservice by playing small." So like, "Why not look at art? Why not try it?"

• 1:46:23Rich Roll?

  I think that's a great place to end it. I'm inspired now. That worked.

• 1:46:29Rich Roll?

  I love what you do and I, I love this person that you've become. It's been cool to watch you from the sidelines, like, mature into this, into this role that you've clearly earned. And I just, I salute you, I'm at your service. And I think it's great, Heidi. So I appreciate you coming and sharing with me today. I wish you well as we near the opening. It's gonna be a big moment for you. And in the meantime, everybody should pick up Conversations with Artist 3. Is it still only available on the Akma website?

• 1:47:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, you inspired me, you know, with your book and not having it on Amazon. And I was like, "Why not drive traffic to the Akma website?"

• 1:47:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:11Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, honestly, the website's not very great yet, but it'll get better as we get closer to the opening.

• 1:47:15Rich Roll?

  Well, now you have to click pop-up to find the book. It should at least say "book" or something, you know, to make it a little bit easier for people.

• 1:47:22Speaker 01

  Maybe we'll address that, yes.

• 1:47:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so it's akma.art and then click pop up, you'll find the book there.

• 1:47:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:47:30Rich Roll?

  If you're in Orange County, the museum opens October. Do you have a set date?

• 1:47:34Speaker 01

  Yes, we do. And I'd actually like to invite everyone who's listening to come. So October 8th, 5pm, 24 hour opening. So October 8th, 5pm to October 9th, 5pm.

• 1:47:45Rich Roll?

  Open all night?

• 1:47:46Speaker 01

  Open all night.

• 1:47:47Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:47:47Speaker 01

  Sunrise yoga, movies for insomniacs, tours of the exhibitions with past curators, directors, silent dance party, you know, music, like ceremony to kick it off.

• 1:48:02Rich Roll?

  That sounds pretty cool.

• 1:48:03Speaker 01

  Something to close.

• 1:48:03Rich Roll?

  That sounds like a pretty groovy opening.

• 1:48:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah, right on.

• 1:48:06Speaker 01

  It's gonna be amazing. And everyone's welcome.

• 1:48:08Rich Roll?

  Awesome.

• 1:48:09Speaker 01

  Totally free.

• 1:48:10Rich Roll?

  Until then, you can also listen to Heidi's podcast, Conversations About Art, which you can find on all the podcast platforms. Anywhere else you want to direct people?

• 1:48:20Speaker 01

  I think that's it.

• 1:48:21Rich Roll?

  I think that's good.

• 1:48:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:22Rich Roll?

  All right. How you feel? You feel okay?

• 1:48:24Speaker 01

  I feel great.

• 1:48:24Rich Roll?

  We did it.

• 1:48:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:26Rich Roll?

  It was cool.

• 1:48:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel like we could, you know, do version two and three and four.

• 1:48:31Rich Roll?

  Absolutely, absolutely.

• 1:48:32Speaker 01

  Lots to talk about.

• 1:48:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, right on. All right. I love you, Heidi. Thank you. To be continued.

• 1:48:36Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 1:48:37Rich Roll?

  Peace.

• 1:48:43Rich Roll?

  That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guests, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way, as well as The Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com.

• 1:49:13Rich Roll?

  If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and/or comment. Supporting the sponsors who support the show is also important and appreciated. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is of course, awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo, with additional audio engineering

• 1:49:56Rich Roll?

  by Cale Curtis. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis, with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davy Greenberg and Grayson Wilder. Graphic and social media assets courtesy of Jessica Miranda, Daniel Solis, Dan Drake, and A.J. Akpodiate. Thank you Georgia Whaley for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants.