Art Washes the Soul

0:01 This program is designed to provide general information with regards to the subject matters covered. This information is given with the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal, counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas. Hello, and thank you for tuning in to a Sharp Outlook on pay for HD radio and Talk or TV. I am Angela Sharp, your host. Our arm chair discussions with industry experts will give you the steps, tools and information to be successful in business and to prepare you to be your best self. Hello, I'm Angela Sharp, and welcome to a Sharp Outlook Day. We're going to talk about something that I believe touches everyone, and that is art.

1:05 The show today is called Art Watches the Soul, and it really does. When you really get engaged in get involved in what you're looking at, whether it be visual art from a painting or some canvas, or you're looking at a sculpture, or you're enjoying art on stage someone acting. That's all still art and art is really important today. Art of the diaspora is a term that encompasses an incredibly wide range of artistic traditions, practices, and expressions from across Africa continent and around the world. It's not a monolithic entity. We're talking about thousands of years of history, hundreds of distinct and ethnic groups, and diverse array of materials and techniques and purpose ruses, from ancient rock paintings to contemporary installations. This art refleet reflects the people of the diaspora, rich cultural heritage, spiritual beliefs, social structures, and historical experiences. In other words, it's an art that is actually coming from the soul, from experiences that they have gone through, experiences from history, from the beginning of time.

2:30 I know people don't believe you can think back that far, but you know, today they're talking about the DNA. DNA never forgets, and we're talking about tens of thousands of years ago that we are still bringing in emotions, we're bringing in thoughts, we're bringing in things. You know, sometimes you feel like, gosh, seems like I've been here before. Maybe you have, maybe through an ancestor maybe you have yourself. But it's just kind of interesting how we reflect on things that we have seen before. A good starting point is to recognize the importance of contexts. Art from people of the Diaspora or any other group is often deeply intertwined with daily life, ritual, and community. It's not always created for purely esthetic purposes. Many objects are functional, spiritual, or social roles. For example, a mask are often used in ceremonies and rituals to connect with ancestors or spirits.

3:36 Sculptures can be represent deities or some of importance in a community. Textiles can signify status or identity, importance, influence on art, or experiences that were joyful and experiences that were filled with pain and tears. We want to delve into the stories behind the world's most fascinating art and artist and today we're embarking on a journey to explore the vibrant and diverse world of the Diaspora through art. And we're incredibly fortunate to have with this Brenda Phillips, an artists that brings such expressional art that it touches your very soul. And I've seen her art and I'll tell you when I was thinking that art washes the soul, and it was something that I had seen her write, I thought, it really does you feel something? You cry, you laugh, It just affects you that way personally. Brenda is a self taught artist creating from digital art medium.

4:49 Her digital paintings mirror the joy and energy she feels when creating works of uninhibited color, movement, and emotion. Her dedication to promote and preserving the diasporus rich artistic heritage has significantly contributed to raising awareness and appreciation for bold, colorful and emotion art that draws you into her passion. You begin to smile or cry or laugh, and you're drawn in and become a part of a story in the art piece. Brenda's passion for art began early in life. Growing up she exposed to She was exposed to diverse cultures and artistic expressions, which sparked a deep interest in the arts. She has a career in the performing arts as an actor Aldiko in the arts. She has a career in the performing arts as an actor, award winning playwriter, vocalists and poet at More Pity Party Blues, She worked at Visual and Performing Arts Academy and Visual Arts Strand.

6:03 Her artistic work is characterized by a commitment to presenting some African arts and arts of the diaspora in a nuanced and inform manner, challenging stereotypes and promoting a deeper understanding of the cultural significance. She realizes art offers a profound window into the human experience for listeners. This may be familiar, how but I'm going to have Brenda join me now because I would like to find out more about all of her art, which she's going to give you information on how to see her art and be able to purchase her art. But we're going to talk about a lot of things. One of the things I wanted to talk to you about I was mentioning that you presented you that you actually did performing arts. Tell us something about the performing arts, and to tape some things.

7:05 Hey, hi everyone, and thank you Angela for having me today. Oh my pleasure. Yeah. But visual not visual arts, but performing arts. I just sort of moved into it from a child. My mother used to always have my brothers and my sister and I always in church singing, you know, always ad that extra something that they would uh the church would have. Oh we got this group and this group and dis choir and this choir and this family sing, and these kids sing, so along with my brothers and sisters and sister we performed early on, you know, but only gospel.

7:50 Who sick. My mother wasn't having anything except when she wasn't home. We didn't have any any what she could call worldly music in our home. We all only had gospel. We just had all kinds of gospel. And I love it, I love it. I love it. But you know, as a child, you know, you want to hear other stuff too, and you hear other stuff from other places. So when she wasn't around, trust and believe, we got all we needed from the other stuff in reverence of music, rhythm and blues, you know, of the times. And so as I, as an individual performing artist, got older, I started performing in high school, but in a choir that was called the Jefferson Acapella Choir, which was well known. And then they had an outside group which was the Leyshon Tours.

8:42 And I was also a member of the Layschon Tours. So we were always performing and singing all types of music, show tunes, gospel, what they call spiritual, all kinds of music, you know, and every year we'd have big performerformances especially around Christmas time and the Hallelujah chorus and that song that you know, Hallelujah, Hallelujah. Yes, it was just but there was fifteen different harmonies going at once. It's just a beautiful thing. So I was always performing, you know, but I didn't do theater until after I had gotten out of college. I started doing theater with this local theater group called the Interstate Firehouse Country Center in Portland, Oregon, and also with Rosemary Allen's Black Theater Company that she had going at that time, and it was a phenomenal experience, and we did original performances, original works. We did Langston Hughes Simply Heavenly and the late Garland Lee Thompson Senior he directed that. He's all so from Portland, Oregon, but he lived in New York, so he would go back and forth from New York to Portland. He was one of the founders of Frank Severe Writers' Workshop in New York City at the time. He used to be one

10:14 hundred and twenty fifth and fifth. I can't remember the others across street, but anyway, I just sort of gradually got into performing arts and then you know, doing speeches and writing, making short poems and essays and things like that, and I would start to perform them in small groups and things you know of that nature. But I didn't have any training, any professional training in the theater while I was going to UH school when I was in high school and college. But I got on the job training and trust and believe. Afterwards. I joined the Actors' Union in nineteen eighty eight, so I've been a member of the Actors Union for quite some time. I lived in New York for ten years during professional theater, and I I was involved with Intosaki Shane Gays a remount of the nineteen ninety five production for Colored Girls who Committed Suicide When Enough, and they got the Tony Award for it. So we did the remount of it and the past we all received our individual Adelco Awards, which is a very high prestigious award in reference to theaters, especially African American theater. You know, we have to we have to crown ourselves. We can always look for someone

11:46 else to give us praise and give us about, you know, what we're doing from the other you know groups out there that people looked at the oscars and all of that and we're just for position, but uh, we better pay. If we don't have a seat at the table, we better make our own table. Nacan. Yes, absolutely absolutely, I. Think a little bit about it. But that's the gist of that. Oh no, no, not at all. When you were talking about being at church and things like that. Yeah, I remember we had to go and do our speeches and we had to sing in the choir. And I had two other sisters and we were called the Sharp Sisters, and we traveled around going to different conferences and meetings and stuff like that, singing. And I tell you, you just get pushed into things. It's like, okay, whatever you say.

12:44 It wasn't like we had a choice. You had to. She said you're going to sing. You were going to sing, and we had a yeah, and we. Traveled around and you know, thought we would enjoyed it. Yeah, it was really great. So for listeners who may be less familiar, how would you describe the diversity of diaspora art. It's such a vast category. I mean we're talking about when we're talking about diaspora, I want to kind of say we're talking about, you know, areas of Africa, but we're talking about America. We're talking about the islands.

13:25 We're talking about South America, We're talking about Mexico, we're talking about Philippines. We're talking about a huge area of peoples and everyone has their own culture. But you're the artist, you could give give a little better description. Well, people would tell me early on when I would, you know, would be presenting some of my work and stuff, and they would say, you know, this looks like something from Panginia or this is uh. Are you familiar with the ivory colts? Are you from? And they would ask me about different things Zimbabwe and Ghana and Nigeria, and this looks like that? And I said, I have never been to Africa, I said, but I have been around people from other countries. I mean Africans and Asians and and and and East Indians you know, and uh, Native Americans and and and I always was interested in their art, you know, and just and looking at it and seeing, you know, how they related to their particular cultures. And I could see me in all of it, something that I liked, something that drew me in. And I would be thinking, like, wow, that's nice. I really like that, you know, So I would, you know, I would copy uh,

14:57 some people's style, and if it didn't work for me, it wasn't gonna work because the only thing that can come out of me, it is me. But I always wondered how certain works of our different types, of our different medias of our how how people would come to learn to do that and it would be spiritual for me. You know, I would see something, I'd say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna paint that, And nine times out of ten, whatever I started out doing is not what it ended up as. I just had to let it flow. I had to let it be whatever it's gonna be, and it would always turn out to surprise me. And it was a journey. So I have fallen in love with the creative process in reference to the arts and in reference to where they came from, and in reference to our differences and our sameness in so many ways.

15:54 And for me that's kind of the diaspora, especially with reference to the African diaspora, you know, me being from my ancestors from the Motherland, I have always felt something that that I wasn't getting in Portland, Oregon. That's where I was raised, born and raised in Portland, Oregon and moved to New York much later in my forties. But I always knew that there was more to us than I was seeing the media, other than you know, the stereotypical us in the media. And I always knew that the colors and things that that I was drawn to were just off to the off center from primary colors.

16:47 They were red wasn't red. Red was a deep blood color, or orange was like a burnt orange, and yellow was like a mustard yellow for me. And that's what I saw, and so that's what I would gravitate towards when I would start to create something. And even as a small child of my my kindergarten teacher, when we would have you know, crayon times she would give us crayons and she would say, use every color in the box. So it was like every color, you know, So every color. I would always try to use every color in the box. You know. I don't care how big the box was or how small it was. I was going to use every color in the box to create something. Now I thought it before as a little child, but uh, it was.

17:38 It had everything. Like I said, it had every color in the box. And a lot of times it didn't even make sense, but it made sense to me because I was creating and no one was saying that's not good, or you can do a little better, or you know, stay inside the lines. You know it was it was obstruction, but they gave us freedom to create. So I've always had that creative, you know, desire in me to make something outside of me and to present it. So you know, my sister, I have a sister, well, my oldest sister. She has this wonderful gift of seeing something and being able to write beautiful poetry. And then my other sister, she was just wonderful in designing art.

18:30 And she could do art in painting, or she could do art with cloth, you know, putting cloth together. And and I just never ever got that. I don't know what it is. I never ever got that artistic. I tried to play instrum everybody. I just it's just just if there's a creativity in me, I don't know where it is. I've tried different things, but I just can't. And what we're doing now, we're communicating. It's what we're doing now. You got to because. I couldn't need to draw the line I got in trouble for not being able to I had a ruler and couldn't draw a line.

19:12 That's okay. Everybody has a gift, and everybody doesn't have everybody else to get I. Know, I said, it's straight to me. Yeah, might up. I was lining and up and and still would end up crooking. So I just like, okay, my art teacher says, there are no accidents. There are just interesting mistakes that you create something from that, and so there are no accidents. I was like, I don't know, this looked pretty bad to me over here. So and I wouldn't get frustrated and I would stop and I would paint over the entire thing and start again on some you know, I didn't want to continue on something that was that my soul wasn't feeling. And see, that's what I realized when I'm working, that if I'm doing something and it's just not feeling good to me, or I get back and I look at it, because we as artists, we are our worst critics, and I said, I don't I'm not feeling this at all, and I will cover it up.

20:17 It'd be totally something different from whatever I started it out to be. So but everybody has gifts. I don't care what people say this. Oh I can't act, I can't sing, I can't do that. But there are things that you can do that others can't do that I can't do. My mother, God rest her, so she had me doing taking piano lessons and I absolutely hated it. I did I just you know, and I could do the basics. I could do all of that, and I could go to the recitals and I could fumble through. But it was just like it was just torture to me. And then I would My mother brought up bought a piano, and my sisters just sat down and started playing singing.

21:06 She would play sing if she played by ear beautiful. I was like, let her take the lesson. She said, no, no, you're you're going to take the lessons. You're going to teach her. No, she can play already. She didn't take lessons. My mother didn't understand that. But I said, we people are born with gifts. And I'm going after those gifts. Identifying and going after those gifts are really really important. Can you remember when you really got that drive or got that spark that you wanted to draw and do art and do expression to art.

21:46 I remember when I wanted to do that. I was in college, but I had so many other courses and classes and things that what I wanted to do was just you know, take art and nothing else. But of course you can't do that, you know, you got recograce to whatever you're late and all those things. And I just said, well, you know what, I can't focus on this, you know. And I and it wasn't that I knew what I was doing. I just had a desire. I had a desire to be in art and be there all day long and learn from instructors and stuff. But I couldn't, so I didn't. And I didn't really pick up a brush again for twenty five years, really, oh twenty five years, right, And so it's been about twenty years now that i've actually after I retired, After I retired, after I moved to New York. I retired, and I moved to New York in ninety three, and I was in New York for almost ten years, and I was doing theater in music, but I could also also dibble, dabble in the mediums of art. But I didn't take classes.

23:03 I just would do stuff, you know, at home, you know, and it was usually around whatever piece or that I was working with or whoever I was working with, and the theater, and you meet all these people and you see people from a different background Saints, African Americans, but from different backgrounds, you know, from very very poor to very very wealthy and everything in between. And me, I'm just like a sponge. I want to know it all. I want to know how did you come up? You know? I met one girl she had she was a freshman in college right along with me, and she had five kids already, and I was trying to figure out, girls, where are your children? And she said with my mom, she said, but I needed to go to college. And I was thinking to myself, I wonder if I could ever.

24:02 I couldn't imagine having any kids and going to school. I just couldn't. She had five and she was a phenomenal person, and I was so in awe about her. I was like, you know, people are really different. You need to really dig into what people are like and stay open and has become communal with these people from all these places. My nephew would say, stop smiling at everybody, stop talking to everybody. You talk to everybody. My nephew. He already lived in New York and he told me, he says, take off the jewelry and chew gum. And because you always talking to people, you shouldn't be talking to people. And I was like, I'm gonna have to move to New York and become somebody else. Uh uh, girl.

24:53 I talked to everybody and anybody, and it wasn't always a good thing I did. And so I don't know if I could answer when was that point that I actually just really started doing stuff. It's probably been really within the last ten years. Really, did I just yeah, yeah, when when. I see your artists like you started the ten years old, did you just like capture so much depth and personality? But that's probably how IM just communicating with so many different people on. Learning people, learning other artists and being around other artists and seeing how they would do. And I would think that it's absolutely absolutely beautiful. My art instructor that I have right now, his name is Jamal Jones and he is phenomenal. And you know, I just asked him everything and anything. Should I do this? Should I do that?

25:55 Can I add this to that? And he would say, no, you can't use mogpoge. When you're using puffer, you can't uh puffer paint. You can't do this and you So I'm learning a lot of stuff that I didn't know that helps me in my creativity. Mm hmm. That I don't hear a long. I don't care how long it takes me to work to do a piece. I really don't. I just figured like it's done when it gets done. And sometimes a girl, I don't know exactly when it's done, but I'll stop and I'll go on to something else. Do you do you do you have a favorite artist or or a favorite type of art or or something that I aspires you Jonathan Green.

26:48 I love his work. He is a phenomenal artist out of North Carolina and his work. I really was drawn to his work with his colors, how deep the colors, and they're always just off and they always speak to sort of a gulla geechee Africanism m hm uh or. I could see all of that, you know, but it's it was like country and and and and and different and a different sort of movement in his is the way he worked. That's Jonathan Green. I also am uh uh in awe with Charles Bibbs. I love his work.

27:31 It is so detailed in the hands and and and and the way the he'll have a head tilting and he'll have four or five people with the same form. It was. It was like motion and on a canvas. You just look at the canvas and you know nothing is moving, but it's all moving. Ye. Just those are the artists that I gravitate to. Any artist really that uses all lot of color and a lot of movement in their work. Oh, I'm all in it. I'm like, Wow, that's beautiful, you know. And that's basically it. I had a friend that told me years ago, years ago ago, and then I was working on a piece, just just a piece of art, and he told me, he says, you use a lot of color and that's going to be real expensive down the line if you continue to do this, So you should you should find less different different colors. And I was absolutely insulted.

28:37 I was that's what makes it beautiful, was all of the color, because it's all the moods, it's all of the emotions as all of the I mean, we're not singular. We have so much multiple things going on, a lot of an expression. That's kind of strange for somebody said don't use so much color. He said that he was another artist. Yeah, it was another. Artist, and I love his work. I do. But he said, I use so much color that if you know it's going to be expensive, I don't care how expensive it's going to be. If I need it, I'm gonna get it. Yeah, whatever it is I need, and I'm going to use the colors that come from my experience as opposed to something that you'll see. And I don't think he wasn't saying it in a negative way. I maybe he was, but anyway, it bothered me. I was like, well, so I'm not going to use a color that I feel that I need to use right now because it can be expensive. That's ridiculous. So that I left it alone.

29:49 I didn't think another minute of it. I kept right on doing what I was doing. Like my kindergarten told me. My kindergarten teacher told me to use every crayon in the box. And beautiful too. I'm enjoying it. Yeah, yes, And like I said, that's what's so wonderful about it is seeing all of the colors. I love to look at the art. That's you know, whether it's material or jewelry or anything. It's generally just filled with colors. And if you go outside and you walk through a garden or anything, it's full of all of these colors.

30:32 So it's it's just a creative spirit that you know. Some people have the talent of drawing it down and actually putting it on a canvas, and it looks like something that was created with real reality and emotion. And you can feel, you know, the wind blowing. I can even kind of hear the bird stirping everything you know in it because. Emotion in it. Yeah, yeah, it helps to, yeah, really make you feel because I see your art. This one here makes me laugh, and then this one here, Oh, it just kind of draws you out. Oh, and then this one, Oh, I want to go travel there. And so I mean that's what that's the purpose of it is to bring out an emotion and bring feelings. You know, maybe you're just having a hard time or whatever. You see some art, you see a play, you see some artistic expression. It puts you in a different mood or maybe even changes your emotion at the time or something like that. It's kind of I think it's just wonderful people that have that capability of putting there, putting all that thought and all of that emotion and expression down on camp Feld or however they do. It is. It is and it absolutely speaks to to everyone, not just you. It speaks

32:09 to everyone. I see, you know, I see myself in the kitchen with the women that are in the kitchen, some of your paintings that have it in there, and doing the dishes. I remember that, and you know I can. It takes you back to the times when you were young and laughing and having fun and surrounded by your your parents and aunties and things. So it's just going back and just letting it just take you to another place. That's what That's what I see happening every time I'm looking at the art. Yeah, when you decide when you're getting ready, you say, you just begin working, But what you started out with it doesn't end up that way.

32:54 Is it just kind of like like a crescendo notes or something that just got to speak to you and just just keep go going Or how do you get there? Okay? And how I get there is still a mystery to me. But I had a picture, a picture that I had done years ago, an art piece of a vase with flowers. That was it. It was a vase with flowers, and I said, okay, that's nice. And I left it alone for ten years and one day I looked at that and I said, I think I'm going to do something with this vase. And the vase was half of the half of the canvas actually itself. The vase was here and the flowers are here, and I just black. I just painted over it, painted all over it.

33:50 And I created a face, a head just ahead, an African woman head and a neck and I said, okay, just ahead, no eyes, no lips, no nothing, you know. And I said, okay, this is cool, this is good. So I didn't know what I was going to do. But I made this vase, this this vase into a face. And then there was like ten flowers that were sticking out of the vase and they were just plain little you know, flowers, nothing, nothing exotic or anything. And I said, I'm going to add more flowers. I'm going to make these flowers that are here, I'm going to make them bigger.

34:35 I'm going to make them with more color. I'm going to give them more greenery. I'm going to do this and so I just have this this head with this these flowers, these big flowers, and then I started doing eyes and a nose and a mouth. I didn't like it, so I painted over and I did eyes, different type of eyes, African eyes, you know, bigger lips, you know, wider noses. And then I next thing I knew, I had a whole different picture. And it's the piece I call call it her. She's holding a cigar and she's just being in her grandness and her greatness. And then I decided a week or two afterwards to give her locks deadlocks throughout the weave them through the flowers that were in there. And then I decided maybe a little time after that. She had her shoulder toward the front, and I said, I think I'm gonna put a bird on the shoulder. There's another artist and I can't remember her name. She passed away of maybe about twenty years ago.

35:40 She was a young woman too, and in every piece that she did, she always had a bird somewhere in it. Somewhere in her piece, no matter what the piece was, there was going to be a bird somewhere in it. So I put the bird on her shoulder, and I call that piece her, and it's it's in my website. Actually, I have it here, but I don't know if I could pick it up and show it to you. If I could maybe maybe, well give me a hot second. Okay, I don't know what you can see it? Can you see this? Oh?

36:22 I can see it. It's gorgeous. Yes, right, that's something that I. Used to be a vase and I ended and I you know, and I gave her a neck and then the flowers were so thin, but I made them, you know, different. So anyway, this is that piece and it's called Her, and I just really finished it within the last maybe month or so. But it was a vase, it was a plane. I wish I could show you to you, but it's actually is on my website too. But I don't know how. Thank you, Thank you so much. I don't know how how that happens in the creative process when you start off, well, when I start off doing something, I'm thinking I'm going to do one thing or and it turns out to be something totally different. I never would have thought that's what that would have been.

37:27 But that's when I works from a base to all of that. That is just as she has a cigar with ringlets and things. And I like to just imagine the possibility of a thing. You know, you get through and you think, like like I added things along the way. I didn't just say I'm going to paint a lady with a bird on her shoulder smoking a cigar with flowers in her head. That was never and that is never how it works for me. Just some people's head moving. It kept moving. Go ahead, Yeah, I guess that's how you express you're expressing, or you what got in touch with who her was and started expanding her personality. You know, they you know, that's what happened.

38:25 And I would still do some more, but that I ran out of canvas. So in my mind, I just think, in my mind, I have other canvases, and I thought about creating an extension of the work from here to this is still that part of that same canvas, but it's on another canvas, but it's an extension of this work of this work, and do it on the other side also, and maybe even at the top, and before long it would just be a whole wall unit of one picture. That's just how I think. I don't know if I'm going to do that I'll tell you that's how my mind goes when I'm looking at certain works.

39:08 And yeah, yeah, that way. And you know what when you I use different type. I use a lot of acrylics and I use puffer paint. And then I'll also, uh, if I see something that I like, uh, like plants and Michael's you know, with flowers with leaves and things like that, I'll buy them and I'll cut them off and I will attach them in my pictures. It gets into different depths. Yeah, and so I did one that was a fox. It was it was a fox, but I didn't like it, so it just turned it out. It turned into a deer, and I have her. Her name is Doretha in the garden.

39:56 In the garden it said deer. And and my daughter in law said, I thought that was a fox at first. I said yeah, but I didn't like it as a fox. I wanted it to be something else because I wanted to put flowers and plants and make it really a happy thing. And a fox looks like they're looking for something to me to get into. And I wasn't feeling that. I was like no, So my daughter in law, she just sits back and goes like okay. And then also, you know, you can find things in thrift stores. I do all the time thrift stores and recreate them into something else that you may not have thought of, and then as you go along it becomes something else. I've done that with several things that found things that I found in thrift stores and stuff like that. So and just keep finding.

40:54 On new way make journey I want to get. But I haven't tried that. But I want to get into sculpting. That's what I want to do. That's and I will. Trust and believe I will. I just don't know when, and I don't I don't put pressure on myself to do anything anymore, not at this stage in my life, you know. Yeah, yeah, and I and I like that. Mm hmmm, mm hmmm. Well, I know I've gone to museums and galleries and different things like that, and they have different shows and it's based on you know, everyone's taste. Mh Do you you know, do you think museums and galleries are playing a role in promoting more informed understanding of the diaspora expression, you know, African American expression, you know, uh, just okay, I only think.

42:04 So, but I only think so in certain areas like you have a like the Schamberg in New York. You know, they they are about us, our work are It's a full diaspa of us and where we come from in our art work and forms that are shown there that may not get seen in another place. But it's kind of hard, I think. Uh. On the curator side, I have a couple of friends that are curators and they're constantly working, constantly working trying to put on either a one person show, which I think is awesome, but most shows have five or six different art artists and a nimic and those ones that I truly go to and the ones that I'm involved in, and also offee shops and weekend pup tent put up tents and things and show your work. But it's all in reference to the museum.

43:10 It's always a waiting list. It's going to be a waiting list, and then they're really gonna pick, you know, from maybe three or four artists or shows that they do. Some of them are traveling shows that they do every year, and you know they are locked in, and uh, it's just kind of hard. I don't I don't really know how they they do it on that and I'm just on this side trying to get my work seen, and it's it's it's sometimes it's really a difficult because you've got to do something. They're having something that's just a week a weekend. So you've got to get your stuff in there up. You've got to get it like you need it to be. It has to go. Then it's over.

43:52 You've got to get it down. You've got to pack it up. You've got to go to the next thing, or you take it back home and use the story or you're hanging back on the wall or what ever. Is just a lot of work, it really is, And that's part I don't. Okay, since you bring in your art, so tell our listeners how they can view your art and purchase her art? Where do they contact you? Okay, I'm gonna I don't know if I were, I thought I could type it in here, but I don't see where I'm tell you that. But my my website is h T T P S colon backsplash backsplash backsplash backslash backslash, m HM dash or Brenda b R E N D A dash, phillips p H I L L I P s dot pixels p i x e l s dot. I'll do that again, h T T P S colon backslash, backslash dash for Brenda b R E n D A dash phillips p h I l l I p s dot pixels p i x e l

45:24 s dot com great. So anyone, if you look down in the little corner there, it has a little chat thing where you can type, well, yes, I see, you can just type that there. Well, I know, I know that it's like music and everything else, art comes from inside. It comes from the heart. It comes from the spirit and just being able to have that talent or the courage to put those thoughts on, you know, down on canvas or whatever the motive is that's being used.

46:07 I mean that within itself, it is just you know, that takes a lot of bravery. But I know there are a lot of creative people out there that have artistic capabilities, and whether it be writing poetry or making music, or doing art or sculptures or you know, just different things, writing poetry, just different things. I just want to encourage those that have those creative abilities. Go after your dream, go after what makes you happy, go after which fulfills your life. You will be able to monetize in the future, but just do what makes you feel good, whatever it is.

46:58 Because you've got a long time you have spend working and making money, let it be. Let it be some way that you are enjoying yourself as you are doing that, and that will be. That will be how it can happen. But it's yeah, yeah, it's just a wonderful thing. It's just great listening to you talk about all of the art that you have and all the art that you've created and all the art that you've done. One of the things I also wanted to do to say, like I said, I know, I want you to know that I personally and everyone that I show your art too, absolutely loves your art. So we want you to continue to make those beautiful, vibrant, colorful pieces that talk to us that and and that tells our stories. And like you said it, there's there's some of them that display happiness and bring laughter. There's some that brings tears. There's sum that brings just enormous joy. I see them in the choir, clapping and dancing, and it's like I remember that I grew up and then I see them out in the desert, you know, and and stand you know,

48:31 with their hands raised. And so every emotion you have expressed, every emotion that we who are observing, we appreciate. So I just want to I want to say that that we just appreciate you. We appreciate you expressing how we feel. We all don't have the courage to put it down, but you're putting it down for us. You're speaking for us, and thank you for being our voice. We we really appreciate you. Honored. I am so honored. I just really I'm just grateful that I have this gift and trust and believe it is from God. And how to give all the phrase because I always have to look at certain things and I say, well, Lord, I'm done with this, and then I'll you know, I'll look at it and I go, well maybe not, and I'll just be like, well, you know, whatever whatever I do, I'm going to do it through spiritual and through love and through emotion, through what I see, through what what what occurs in life with other people.

49:34 You know that that I'm drawn to that I think I need to put that on canvas somehow. And I call myself an art storyteller because I want is to tell a story, you know, so that you can look at it see that Okay, that's what that is. Or of course you know, people see different things because that's that's just art. But that's some that see, Yeah, I see a story in it. And that's the part that I love. You always tell a story. Well, I just want to thank you for being on the show today and sharing your gift with us and with all those that are going to continue to appreciate what you are doing. And we just thank you for being here on a Sharp Outlook.

50:25 We thank you that have tuned in be sure to like it and to also subscribe, and to also share this with others that you may know that just loves good art and go out and check out Brenda's website and see what she has. Again, thank you for joining us on a Sharp Outlook. And we're here every Monday eleven am Eastern time, eight am Pacific time, and as usual I want to say to you, stay tuned till next week and whatever you do, stay informed. I want to thank you for joining us on a Sharp Outlook.

51:08 We have been informed and energized to take the next steps. We have posted links to websites and videos to learn more on today's topic, Please join us again next week for another thought provoking conversation right here on Key for HD Radio and Talk for TV. Listen to the podcast on all the podcast apps, and until next week, stay informed