Luxury Living with Debrae Little

Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a Kun V studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. The

Debrae Little 0:40
Nancy, welcome to luxury living with Debray. And today I have my guest, Nancy good, who is an artist in the Las Vegas area, and we're going to hear about her insights and what she does with art. Thank you very much for having me. Debre. Oh, I'm so pleased I had an opportunity to sneak down to before First Friday started, and take a look at Nancy's artwork. And I found it very colorful and very imaginative, and just needing a little bit of explanation, but it but I had, I did conjure up feelings when I saw her artwork, and so I'm going to let her take it from there. So can you share your journey and to the world of art? What inspired you to focus on mural based canvases and the unique themes you explore? Well,

Nancy Good 1:31
the journey, as begins with many artists, is from childhood. We want to find ways to express ourselves, even before we can speak a language. So to me, art, visual arts, music, is a language, and it's how we tell our stories. My journey into the world of art is very long and convoluted. I've been a musician at full for full time many years over the years, have been a photographer, fine art photographer for many years. Finally got back to painting and visual arts about 15 years ago, after a very circuitous route to get to get here and feel like I'm home again, kind of full circle from what what I started as a child, the mural size works. I'm a very kinetic and tactile artist. I love moving when I'm creating art, when I'm painting, and so large works allow me to have a lot of physical movement, a lot of kinetic movement, and since I'm also interpreting our human existence and our journey through life, having that kinetic activity seems to be a good fit as well.

Debrae Little 2:48
That's interesting. So are you dancing to music while you're while you're

Nancy Good 2:52
doing your artwork? Sometimes, sometimes, mostly, I keep it quiet in the studio without having outside influence, because, again, I'm a musician. So everything is vibrating to me all the time. You know the biology of our of our physiology, the natural world. You know, we're made up of teeny, tiny particles that are vibrating all the time. And you know, light waves, sound waves, these are all vibrations. And so sometimes I will have music I have painted live to a jazz combo, which I love doing that as well because I'm dancing. I love music.

Debrae Little 3:27
Well, that's extraordinary. I've never, I've never heard of such a thing, but I can imagine that art allows you to connect with with everything, or your surroundings, and you probably pick up on everything, like you said, music, vibrations and etc. So I understand also that you have hidden messages, that your work is renowned for layers of hidden messages. Can you walk us through your creative process in terms of what that actually means?

Nancy Good 3:53
So I am a big fan of the admission that I will never see it all, I will never know it all, and I want to be constantly reminded to look at something in a new light or from a new perspective, and so to remind myself of that, but also to have those conversations with the viewer, or somebody who might want to take my work into their home, is that there will be things hidden in there. Sometimes it's through use of different mediums, but in the same color. So you have to shift your perspective to actually see how the light hits it. Sometimes it's using, I think I showed you with the UV flashlights, the black light flashlights, to pick up on the UV pigments, or with 3d glasses to do different filters on different eyes that make things bounce in a different way. And I think that's that's an important reminder in this contemporary culture, which seems to want to divide us all, and that we are always opining the things that we think we know everything about, and really we don't know everything about, everything. I'm going to still take my lifetime. Discover more about myself. So I would like to always have the reminder that I will never know it all. I will never see it all, and maybe the person who's standing in front of the works will have those same surprises as well.

Debrae Little 5:12
Wow. So that's really into whoever the person that's gazing or the the potential client, or whoever the buyer is, is actually may see something there that you may have not even seen. I've

Nancy Good 5:26
had those conversations some people are very tuned into like shapes and silhouettes, and even if they're not there intentionally, they might see something that just happened accidentally. I be i have the big love painting that's currently on the wall in the studio. And I absolutely have not painted a cat in there, but somebody came in and said, Oh, I see a cat in there. I'm like, Okay, well, that's That's great. You see what you see what's familiar to you, what you you know are gravitating towards. And you know, we have a brain and an eye that is always trying to see something familiar in in something that may be strange and abstracted. So I get it, yeah,

Debrae Little 6:17
so it's very interpretive. Oh, that's brilliant. So tell me about cartography, illusion. Okay,

Nancy Good 6:25
well, I lived 20 years plus in Montana, and I hiked all over the place. I fished snowshoe. You know, this is an area where people live off the land, and often, so I hunted, and, you know, I had to know where I was at any given time in in the wilderness. And so I had tons of maps. I love the elevation lines that are represented in maps of wilderness areas. And so I've learned how to read those over the years, and I find that the elevation lines have serve a dual purpose for me in my art, where I can create elevation lines that represent things coming forward or back or higher or shorter, but also they double As vibration lines, because you think of things, you know, repeating and modulating outwards. So it comes again back to this full on definition of, you know, cartography, sound vibrations and having that influence,

Debrae Little 7:38
I would say that you are very sensitive gain.

Nancy Good 7:44
My mother would probably agree.

Debrae Little 7:47
Well, it sounds like you're putting your all into it. It seems like you're touching on so many areas that humans are interact or know about when they see anything, whether it's sound or or visual. So it really sounds like you're transcending all of that in an interesting way. I'm

Nancy Good 8:08
I'm hoping to, again I leave I believe visual arts is a language. All arts are a language. That's it's part of our storytelling to express what we are experiencing as a species. And I think when we're forgetting certain aspects, we're not telling the whole story. And so I try to think about what are the other parts of the story. And again, that goes back to what do I not know? You know, we don't know what we don't know. So we we need to research and open ourselves up to the possibilities of learning more. And the world is an amazing place, and I want to experience it. Well,

Debrae Little 8:46
it sounds like it's tapping into every sense. It's like a big sensory moment, if I were, you know, to view your art and to be in the room with it. And

Nancy Good 8:57
it is so I paint with a with a form of synesthesia. Sometimes synesthesia is known as artists will see colors or smell colors, or, you know, taste colors, I feel colors. So, like I said, back to Everything is vibrating. And so my color palette tends to be very vibrational. They're the the, you know, colors are bouncing off each other. They're doing things you know, having a physical effect on one's eyes when you're standing in front of them. But then there is still these areas of peace and and calm, much like music. So I have a piece that I may exhibit for this next First Friday called even dissonance makes beautiful music, and any musician understands that there will be moments of dissonance within a song, and it's and it can be a transit transitory moment, but it drives us to resolution and it drives us to harmony. And I try to do that also with my visual arts. Yes,

Debrae Little 10:00
wow. I mean, it's again. I can't help but say that it's such a sensory moment or being in the presence of your art, I'm not sure what will happen. Maybe I might even try to eat it. Well,

Nancy Good 10:17
I have individuals who come in to see the art in an altered state of mind sometimes. And I have friends that say I want in, especially in this culture, I want to have some gummies and just stand in front of your artwork. And I chuckle, because it's like, well, I don't need the gummies, because this is already what's happening in my brain.

Debrae Little 10:36
Oh, I love it. Tell me about self portraits. I understand that you spend time

Nancy Good 10:43
working on portraits. I have in the past. I haven't done a lot recently, other than a unique series that I started a couple years ago called A to D to A, which was analog to digital, back to analog. And much of my work will kind of bounce back and forth between analog and digital in the recognition that, you know, we have all these different ways to express things, but sometimes we're missing the science portion or the technology portion of it. And actually did a podcast with tech alley a couple months ago, which happens down in the arts district once a month, and we talked about arts and technology, and that it's a very natural fit to add to the toolbox. Some of the other portraits I've done have been just photographic self portraits that then I super impose with my paintings. And so it creates a whole other image that can be both confrontational. Sometimes it's like I have one that's titled, encased in a volcano of my own making. So it will be emotional references to sometimes the turmoil within that I've encased myself in, and I want to break free of that. So it's fascinating to me. I tend to not do a lot of figurative work in my painting, but I will do figurative work, you know, in photography and melding that digitally, but then also with the print work that I did recently, the with the lino cuts of alien, you know, almost, I don't want to say shamanic or mystic, mystical type faces that were created, why from my portrait, then run through an AI program with my prompts, and then back to something that I will print, and then put onto a sheet of linoleum and hand carve so it's back to that analog, and then hand print on handmade paper, and then hand embellish further. So there's a lot involved that AI or technology can't do. So I'm always wanting to honor the physicality of the the Analog Experience the artist's hand, so to speak. That's interesting,

Debrae Little 13:10
because I was going to ask you, what role does AI play on your artwork? And you answered that question beautifully. Because I was, I'm trying to think if all of those different levels which you represent or you touch on that are very humanistic, and whether it's smell, taste and sight, then somewhere I would imagine that AI could play play a role in that. Yeah, it

Nancy Good 13:32
can play a role. But I'm very judicious in my source material, so I make sure that I pulling from my own artwork or my own images photography, first using my own written prompts, very, very specific written prompts, and then making sure that anything that I'm putting through an AI program or a digital program is weighted more heavily to what I am contributing, as opposed to pulling from what AI has harvested from the world over time, right?

Debrae Little 14:04
No, I see, I see. Well, you still have to be involved. You can't turn totally over to AI. No, absolutely. We're not ready for that yet. We still need the human touch. So my question to you is that when someone views views your artwork, I'm well two questions, if someone is doing your artwork and and I'm wondering whether or not you present your artwork in different ways, meaning that you would maybe include and I laughed at this earlier when I mentioned to you about dancing, But maybe you would do it where there was art or some kind of a sensory type of engagement, I mean, or a moving art, or something like that. Do you ever cross into that realm? Because it sounds like that. It's all encompassing, and it includes all of those things, to hear it, to see it, to smell it, and all of that. I could see that maybe some of your art would be, you know, visual displays or movement, at least

Nancy Good 15:05
it those are things that are definitely in my mind and on the horizon. I'm participating in a unique pop up exhibition called Desert biennial project, and it will be out in on the gene lake bed in October, and I am utilizing a sculptural form of my art, where, when I'm painting the big, the big paintings, I will often have small, small raw canvases underneath the paintings that I will dab, you know, art or DAB paints on, or brushes or pattern making on, that are kind of informed by the large canvases that came before and at the end of the process, at the end of a painting, or the actually, actually at the end of multiple mural size paintings. I will have a selection of what almost look like prayer flags, but they're painted, and to me, it's it's a visual biography of what happened in the studio, and it's also a visual representation of my intentions and my prayers and my my hopes and the messages that I have in the murals themselves. But they come into these smaller forms, and I will be using these flags out in this desert is a way that will be moving with with wind and weather for a day. We have no idea what the weather will be on that that day that we're installing everything, and they will be visible from a distance. They will be, you know, they could get rained on. It's, it's hard to hard to say what's going to happen and but yeah, so movement will be part of that. I have installed my large works in different ways that are not just flat on the walls. Sometimes they're suspended from the ceilings and rippled or undulating almost that look like they're moving or rippled on the walls and look like they're moving. So I'm always thinking in terms of, you know, all the all the different sensory experiences, not something that's static right now, most of the movement happens is from, from the viewer, and so there is a kinetic interaction and a movement that happens.

Debrae Little 17:17
Mike, so I know this is a lot of your perspective and and the viewer engages, engages your art and has an experience. It sounds like it's an immersive experience. So if I am in the luxury market, which is where we both operate. So if you're creating a piece for a client, how does that process work? How involved are there? Is it starts with your idea or their idea, or do you spend time with them and get to know them personally, and then try to to weave that into your artwork. I'm just I'm just curious, because, you know, a lot of clients, they they definitely want a piece that's unique to them, that's very personalized, that says this is who I am. And so how do you handle that? And it happens

Nancy Good 18:17
multiple ways. I have collectors who have watched my work over the years, and they will see a piece that I'm creating, and they immediately connect with it. And so then they they want that piece, even before it gets to go anywhere else. But I also have of individuals that I've spent time with, getting to know them. I think you know, a commission such as that is a collaboration based on relationship, based on spending time, and also based on, you know, a healthy dose of trust. So the client may have some ideas of their own, but also they have watched me, or have, you know, paid attention to some of my work to understand that I can give them something that will make them feel like, Oh, this is me. Doesn't mean it doesn't have bumps in the road, but, but I'm pretty, pretty conscious of you know how to mitigate certain, certain roadblocks, and some of it may be just immediately tied to what color do you absolutely not want in a piece? Because there are some people who absolutely hate the color green, some people who hate the color pink, others who say, Well, I don't mind if you have all the colors, but I'd really like to focus on this color and and, you know, or they want it more soft, or they want it more hard edged. And I have enough of a body of work that I can at least give them some examples, but then I'm also fully willing to admit that you know what? That's not in my wheelhouse, but I can refer you to a great artist friend who I trust will be able to give you something that you absolutely want. Again, back to figurative work if you. Want to, you know, absolutely force me to do figurative work I can. It's not my favorite place to go. I would much rather be doing conceptual, abstract work, things that I am free to explore while also having a relationship and a conversation with someone else.

Debrae Little 20:16
Well, that makes I totally get that, because that was my question. Is, I was trying to figure out what was the best way to describe your work, and it is abstract, and I can see how it moves and vibes with whoever's looking at the art. And then if someone wants a personalized piece from you, how how that all plays in and I think you explained that. Because my question is, because, as an interior designer, I have clients who I want a piece for this wall which should be the size I want mirror size, but then they'll say, oh, I want the colors of the room, right? And I'll say, oh, no, can't Can't we be Can't we go a little deeper than that? Can't we see what emotionally appeals to you? And if you tell me that with I show you red, this is the kind of emotion that evokes or blue or green, then I can understand that. But I have a hard time with saying that this should match my room. I think it's a more personal relationship with art, and it's something that should be valued and treasured and and and not be bastardized that way. So

Nancy Good 21:31
yeah, and as a designer, you know that there are infinite, an infinite number of shades of colors, you know, warm and cool, there's, there's so many different whites, it's almost maddening to try to figure out, what white do I want, what red do I want? You know, what pink do I want? What green? What blue, what black? You think it's not, it's not just cut and dried one shade. And so I love that. You know, when somebody says, Well, I love the colors of this room, okay, how do they make you feel? And that's where I want to start first,

Debrae Little 22:00
that makes sense to me, especially coming from my perspective, for sure. I am wondering, how about how do you feel about it sounds like part of your art is societal. It is driven by the society, for sure. And I'm wanting to know, what kind of conversations do you want your art to spark when, when people are engaged, or the audience is looking at it, or a viewer is seeing it, and is there something that you're you're hoping that will expand their thinking or their mind or or spark a conversation that they may have with someone always,

Nancy Good 22:44
I'm of a certain age that I've seen this world go through a lot of different changes. I've seen myself go through a lot of different changes, and I know that each person also goes through changes in their lives and challenges in their lives. And what I try to do first and foremost with my artwork is to provide a starting point of, you know, what do we have in common, whether it's emotional commonality or just the bare bones? I want to feel safe. I want to, you know, be provided for. I want to be loved right now. I've got, you know, big love is on the wall in the in the studio, and everybody wants to be loved. I mean, there's very few people that I've ever met who don't want to be loved. And it may sound simplistic, but it's also something that we don't talk about, what we have in common enough, and we don't also also have those prompts in the in the real world, in you know, whether it's through media, whether it's through film, streaming services, on our TVs, music, we we get to feel certain things, but they're Not stopping to ask us, what do I have in common with that? It's more like entertainment. It's passive consumption, whereas visual art it, yes, it can be passive consumption. You just walk by it in a museum or an exhibition. You might like it, but you're not diving into it with the intention of learning more about yourself or the artist, and for me, I would much rather provide a safe space for anyone you know. I did an exhibition at my old gallery that I closed this last year that was related to gun violence, and people were really afraid for me, because it was during a climate of, you know, NRA and gun rights and this and that, and it's like, I'm not telling anybody they can't own guns. I am trying to find a way to talk about gun violence and the artists that are participating in this exhibition, which was a traveling exhibit. Exhibition called American roulette, originated, first out of Chicago. And, you know, we had local artists as well as traveling artists, and we found a way to talk about gun violence, and what was the common denominator, nobody wants to get shot. And so, yes, we can have that conversation what, regardless of what you know, end of the spectrum you are on gun ownership, nobody wants to get shot. So in the rest of the world, I'd rather have conversations in those safe spaces with art.

Debrae Little 25:33
Well, that definitely unites us. That's the topic. They nice everyone. No one definitely wants to get shot. So you talked a little bit about your upcoming projects with the flags. That sounds very interesting. And then I have a question, though, about your legacy and your impact. As you think about your legacy, what do you hope people will take away from your work? How do you envision your art influencing future generations?

Nancy Good 26:00
Oh, that's a, that's a that's a big question, that's a big question and a big answer. One of the things that I love most about being an artist, and I practice this every day as an artist, is mentorship. I record time lapse videos of almost every studio session that I post on social media, on YouTube, on my you know, Instagram, Facebook, that provides a visual example, a short one minute time lapse of what it takes to be an artist. And that means showing up every single day, showing up when you don't feel good, showing up when the art doesn't look good, showing up when it's boring, showing up when it's just, oh my gosh, I'm I don't want to put another.on this and you've seen my work, so it's like there's a lot of dots, and that's a lot of mundane application over and over and over again. And it's, to me, a representation of over time. Small marks become big. Marks become a big piece and something that makes a difference and makes an impact, and much like each of us in our in our day to day, living small acts, small acts of kindness, small acts of inclusion, mentorship, you know, teaching, whatever it is that makes a difference over time,

Debrae Little 27:16
no, it definitely does. Well, what what would you leave? What advice would you leave, or what information would you impart and leave with our listeners about the intersection of art and luxury living?

Nancy Good 27:28
Oh, my goodness, I think we should not be afraid to enjoy our art. We should not be afraid to find the joy and the playfulness in our homes and in our relationships, and just because it's luxurious does not mean it has to be static. Doesn't mean it has to be boring or, you know, strict in in form and color and function. I paint furniture as well, which is incredibly fun, and I love when we include joy and surprise and play in a luxury living situation.

Debrae Little 28:10
And I'm sure they love your artwork as well in their home. I want to say thank you so much Nancy for being a guest of mine today on luxury living with Debray. And I want people to be on the lookout for Nancy's work. She did say that she had an upcoming installation. And when was that? Again,

Nancy Good 28:32
that will be in October. So that's going to be quite a ways out. And it's, you know, out on the jean dry lake bed south of Las Vegas. But

Debrae Little 28:39
if we wanted to reach out to you and take a look at your artwork. Now, how would we find you? I

Nancy Good 28:45
am presently in the first Friday Foundation's artist in residency program in art square, which is 1025 South Main suite 170 and then I'm found online as well. Nancy goodart.com or Instagram. Nancy, good underscore art, and you can find links to YouTube on those sites as well.

Debrae Little 29:05
Thank you so much for being our guest today. This is Debray low with luxury living with Debre.