A St. Louis Artist on Building a Creative Business Without Gatekeepers

Heather Haymart [00:00:00] A lot of my decision making about my career as an artist has been based on putting my future in someone else's hands.

Vance Crowe [00:00:09] Wow.

Heather Haymart [00:00:10] So every time I've met a situation where I am dependent upon someone else to allow me to do what I wanna do, I try to figure out a way to not have to do that, only because at any point they could take that away, right? At any point they could quit accepting me to an art fair. And there goes my livelihood.

Vance Crowe [00:00:30] This is the Vance Crow podcast. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Each week I sit down and interview an expert to find out how did they develop the discipline to get on the frontier, the edge of what is knowable in their field. And for the most part, this podcast is focused on either the hard sciences or business. But this week is something completely different. This week I sat down with artist Heather Haymart. Now I met Heather after going to the St. Louis Art Fair, held in Clayton, Missouri. This is a nationally recognized art fair where artists from all over the country come together to show paintings and sculptures, and I can't even describe jewelry, anything that you can think of as art. There is a variety of the top level of p of artists from all over the country that come to show off their art. And Annie and I went on a Friday night, and we're walking up and down the stalls, and I'm in a great mood because we're, we're just enjoying ourselves. And we encounter one art stall that I was completely captured by. I I was drawn into it like a magnet. The colors, the way the light hit each one of the boards. I was mesmerized. And I, I know looking back on that night, that Annie had to kind of pull on my shirt to be like, Hey, calm down. Because I was so magnetized by it that I just started a conversation with the artist.

Vance Crowe [00:02:01] And within maybe a minute and a half, I invited her onto the podcast. And to my surprise and shock, she said, yes. Her name is Heather Haymart, and she is an artist that has spanned everything from teaching small children to running galleries, to painting murals, and even now having her own special kind of art. And we'll go into a deep description of how I saw that art and what it looked like to me. And Heather does a little bit of explaining her art, but I think she's more than happy to let other people look at it and put their own meaning on it. So you will, if you're watching on YouTube, not actually see any of her art. And that's because I'd love for you to go visit her website where she has a great job of having a, having a website that can show off art much better than I could just by showing it on the YouTube channel. Her art can be found at Heather Haymart art.com. And if you don't go now, that's okay, because I'm pretty sure that by the end of this interview, you will have the same fascination with Heather that I did. She's extraordinary in many ways, not least of which, she's not the prototypical artist, the disheveled that doesn't have anything put together. She's instead incredibly organized, very disciplined. And that's what prompted us not just to talk about art, but to talk about the business of art, how to make money in the field, how to have the discipline to be able to do something creative again and again and again. And then we go into things like having discipline to clean up your room or how to eat.

Vance Crowe [00:03:33] This was one of those fantastic conversations. It's a rare treat to have built such rapport with somebody that is so special and such an expert in her field. It's why I am so grateful for the podcast, and I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. So buckle in and enjoy this conversation with the very quiet and understated, but magnificent. Heather Haymart. Heather Haymart, welcome to the podcast.

Heather Haymart [00:04:01] Hi. Thank you.

Vance Crowe [00:04:02] So you and I met only for a brief moment at the Clayton Art Fair. And for people that don't know, this is an art fair in St. Louis that brings artists from all over the United States together. And people wander up and down all through the weekend, over at, at night while drinking, and there's music and everything going on. And it struck me that there is a strange dichotomy there, which is you have a whole bunch of artists that are expressing themselves in visual mediums. And then you have all these people that are going around talking to these artists. And I would guess that that's not the most comfortable thing for artists. Do you like talking to people at art fairs?

Heather Haymart [00:04:43] I actually do. It's kind of a, an odd position to be in. 'cause I am slightly introverted. I like to be alone and do my own thing. And I do get nervous each time before an art fair. I have to kind of psych myself up. But once I'm there and in it, I end up gaining a lot from the experience every single time. Sometimes you meet people that aren't nice and they say things that I wish, you know, I didn't have to weather.

Vance Crowe [00:05:17] Is that what you're worried about beforehand, that somebody might be unkind to you?

Heather Haymart [00:05:22] No, I, no, actually not. That's not really, I think's just the idea of just being there and being on for, you know, long periods of time because it can be so draining to, to be on like that and, and you know, to have to be nice for so long. I know that sounds horrible, but you know, I'm there to try and sell art and explain art and, you know, it is a business. But at the same time, I'm also there to make connections and I personally get something out of those interactions all the time. I learn from what people say to me, and I, I see my art through their eyes, which is a really valuable thing. So the nervousness, it's other stuff like, what if we have a storm and my tent oh, gets blown away? Or what if, what if nobody comes to the fair and I don't make any money, or

Vance Crowe [00:06:22] Yeah. I mean, I can, I can see that it's like all of the logistics that a regular business owner

Heather Haymart [00:06:27] Yes.

Vance Crowe [00:06:27] Would have as stress on top of the fact that you're kind of an introvert. The other thing that strikes me about being in those situations is you were saying looking at the art through their eyes. How is that something that you as an artist, like really need? Do you, do you need to have other people's opinions and, and their thoughts on it? Or, or is it like, Hey, I just produce art and if it happens to coincide with other people, great.

Heather Haymart [00:06:54] It's a little bit of both. It starts out being for me, and then once I'm finished with it, it's for them. And so it is nice to, to get good feedback and to connect with people. And when you do an art fair, you learn very quickly. Like they're not gonna connect with me. Like they, you see people walk by and like, the husband points at the art and the wife is like, no, you know, and you can see,

Vance Crowe [00:07:22] Oh man, that has to be tough. That has to be tough. But

Heather Haymart [00:07:25] You get used to that. Like, I just, I just know that like some people like boats and some people like abstract, you know? And I can't do anything about that. So the,

Vance Crowe [00:07:37] I'm gonna push this just a little bit closer to you. You don't have to sit up, just pull it towards you. That's fine. Okay.

Heather Haymart [00:07:41] Is that better?

Vance Crowe [00:07:42] Yeah, that's better.

Heather Haymart [00:07:44] So I do, I do benefit very much from people connecting with me and giving me compliments. I'm not gonna lie. That's fabulous. You know, to sit there all night, having people go, oh my God, this is beautiful. Like, that's wonderful, but I don't have to have it to keep making art.

Vance Crowe [00:08:04] So I wondered before you came over, if it would be all right if I would describe what I saw in your art, and then maybe you can describe for the listeners what you are trying to put forward.

Heather Haymart [00:08:14] Sure.

Vance Crowe [00:08:14] It won't be a very sophisticated description because I actually realized in preparing for this interview that I don't actually have a great vocabulary for art. And I think that that is probably one of the most limiting parts of me enjoying it. Because I see colors and I can only say red or blue. There's no distinct, I can't make distinctions in between those, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna do my best.

Heather Haymart [00:08:39] Okay.

Vance Crowe [00:08:39] The, what I was attracted to out of your art was the, the colors were vibrant but not overt. So there, there was a lot of reds and they would, they would collide with another color, but it never felt like it was jarring. It, it felt like it was supposed to be that way. And then as you are drawn in closer to your artwork, you have a three dimensionality to your paintings. That there's, the paint is so thick that it actually comes off of the, the canvas. And it becomes this almost surreal experience to be looking at something that you were prepared to be in 2D, but now suddenly you're in 3D space. And the, the most striking of your paintings, to me was one where I remember there being a whole bunch of red at the bottom of the painting. And then as you moved upwards, you saw that there was a tree there. And I am, I weirdly drawn to trees. We can talk about that at another time. But would you say that's an accurate description? Is that how you see your art?

Heather Haymart [00:09:41] Yes, I think so. I think that was a perfect description. I don't think you should, wow. You shouldn't worry. Just like if you go to the doctor and the doctor knows all the terms, right? But you go in and you're like, I have a sore throat. Or you know, what's the difference between a cut and a contusion? I don't know. Or a bruise. It doesn't matter. The mo the point is, is that you can make communicated well, and I totally understand what you're saying, and then I can, I can do the same thing back. But I also think that one thing about doing art fairs especially is I, I'm a former teacher of art.

Vance Crowe [00:10:14] Oh.

Heather Haymart [00:10:15] And so I think it's important, like every single time we do an art fair, it's my chance to educate people on art. Because I think there are so many people like you who maybe you would like art, but because you feel like it's the unknown territory, maybe you don't know the right things to ask or you're intimidated. People can be intimidated by art and like, what are they supposed to think and what are they supposed to say? And, you know, through education always, that's the thing that shed light on things that need light shine on them.

Vance Crowe [00:10:45] What age of kids were you educating?

Heather Haymart [00:10:48] I did middle school for one year, and then I did high school for the rest. And I was a art teacher for six years.

Vance Crowe [00:10:54] Okay, so you were seven, seven years teaching and this was right when you were out of school?

Heather Haymart [00:10:59] Yeah, I graduated. I student taught when I was so young that the teachers thought I was a student. Yeah. And then I taught right outta college up until I had my first child.

Vance Crowe [00:11:11] And then did you move into becoming a full-time artist?

Heather Haymart [00:11:14] Not yet. So I, I, so I taught for the six or seven years, it's hard to remember. And then I was charge of a art club, and so we did murals around the school and it was just really a cool experience. And I loved those art, art club kids. And so I had a mural painter come and talk to us. And so then after all the kids left, he and I sat there and talked for like another two hours. And I was like, oh, I think I wanna make murals. I think I wanna quit teaching and do, do murals for a living.

Vance Crowe [00:11:47] What was so drawing about it?

Heather Haymart [00:11:50] I think it was, the truth of the matter is I don't think I am a good at, I'm good at teaching, but I didn't like the management of a classroom. And so I felt like it, it just, I wasn't happy to be honest as, as a teacher, I loved certain kids and you know, the ones that wanted to be there, of course, like every teacher, you love the kids that wanna be there, and then you're frustrated with the ones that don't wanna be there. And I just wasn't cut out for discipline and I didn't like when people were mean. I know that sounds ridiculous, but the,

Vance Crowe [00:12:27] The more I think about it, the more that being an art teacher would expose you to sides of students that 90% of the time or 95% of the time is tamped down.

Heather Haymart [00:12:38] And

Vance Crowe [00:12:38] Then they get this one place where certain kids are gonna thrive. They either have the natural talent or they have something to express that they can't in another places. And so you are really like in, I probably turbulent waters. And the reason I'm thinking of that is I think I was probably a terror in art school

Heather Haymart [00:12:55] Because

Vance Crowe [00:12:56] It was something that, it was embarrassing for me to do art because I knew it was never gonna be as good as other people. And so I think it probably exposed vulnerabilities that maybe most kids, maybe another kid would feel about being in math class. I'd never really thought about it like that before.

Heather Haymart [00:13:11] Yeah, I honestly, I really, I felt comfortable with some troubled kids. It was more like the kids that just didn't care and that I didn't understand that you're probably right, that they didn't care as a defense mechanism so they wouldn't look stupid. But I tried really hard to make it be an environment where failing wasn't, like talent had nothing to do with failure or sus success. It was more about effort and willingness to learn. And I tried really hard from the beginning, every, every year, every class to make sure the kids knew that like, you're not gonna be a favorite. 'cause you can draw well and you're not gonna be disfavored because you can't, it's all about what you put into it.

Vance Crowe [00:13:56] That was, yeah. I, I would intuitively have run in the other direction. What sort of student were you?

Heather Haymart [00:14:04] You mean when I was in college or

Vance Crowe [00:14:05] High school? Yeah. Well, yeah, when you were facing an art teacher, were you the, the art teacher's favorite?

Heather Haymart [00:14:09] Oh no, I wasn't actually. No, I, I loved making art and I loved my art classes, but I was unnoticed.

Vance Crowe [00:14:18] Unnoticed.

Heather Haymart [00:14:19] So

Vance Crowe [00:14:19] Then what made you decide, hey, I'm gonna head down the path of becoming an art teacher?

Heather Haymart [00:14:25] I, well, I have been making art since I was a little kid. My whole family, I, I come from a long line of really creative women. My great-grandmother, I remember just seeing all her stitch work in these embroidered pieces of art that she would make where it would be like flowers and things that she'd frame. And everybody in the family had them, all my great aunts would be cro counted cross stitch, that it's, you know, these beautiful colors and detail. That was just fascinating to me. I had a, my mom had a friend that did these shadow boxes that I would just stare at those for hours. My mom, well, I'm skipping my grandma. My grandma, she's an amazing quilter. She there, she used to have a ceramic studio where she taught people how to do ceramics. She's a, she was a seamstress. She, you know, later on, like she learned how to, she taught herself how to watercolor. There was no end to her creativity. And then my mom, I grew up with her, you know, setting up an easel in the kitchen with walnuts and trying to teach herself how to paint walnuts.

Vance Crowe [00:15:33] Really?

Heather Haymart [00:15:34] Yeah. So my whole, and you know, she would draw things with pastels and sketchbooks and I would just thumb through all her drawings. So it's just never not been a part of my life. Creativity. And

Vance Crowe [00:15:45] Does that mean that it was something you felt pulled to do or it was in lieu of watching television or, because I genuinely don't have that, like, to sit down and draw for me would, would actually be a punishment. It would be easier for me to sit and try and meditate against a, a white wall than it would be for me to try and paint or draw something.

Heather Haymart [00:16:06] I don't know, it seemed just natural. I'm not naturally athletic. I'm not, I watched lots of tv. I had friends, I played outside all the time. But yeah, it was just part of who I was. Like, it just kind of just came naturally. My, my draw being drawn to it. I don't, I don't even remember it being a, a choice or not choice, just part of life.

Vance Crowe [00:16:34] And so then that made it the natural thing that you would go towards when you're, Hey, I gotta, I'm finishing up high school and now I have to go to college.

Heather Haymart [00:16:42] Yeah. So when I went to high school, I went to my counselor probably my junior year. And she was, I didn't have very good grades. I probably had like c average grades. And I told her I wanted to go to Mizzou and she was like, basically, that's probably not gonna happen. And that was it for me. I mean, it was like a challenge. And I was like, well, you don't think so? Well I'll watch. So then I got my crap together real quick and somehow got into Mizzou. I don't even know how it happened.

Vance Crowe [00:17:13] Oh wow. Yeah.

Heather Haymart [00:17:14] And I know getting to Mizzou into Mizzou is not that hard, but for me.

Vance Crowe [00:17:18] And if somebody had told you, you can't do it, right?

Heather Haymart [00:17:20] Like

Vance Crowe [00:17:20] That's right. What, what was the, what was the reason your grades weren't good?

Heather Haymart [00:17:25] Oh, I was a slacker at times. I had a rough freshman year, you know, bad choices. And

Vance Crowe [00:17:33] Were you a, were you a like a kid that got in trouble, smoking behind the school, that kind of stuff?

Heather Haymart [00:17:37] I, I got in trouble probably at times. Yeah. When I was younger. I, I went through my rebellion phase probably right in my freshman year. And then after that I seemed to kind of just get it together.

Vance Crowe [00:17:49] Oh, way, way better to do it then. Yeah.

Heather Haymart [00:17:51] Well

Vance Crowe [00:17:51] Maybe, but yeah. And so then you go to Mizzou and, and you apply to the art department. And this is like your,

Heather Haymart [00:17:59] My mom tell, I don't remember this, but we went up to Mizzou and I don't remember, maybe it was like orientation or something like that. And she said that I went in to talk with the counselors while they stayed. I don't know what they were doing, maybe waiting in the waiting room. But I talked to a counselor and I came out and announced I was gonna study art. And they were just like, what? Like, they just were shocked. Not not be, they just thought I was gonna go into something that would, you know, be a career choice that we

Vance Crowe [00:18:27] Make a living.

Heather Haymart [00:18:29] And so that was, I don't know, I don't even remember saying it. I

Vance Crowe [00:18:34] So what does an art student in college learn about art? Is it a worthwhile thing to do study art? Oh,

Heather Haymart [00:18:42] I think so. Yeah. I think it could be better. Like I, if I had it, if I could just tell colleges what to do, and I think they're leaning towards this from what I understand, but if I could tell colleges what to do, I would, because when I went through school, I got a fine art degree and a art education degree, I got two degrees. And the fine art degree means that you just take art, like tons of it. I did ceramics, I did printmaking, I did metal work, I did sculpture, drawing and painting. My emphasis was drawing. But you take everything, you, I did photography. I can't think of anything I didn't take in the fine art world except back

Vance Crowe [00:19:22] Sounds pretty fun.

Heather Haymart [00:19:22] It was, it was a blast. I, I would do it again and again. But throughout it, your professors tend to tell you, you're not gonna make a living at this. You can't make a career at this. Nobody makes it, nobody does this for a living. And so you just believe it. And so when I, one, I think it was probably like my sophomore year and I was still sticking with art and my mom was like, so what are you gonna do for a living? And I'm like, I don't know. And she's like, well you better figure that out 'cause you gotta have to figure out how to pay for your life. And so, you know, I thought on it and I was like, oh, okay, I'll, I'll be an art teacher as a fallback, you know? And then it just became what I did. And so that was, that was how it all kind of just went on that track. You know, I did student teaching. I was lucky enough to get a job right away and then became a teacher. And I always say that when I was a teacher, I learned more there than I did in college. I kind of got off of the college thing. And I did wanna mention that if I were to do a college degree again, I would do fine art and business and, and or marketing. Oh,

Vance Crowe [00:20:34] There you go. That's interesting because you are now, now I know artist trying to make

Heather Haymart [00:20:38] Yeah. Make

Vance Crowe [00:20:38] Money.

Heather Haymart [00:20:39] I've taught myself everything. Like as far as marketing business, how to do my own, you know, accounting and how to keep track of taxes and learn how to market on the internet and build a website. And I mean, I've been teaching myself all of these things. And

Vance Crowe [00:20:55] I would imagine that that's a pretty harsh dichotomy too, right? Business and art don't seem to go together,

Heather Haymart [00:21:01] But

Vance Crowe [00:21:01] If you are just an artist with no business, you, you will never, you will be like the art teacher said, you'll never make it.

Heather Haymart [00:21:08] Right, right. Maybe. I mean, there are artists out there that they are just artists and someone else kind of leads them and takes care of them. That's, that is harder, you know, that is harder to find because you have to somehow, I don't know, maybe be something more special or maybe just have a good connection with someone who wants to take care of that for you there.

Vance Crowe [00:21:30] Do you, do you, if if a kid comes to you and they're thinking about art school, do you give them the advice that you just said there

Heather Haymart [00:21:37] Every time? Yeah, and I get that question a lot. I love the chance at art fairs when I get that chance to talk to young people about that. That, you know, if you wanna be this, if you wanna do this take, treat it like a business.

Vance Crowe [00:21:48] When did you make the conversion to being an artist? That's an amateur. You just love it to somebody that, that can generate actual income from it.

Heather Haymart [00:21:59] Boy, it's been a long journey. So I, I did the mural job for about two years.

Vance Crowe [00:22:06] Oh wait, you actually did do the mural job?

Heather Haymart [00:22:08] I did, yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:22:09] What and what does that mean? That people pay you to come paint on walls?

Heather Haymart [00:22:13] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:22:13] With what?

Heather Haymart [00:22:15] With what? What do you mean? Like

Vance Crowe [00:22:16] Spray paint? Oh

Heather Haymart [00:22:16] No, I painted with a acrylic paint and then I'd put a clear top coat that would protect it on the murals. So yeah, I did, I I did a lot of them actually for two years. It was a pretty successful business.

Vance Crowe [00:22:27] Are they around here?

Heather Haymart [00:22:28] They have been. They, I would imagine many, many were in private residences. Like, so I, one of my very first mural was my kids' pediatrician and she hired me to do like a under the water fish mural in her waiting room. And so, and that got me tons of business because people would come in all the time and see it they

Vance Crowe [00:22:50] Had and

Heather Haymart [00:22:51] Ask for my name. And so yeah, it was a pretty good situation. And of course I gave her like a major discount 'cause it was my very first, first mural and I knew it was gonna lead to better things. So she got me a lot of business that way. And then over time it just be kind of became like a word of mouth thing. And I don't remember exactly, but somewhere along the line I was able to do a mural in Troy, Missouri at Stepan Nina's. My mom actually was my connection there because the owner of Stepan Nina's was her neighbor. And they

Vance Crowe [00:23:22] Is that a restaurant or is that Yes.

Heather Haymart [00:23:23] Yeah. Okay. It's an Italian restaurant. So I did these like three, four by eight panels that I actually did in my house. And then, like my husband built me this big thing that would hold them. And I was pregnant. This was the probably one of the last murals I did. I was pregnant with my second child and I was big and stepping up and down on this little step stool trying to get this painting finished. And then they went and they hung it and it's over the bar. But I think I, I think it may be closed, but I've had people over the years, you know, contact me and say, oh, I saw your mural

Vance Crowe [00:23:56] And did you enjoy doing art in that giant scale? I mean, that's, that's a different way of doing it where you have to actually move your body to be able to get to another part of your canvas.

Heather Haymart [00:24:05] I loved it. I loved doing murals, like doing murals. I loved, at the time my kids, I, you know, I had like a 2-year-old and a 1-year-old. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:24:14] And they're wreaking havoc all over the place. Right. You trying to keep 'em alive. And I

Heather Haymart [00:24:18] Was essentially a stay at home mom slash doing this. Okay.

Vance Crowe [00:24:21] And

Heather Haymart [00:24:21] So I was doing it on weekends and evenings. I'm home with my kids during the day. And then my husband would take care of the kids in evenings and weekends when I would go do a mural. And so that was another thing I didn't love because I felt like we didn't get to do anything fun, you know?

Vance Crowe [00:24:36] Oh, interesting. You

Heather Haymart [00:24:37] Know, 'cause weekends were taken up with

Vance Crowe [00:24:38] Work. Yeah, yeah,

Heather Haymart [00:24:39] Yeah. And so yeah, it was just a balancing act. And so by the time I was, by the time I had my second child and I decided I was done with murals and she was about nine months old and I decided to try and make a painting. I, I really didn't, I was actually a fiber artist for a while. I would make,

Vance Crowe [00:25:00] What does that mean?

Heather Haymart [00:25:01] Fiber arts is like, it's a pretty all encompassing thing. It could be like working with paper, it could be working with weaving, it could be material like fabric. But I, I made these sculptures out of like wire and leather and I would like weave leather. And I actually got 'em into some shows and I just made all kinds of different weird things out of fiber goods. And I loved doing it. But I quit once I started having kids, it was like teaching and, and doing that was just too much. It being a teach I would do it over the summer. And so in the, is when I would try to be an artist. And then during the school year, all your energy goes towards being a teacher.

Vance Crowe [00:25:41] Wow.

Heather Haymart [00:25:44] So I feel like I got off track.

Vance Crowe [00:25:45] Well, I mean, so you were talking about you're doing murals and, and you're painting on these large canvases and moving your body around and then somehow make the switch to painting then, right?

Heather Haymart [00:25:54] Yeah. So after having my second child, I took, basically took a break for nine months to take care of a baby. And the other one, she was two years old. And during nap time I decided to try and make a painting. So I just went down. We lived in the city, we lived in South City, so I had this really dungeon basement. But that's where, you know, I had my pseudo studio and I went down there and I made a painting. It was like, like 32 by 48 size painting. So it was pretty big. And it was just acrylic paint and totally abstract, something I hadn't done because I wouldn't allow myself to have fun like that with art. I always thought it needed to have like a purpose and people needed to recognize it. And, you know, I just, I don't know, it was something I would just never allow myself to do. Just like have fun with abstract.

Vance Crowe [00:26:45] So you were down in this dungeon having fun.

Heather Haymart [00:26:48] Totally, yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:26:49] Kind of burning off parts of, of the old way of thinking about how art works.

Heather Haymart [00:26:53] Yeah, absolutely.

Vance Crowe [00:26:55] So what were you doing? Did you have an image in your mind that you wanted to put down on that canvas? Or were you just, what, how does this work?

Heather Haymart [00:27:03] Well, it, I mean, I had been trained in how to use the materials and I, you know, I know I'm capable of doing figurative work and like painting something you recognize. And at that time, really it was just play, like, just putting paint down and smearing it around and seeing what I think. And I, I immediately fell in love with textures while I was working and watching how the different textures crossed across each other and colors and how they played together. So I don't, I don't know, it just is one of those things. And I, I made probably two large paintings in like a few months there. And I heard about this show, I forget how this even went, but I, I made two paintings and the one, I had a show that I heard about at this restaurant, I started getting involved with this group called Art Dimensions. And it was just this group of St. Louis artists who were coming together. It was led by this person named Debbie Day Weaver. And it just was this group of people. And so I, I was involved with them and I used to scour the riverfront times trying to find like art things to get involved in. So I finally found something and there was this bar that was opening called Jabon, and it was in Tower Grove

Vance Crowe [00:28:28] Grove, which is just a neighborhood inside of St. Louis. Yeah, yeah. Well

Heather Haymart [00:28:30] It was The Grove. Okay. I don't know if you know about The Grove now, it's a big deal. Right. But back then it was like really rough. And so she had, she was probably one of the beginning people that like got, you know, the Grove going I think. And that was a long time ago. 'cause my daughter was born in 2001.

Vance Crowe [00:28:46] Oh yeah. Wow. And

Heather Haymart [00:28:46] So it was probably 2002 that I did that where I put my painting in there and she bought it like it matched. I know you, everybody talks about don't match your art to the couch, which I don't think that's what this was about, but it just happened to go perfectly with this crazy ottoman she had. So she bought it, I sold it for like $200 to her.

Vance Crowe [00:29:05] And was this the first time you had sold a painting? Yep. Instead of a, and would that have been tangibly different than a mural where people are like, here, here's the canvas in my house and this one is you're expressing something and it connects with somebody so deeply that they decide to purchase it.

Heather Haymart [00:29:21] Yeah, I was completely hooked. Like it, that's all it took. I did that and that second painting I told you about, my cousin bought it from me. And yeah, that, like those two experiences right there, I was just like, oh, this is what I've been waiting for.

Vance Crowe [00:29:38] And it was, it felt invigorating because people were buying it. Oh. And saying that they loved it.

Heather Haymart [00:29:43] It was very validating. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:29:45] And how did you set the price on these first paintings?

Heather Haymart [00:29:48] Start Low. Just start low and see what happens. Yeah, that was, that was it. I had read a lot. I read, you know, a lot of magazine articles and books and things about how to try to get into the art world. And so that was one of the things of advice that people give, gave me through reading those articles was, you know, start low and see what happens and if it goes well up your price a little bit. And so that's what I've done.

Vance Crowe [00:30:15] And so then if you think about from there, when The Grove is just getting started in the early two thousands to 2019, you appeared to have a pretty well established business online. And what is your business of art now? What are you doing? How do you, how do you operate?

Heather Haymart [00:30:35] So my business is definitely in all that time has evolved over a lot of time from, and it's just had different iterations. But I was lucky back then, my brother was a programmer and so I got him to build me a website. Oh.

Vance Crowe [00:30:52] Early

Heather Haymart [00:30:52] On. Big

Vance Crowe [00:30:53] Advantage to get out there first. Yeah.

Heather Haymart [00:30:55] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:30:55] And

Heather Haymart [00:30:55] So it was just kind of a, like an online presence. I didn't have a store, but it was away, you know, like a online business card, kind of a portfolio type of thing. And eventually he, I think, if I remember right, he might have gotten it to where I could sell things. I can't remember, but, so how am I where I'm at today? Is that what you asked?

Vance Crowe [00:31:15] Yeah. I mean more or less just what is your business now

Heather Haymart [00:31:19] Through lots and lots of trial and error, I've learned that what I really wanna do is I thought for a while what I wanted to do is just sell online. If I could quit doing the art fairs, I would like to sell online.

Vance Crowe [00:31:32] No anxiety, you don't have to worry about storms

Heather Haymart [00:31:34] Or

Vance Crowe [00:31:34] People show up for breaking art. Yeah,

Heather Haymart [00:31:36] Exactly. Yeah. And it, I don't know if you know, but when you apply to an art fair, you have to submit artwork and you can get accepted or rejected. And so a lot of my decision making about my career as an artist has been based on putting my future in someone else's hands.

Vance Crowe [00:31:55] Wow.

Heather Haymart [00:31:56] So every time I've met a situation where I am dependent upon someone else to allow me to do what I wanna do, I try to figure out a way to not have to do that. Only because at any point they could take that away. Right. At any point they could quit accepting me to an art fair and there goes my livelihood.

Vance Crowe [00:32:14] Yeah. Like building barns on rented land.

Heather Haymart [00:32:16] Yes, exactly. Yeah. And so, and, and it was the same way when I had a choice between a, you know, try, I had tried to get into like, you know, reputable galleries around St. Louis and you know, kind of had a little bit of success with that. But then I realized I don't, I feel like this is just an ex exercise in futility. Like, it, it was just not the way I wanted to do things I didn't feel in control of my career.

Vance Crowe [00:32:49] Yeah. And for people that don't understand the gallery world, that is, you make an arrangement with somebody that has physical space, a room or a studio, and you get to hang up your paintings, but in exchange for you hanging up your paintings and them driving people there because they have a reputation for this person finds innovative art or interesting art, then you're gonna give a certain percentage. And it's usually not a small percentage. No,

Heather Haymart [00:33:13] It's usually half. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:33:14] Half. I guess I didn't know that.

Heather Haymart [00:33:16] Yeah, 50, 50, 40, 60 right around there.

Vance Crowe [00:33:19] Wow.

Heather Haymart [00:33:19] Yeah. And that's okay. Like I was willing to pay it, you know, if they were bringing me business and they were doing all that work for me, I believe galleries are valuable and they deserve what they get. I don't have anything against galleries, it was just my own personal, like I didn't wanna be beholden to someone who would maybe eventually says, we don't wanna carry your work anymore.

Vance Crowe [00:33:39] Right. And you've built all that Yes. Brand equity up with the people that come to their gallery and it's own, it's just dissipated. Yeah. Right.

Heather Haymart [00:33:45] Yeah. And so then it evolved and I got involved in like art co-ops where I felt like more like I'm owning my own business. And so a bunch of artists that wanna feel that same way kind of come together and co-opt the business. So we had like a gallery, it was Gateway Gallery and Clayton, and they, it, it's just like a bunch of artists and you meet every month and you run a business together. And so like someone takes care of marketing and someone takes care of buying the toilet paper or whatever and someone else takes care of, I don't know what else

Vance Crowe [00:34:18] Managing the shop, our

Heather Haymart [00:34:18] Website.

Vance Crowe [00:34:19] Yeah.

Heather Haymart [00:34:19] Okay. Yeah, those, so it was like a co-opted situation where artists got to, and then the, the main event was that we would have these receptions where we get the opportunity to sell to customers and display my work. So that was a really great experience where I learned so much. And then after that, I decide in the meantime I'm always doing a million other things. Like, so I taught art camps because we, I wasn't bringing in very much money and the kids were getting to where they could go to kindergarten. And so it, it, it was like, either go get a job or figure out something else that you can do while you still make art. And so I would do things like work at a gallery, be answering phones and things like that. I would taught art camps in Chesterfield arts and like take my kids with me and they got to do the camps too. And I don't know, there's so many different things I did.

Vance Crowe [00:35:10] Was this a difficult time? I mean, because you're, yeah. You're trying to be an artist and you wanna just be painting and selling.

Heather Haymart [00:35:16] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:35:16] So tell me about that.

Heather Haymart [00:35:18] Oh, it was exhausting. It was, so I also prided myself in being a stay at home mom. And so I wanted to do a good job with that. And I didn't want my kids to not have me a hundred percent. Right.

Vance Crowe [00:35:36] And

Heather Haymart [00:35:36] So I was constantly torn between those two things, between, you know, wanting to be there for my kids a hundred percent, but also really wanting to pursue this art career. And then knowing that my time is just gonna always be divided up until, you know, probably middle school, it was just gonna be that way. And so I was always struggling with that. And then, you know, trying to make money too, like trying to figure out how to contribute to the household income also. So yeah, it was, it was a stressful time, but I wouldn't trade it because what I did get to do is I did get to take care of my kids and I did grow my business. I was just tired.

Vance Crowe [00:36:17] So when I think about art being a business, it, it strikes me how you maintain, like, you're essentially selling creativity in a way, right? That, that you, that you capture and you put in a, into a format that you can then hand to other people. How do you have the discipline to be able to capture, to bring in that, that muse that allows you to be creative and deliver day in and day out so that you can have a business?

Heather Haymart [00:36:48] Once I was allowed to devote all of my ti this is hard to say because I also owned a gallery for a while with my mom at the Chesterfield mall. And we did kind of like a, a co-opted thing with the artists. They would rent space from us, but I would basically ran the gallery and she ran kind of like a decorative arts side of the business. And we taught classes and all kinds of things. And so right after my kids ended up going to middle school and I had this freedom, this opportunity came up and we gave it a shot. And so then that took all, it was kind of like my kids not taking that time. It became, the gallery took that time that we had together. And so in 2015 we decided to close. And that, that, I feel like that was when I finally got to a hundred percent all in grow my business. And so it's only been, what's that four years? Four

Vance Crowe [00:37:43] Years. Yeah.

Heather Haymart [00:37:43] Yeah. And so, and at that time again, I'm always at this crossroads of like, well if, if you do better this year, maybe you could keep doing art and if you don't, well maybe you need to go get a job. It's just always that. And so I'm always like, that is very,

Vance Crowe [00:37:58] That's an inter tension.

Heather Haymart [00:37:59] Yeah. It's very motivating too. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:38:01] And

Heather Haymart [00:38:02] So when gets

Vance Crowe [00:38:03] You to do the things that you don't want to do. Right.

Heather Haymart [00:38:05] And so yeah, once the gallery closed, then I was like, free to just a hundred percent do that. And it was just, no, it's been no question. Like, am I gonna go to the studio and paint? Heck yeah. I've got time now. I can do it if I want to. And it, it is a discipline thing when you're a creative person and someone full of anxiety. It's, it's the weirdest thing. It's the weirdest experience to, I wake up on a, at a certain time every morning. 'cause I wanna make sure

Vance Crowe [00:38:37] What time do you wake up?

Heather Haymart [00:38:38] I wake up at six 30.

Vance Crowe [00:38:39] Okay.

Heather Haymart [00:38:40] And I do that mostly because my daughter, she's still in high school, my youngest daughter, my other oldest is at college. And so I get up to make sure she gets off okay. And, you know, just make sure she woke up. Those kinds of things. And then I jump in the shower and get on with my day. But when it's time to, like, everybody's gone and it's time for me to go down to the studio every single time. I have to kind of like muster up the motivation to get down there, even though I wanna be there. It's such a weird,

Vance Crowe [00:39:09] Have you, we actually spoke about this very briefly at the art fair and then I realized that I was like way overstepping 'cause I was very excited to meet you. But the, the concept of resistance, have you heard of this term?

Heather Haymart [00:39:21] No, I haven't.

Vance Crowe [00:39:22] So there's a book called The War of Art and it's, it's about like, how do you manage the, if you're gonna be a creative, how do you make sure you have the discipline to do it? And I read it right at the time when I decided I'm gonna go in, I'm gonna start my own business. I'm gonna leave the corporate world and do this thing. And the book is fascinating because it names what is a voice that is in everyone's head that you don't even realize is a voice. It's just a part of the cacophony of sound, which is, you know, when you start jogging right? You, you know, you're like, I'm gonna start, I'm gonna start exercising the first day. You're really excited. So you go out and do it the second day you're like, Hey, yeah, I'm, I'm really excited about it. And then the third day a voice says, well, you might get hurt or it might be too cold out, or, you worked so hard yesterday, or whatever it is, it's all of these reasons why you shouldn't do this thing. That's the voice of resistance. And once you name that voice of resistance, then you start seeing it show up in all sorts of places. That was always there.

Heather Haymart [00:40:23] You just

Vance Crowe [00:40:23] Didn't have the name for it. And I can completely relate to you saying, you know, in the morning, I, I am excited about working, but there's something that keeps me from it. And that's what I'm so curious about is how can you just keep walking past resistance every day?

Heather Haymart [00:40:40] It is definitely all about habits and like routines for me in particular. And so once I'm done with my breakfast, like I, I have a choice to make, right? I can procrastinate and look at my phone and read the news or whatever, or just go over and fill my water bucket with water. 'cause I don't have water in my studio. I have to get it from the kitchen and take it down to my basement studio, which is really nice. I, my basement studio is wonderful, but it does not have water. So that's kind of like one of those things like if I look across and see my bucket, I'm like, just get over there and fill that with water. Let's go. You know? Wow.

Vance Crowe [00:41:17] What a metaphor. Right? That seems like a heck of a metaphor.

Heather Haymart [00:41:20] Yeah. No kidding. I never thought of that.

Vance Crowe [00:41:23] And is it, is, is it something you succeed at every day? Do you get in in pain every day?

Heather Haymart [00:41:29] I try. If I don't, there's a reason. Like maybe something like this right now.

Vance Crowe [00:41:35] Oh no, I kept you from filling up your bucket. Oh

Heather Haymart [00:41:37] No, that's okay though. But, and then I've gotten myself to a point where if I don't get paint time in the morning, then I'll try to shift and maybe paint in the evening unless I don't have a major deadline or, you know, if I'm not low, then I, I tend to slack off on that part of it and I'll just be like, well I had a, I had no time I couldn't paint today.

Vance Crowe [00:41:57] And so, you know, if we, if we carry out the metaphor of the bucket and say, you know, you've gotta fill it up and then you've gotta go downstairs. Your paintings are extremely expressive. Or at least when I see them, the thing that reflects back is there is passion here. There there is, somebody was trying to say something that they want to be Lindy, they want to live on long into the future. How do you capture it's, it's not just as much as like, Hey, I gotta fill up the water and go downstairs and start grinding away. 'cause you, you can't just grind. You have to be creative in some way.

Heather Haymart [00:42:33] Yeah. I feel lucky that comes pretty naturally. Like I, I don't, I rarely look at a board and not know what to do. So when I get downstairs, I typically will sit down on a chair and a cattle end up on my lap and I'll stare at a blank board. This is when I'm beginning a painting, if I've got paintings going, it's simple. You just get going.

Vance Crowe [00:42:58] You just already grab onto the wall and

Heather Haymart [00:43:00] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:43:00] Okay. Yeah.

Heather Haymart [00:43:01] But when I'm beginning a painting, yeah, I usually will sit down kind of just stare at that blank board. And somehow there's just sometimes I'll have like a thought in my mind, like, I would like to infuse this painting with, you know, joy as kind of my tagline of, of I want joy to go into my paintings so that joy will come out of my paintings.

Vance Crowe [00:43:28] Wow. That is like the highest bar that you could set. I mean, I can't, I can't think of another higher bar that you could set than I want. I want my painting to express joy.

Heather Haymart [00:43:38] Yeah. It's important to me. And I, it's also selfish. Like I can, I can definitely go down the negative and I've had those times where I thought, oh, I could definitely get into making that edgy hard,

Vance Crowe [00:43:50] You

Heather Haymart [00:43:51] Know, emotional stuff that, you know, makes people hurt. But I don't want that in the world, you know? And I don't want it in my life. I could choose to focus on that, but I am, every single day that I make a painting infused with joy is my attempt at kicking out the bad stuff of my own.

Vance Crowe [00:44:07] Wow.

Heather Haymart [00:44:08] Yeah. So it's, it's definitely selfishly motivated and I get, I get something out of it, but then I hope that once I've done that, then someone else gets something out of it as well.

Vance Crowe [00:44:18] And when you're looking at that white canvas, do you imagine something that then you express on there? Or like, I don't even have a great way to ask this question and there may not be an easy way to answer it, but I'm trying to get at what begins as where are you pointed in a direction? How, how can we understand this?

Heather Haymart [00:44:39] So it's a combination of like materials, right? Like color and texture. And I think about that, like technical stuff and what do I wanna do with that today? Like what do, what colors do I wanna mess around with? And what texture ideas did I have that I wanna apply to this one? So there's that, the technical side, but then there's also the imagery side. And since they're abstract, it's hard to explain it as imagery. But when I look at a blank board, I always, I've tried to explain it like this before, you know, when you close your eyes really, really hard and like you keep your eyes closed and you can see all those colors kind of going around. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:45:22] Sure.

Heather Haymart [00:45:22] I feel like that's what happens between me and my painting. So I'm sitting there staring at it and without closing my eyes real tight, I can just kind of see those things come onto the board before I begin.

Vance Crowe [00:45:36] Wow. Does

Heather Haymart [00:45:37] That make sense?

Vance Crowe [00:45:38] Yeah, yeah,

Heather Haymart [00:45:38] Yeah. And so then it just kind of goes from there. Once I see it, it's done, I'm ready. And then I get going. Sometimes I sketch it on the board, sometimes I write on the, like if I had a painting, I called time to think, 'cause I was feeling a little overwhelmed at the time and I just needed some time to think. And I wrote that on there. And so then that became the title of that painting. And then sometimes I don't do that. Sometimes I just go right in with color and texture, with no drawing at all. It just depends. I think the creative process needs to be a little more flexible.

Vance Crowe [00:46:10] Yeah. I I, I would imagine for me, one, one of the biggest challenges that I have with creativity is if I sit down to be like, I'm going to be creative now, it's almost impossible. I, I almost have to distract myself from what I'm doing. So I hate running. I, I don't enjoy any part of it, but most of my good ideas for, so I go out and give a lot of talks. Most of my good ideas for giving a good talk are about five miles away. And I have to run out and come back and about mile three or four, they start coming and then I can sit down and bang, bang it all out. Yeah.

Heather Haymart [00:46:49] But

Vance Crowe [00:46:49] For me, I, there's no way I could just sit in front of a blank PowerPoint or a piece of paper and draw anything out. In fact, the harder I try that it's, it's almost like cracking my pencils or something

Heather Haymart [00:47:00] Like that.

Vance Crowe [00:47:00] Yeah.

Heather Haymart [00:47:00] Oh, I can understand that completely. I think that whatever is happening in your brain when you're running so that you can come back and do those things is similar to whatever I'm doing prior to going down to the studio. Even if it's just like piddling around watch, looking at Pinterest for a little bit or reading an article of the news or something like there, there's rarely not something else going on back here for me. So that's just part of it. And I, I do think that there is, like, as I walk down the steps to my studio, that's when something changes. You know, it's kind of a mindset, but also like a process like,

Vance Crowe [00:47:46] Well, what you're describing about filling up the bucket and then walking down the stairs, that is perfectly in the war of art where he says you have to have a ritual, you have to follow this ritual. And I'm a total believer in, in habits. Like one of the things that I lost when I started my own company was when I went to work, I used to wear the exact same thing every single day And people would kind of laugh or joke about it, but it cut off a whole bunch of thinking that I used to have to do. And now I find, because I'm just living here, it's just me. I just throw on whatever clothes are there. But I'll probably get back to that level of extreme habits because the more that my schedule is tightened down, the more creative I find myself to be. And then I always think that because as you get more creative, then you start being like, oh, I can let this thing go or I can try. And then before you know it, you're putting on weight and not getting things done and

Heather Haymart [00:48:44] Absolutely. Yeah. And I think you're right that it somehow simplifies everything else so that the one thing that needs to have the most energy gets it.

Vance Crowe [00:48:52] That's right. And so when you think about things like color, do you have to, do you have an emotion into those colors already or do, does that change depending on how you're feeling?

Heather Haymart [00:49:07] Yes and yes. I think I definitely have kind of like a code in my head of like what colors express what emotions, but then when I do different combinations of colors that changes that. And so it'll also be like after the colors are together, then I feel something too. So it's, it's both.

Vance Crowe [00:49:27] And do you feel like you have a pretty accurate idea of the emotion that you're putting in with colors that somebody is going to be able to pull that same thing out? Or does it really matter to you?

Heather Haymart [00:49:41] I've just, I, I don't, I try not to attach myself to what someone else experiences.

Vance Crowe [00:49:49] Wow.

Heather Haymart [00:49:49] And so I put what I do in, and then when people start to look at my work and I hear how they receive it, it's, I learn something new all the time. When that happens, sometimes people are right on, like, I thought this, I put it into it and then this person felt it. And I'm like, that's an awesome feeling. But then there's other times when I make this painting that has this certain message or feeling or thought and someone else had a different one. And when they express their thought about my art to me and I see it, that's exciting too.

Vance Crowe [00:50:28] Oh,

Heather Haymart [00:50:29] You know.

Vance Crowe [00:50:30] Yeah. That's, that's, that's very, it's egoless, right? It's, it's probably a very healthy thing to be able to do because I know when I go to give a talk, if somebody comes back and says, I thought of it this way, I am, I'm really pretty tied to how I meant it to be. Right? Yeah. I'm, I'm up there expressing an idea, but to hear you feel a sense of joy or at least being able to, to pull a sense of satisfaction out of that, that's pretty healthy, I would think.

Heather Haymart [00:50:59] I hope so. Yeah. I hadn't thought of it that way, but yeah, it's, it's pretty cool. I mean, to see someone else's interpretation or that they felt something different is all it does is expand rather than constrict.

Vance Crowe [00:51:14] Oh, that's great.

Heather Haymart [00:51:16] Right. So I mean, then I just know something else I hadn't thought of. And that's an amazing thing to have.

Vance Crowe [00:51:22] So are all of your friends artists?

Heather Haymart [00:51:25] No, I have a lot of artist friends.

Vance Crowe [00:51:29] Is your husband an artist?

Heather Haymart [00:51:30] No,

Vance Crowe [00:51:31] No,

Heather Haymart [00:51:32] No. He would laugh at that too. For the longest, for most of my, for all of my career of being an artist, he has made my boards for me. So he's very handy. And so he's always made the boards that I paint on, I don't paint on canvas, I paint on wood.

Vance Crowe [00:51:49] Oh, I didn't realize that.

Heather Haymart [00:51:51] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:51:51] I didn't even realize that By looking at your paintings. Yeah,

Heather Haymart [00:51:54] They, I don't, I like, I like a hard surface. I use, I don't mean to get off the top of head my,

Vance Crowe [00:51:58] No, this is fine. My husband, we talk about whatever,

Heather Haymart [00:52:00] But my mom actually invented the product that I use in my painting. So different artists use lots of different media to make their art. I use acrylic paint and then this acrylic based paste that is the thicker stuff that you see in my painting, which

Vance Crowe [00:52:16] Is why you can make that texture then. Okay.

Heather Haymart [00:52:19] So I use color and texture together and in those thicker areas that the bulk of that is more of this texture paste that my mom actually invented. It's called wood icing. And so she's been doing that since I began. So I made those two paintings I told you about with no texture product. And then she, at the same time, was kind of developing this stuff. And so I tried it and then, so I've been doing it the entire time that she invented it. I've been using this texture in my work and it's evolved. It's been so many different things over the years.

Vance Crowe [00:52:53] Well, there's something truly like magical about your mother creating the, the textured paint that you're using. That's pretty surreal. Yeah,

Heather Haymart [00:53:04] It is. It is. It's pretty, it's pretty amazing, I think. And it's been a real treat, you know, to get to, that's why we were partners when we were at the gallery together. Oh,

Vance Crowe [00:53:14] That's right.

Heather Haymart [00:53:15] So she sold her product and I sold art and then I had other artists come sell their art and she had classes and taught people how to use her product and sold other paint products and things. And she was definitely in the more decorative finishing realm of things. So like, she would, you, you would use her product. Many people used her product on like furniture and cabinetry to add an element of interest or creativity to things.

Vance Crowe [00:53:41] So you mentioned anxiety about having art shows and it's something that you deal with. How do you balance between anxiety and trying to create paintings of joy?

Heather Haymart [00:53:54] Well, I've learned, I didn't realize this is how it was happening, but painting has been one of those things that helps me slow down my thinking. And so I go through life, I don't know, having a lot of thoughts all the time. And it's not just one set of thoughts. There's a few thoughts in there, you know, like I think of them as like forefront thoughts and then background thoughts. Yeah. And there they're constant simultaneously all the time. And it can be great. I mean, I think quickly, and I can, I'm a problem solver and you know, I, I'm a creative problem solver, so, you know, anytime something's going on, I can think it through pretty quickly and figure it out the solution. But it's also pretty exhausting when you're constantly worried about things that aren't gonna happen. You know, like the safety of your children or the, you know,

Vance Crowe [00:54:47] So it's that level. It's not just, Hey, we gotta make sure I pay that bill and I've gotta get to this door, but it's, are my children safe? And Sure.

Heather Haymart [00:54:54] Yeah. It's pretty exhausting.

Vance Crowe [00:54:57] I think that I'm fortunate in the sense that I don't have the same level of anxiety that I've witnessed other people in my life have. But it also is a little bit of a handicap because I don't understand what goes on in the minds of people that have high anxiety. And I know probably all the way through my twenties, I kind of blew off anxiety. And I actually had a roommate in graduate school that suffered from panic attacks. And that was the first time in my life that I was like, whoa. When he was saying he was stressed out, he was not kidding, because now he's lying on the floor and it looks as though he is having a heart attack.

Heather Haymart [00:55:37] That's terrible.

Vance Crowe [00:55:38] And so it, when when you, when did you start to realize that the anxiety that you had was not the anxiety that other people had?

Heather Haymart [00:55:47] Just recently? Actually, probably in, in the last, well, that's not true. Maybe about 10 years ago I became aware of it, and then since then I've become more aware of it, I guess we'll put it that way. And so, and, and realizing that I, I could work harder to do something about it. So, you know, I, people say to try meditation and I have tried that and I do believe in it, but I have a little bit of a hard time sticking with it. And what I realized is that I think painting is kind of my meditation because my mind is so active when I paint, it's like something with my hands and something with my mind is causing me to slow down. My mind has slowed down. I

Vance Crowe [00:56:38] Mean, that makes perf perfect sense to me. I've started the practice of meditation, but I also have those times when I'm like, I'm too busy for it. But I also have started doing Brazilian juujitsu.

Heather Haymart [00:56:50] Oh.

Vance Crowe [00:56:50] And the fascinating thing about that is you go, so a lot of people don't really know the difference between like jiujitsu and say karate, but juujitsu, are you familiar with it at all? Not

Heather Haymart [00:56:59] A lot, no. So

Vance Crowe [00:57:00] Juujitsu is the, you go and you can use any move that you want that's not striking or kicking or biting or anything like that. So it's almost rustling, but it's, you can use the collar of the, of the, the thing the person is wearing. You can manipulate their sleeves. And so what you're going to is to the point when the other person taps out so that you are going all the way to the edge of if they kept going, you would either break an arm or you'd be, or you'd be choked.

Heather Haymart [00:57:27] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:57:28] But for me, I can walk into that studio with high, like as high of anxiety as I get stress or whatever. But you walk in there and you are so on that edge of chaos, right, right. Where things are out of control for you that by the time you're done, I walk outta there and I don't feel anything other than happiness and contentment and just total, yeah. Still waters is what I would, I would describe it as. Yeah.

Heather Haymart [00:57:56] So

Vance Crowe [00:57:56] When people talk about meditation through some other form, like painting, it makes total sense to me that it doesn't have to be, I am seeking the, the, the thinker of the thoughts.

Heather Haymart [00:58:07] Right. Well, and I think what I learned was that meditation's all about mindfulness and I just, I couldn't get my head around that, but I realized when I'm painting, that's what I'm doing is being mindful. So when you're trying to slow down your thoughts, just purposely, so slowing down your thoughts is not so simple. But if you give yourself something to focus on, like with a lot of people, that's meditation. But for me, having something to do with my hands and my eyes and my brain all at the same time is somehow being mindful for me.

Vance Crowe [00:58:46] And are those voices then tamped down? Do they go away? Do you get to capture their creativity?

Heather Haymart [00:58:53] They don't go away, but maybe there's just less of them. They, in other words, they don't take over as much.

Vance Crowe [00:59:02] Do you feel like those voices, and I was kind of naming them earlier as resistance, do, do they feel quintessentially you, do they feel like that those are the voices of Heather? Or did they feel like the voices of some other thing?

Heather Haymart [00:59:16] Both. Mostly me though. Yeah. It's de there's definitely another aspect of like hearing other people say bad things or other people disapprove or, you know, like that other stuff that I, I think other people can relate to that like, you know, you worry about what other people think in situations or maybe you had an argument, so you're thinking about that person's point of view. Oh,

Vance Crowe [00:59:42] Oh, yeah.

Heather Haymart [00:59:42] You know, and that kind of replays in my head at times, you know,

Vance Crowe [00:59:47] That was probably the best thing about meditation for me was there, there's a guy named Sam Harris, who, he made an app for meditating, but he also has these, like tiny lectures about them. And one of the lectures he talks about is if you find yourself continuing an argument that you had with somebody a half hour ago or a day ago, you are, you are not focused, you're not there, you're not present in this moment. You are present in a moment that you have no ability to change whatsoever. And that was very helpful to me.

Heather Haymart [01:00:19] That is helpful. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:00:20] Because I spent a lot of time thinking, oh, if I had only said this thing, and I don't even mean just in arguments, I mean like in a disagreement or in some situation where I know I could have done it better. And I, I sit there mimicking what I know they would've said and imagining all these various situations of what I would've said or could have said. But in the end of the day, it's like scribbling on a piece of paper. It's not really getting you anywhere.

Heather Haymart [01:00:45] No, you're right. That's, I think that's probably one of the more important things I'm learning about anxiety is learning to acknowledge or recognize when it's not doing any good, and then do something about that fact, you know, like, don't allow that conversation to continue because it's going nowhere. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:01:06] There's no, there's nowhere. And are your, are your daughters artistic?

Heather Haymart [01:01:11] They are. Yeah. I, I laugh about how probably for the first 10 years, my oldest daughter hated Crays. Like she hated coloring. And I, I was like, what kind of torture is this that a artist has a daughter color? And then my youngest daughter, she was, you know, like constantly coloring and, and doing all the artistic things that, you know, little kids do. But my oldest daughter over time became quite a, a pen and ink artist. And so I, I guess just pen, just pen on paper. So she just still doesn't like color, but she does these pen, pen drawings that are wonderful. I mean, she was going through a hard time and that process really helped her. And she's continued it. Like she's fantastic. And she never took, she took maybe a couple drawing classes in high school. And of course I taught them things all the time. I would,

Vance Crowe [01:02:10] What can you teach about art? How can you, how can you hand to me, it seems like something impossible to learn at either. Either have it or you don't at

Heather Haymart [01:02:17] All really at No, no. There it's technical. So like, if, if you could teach someone how to work on a car, you can teach someone how to draw. It's

Vance Crowe [01:02:25] Really, you would put it that.

Heather Haymart [01:02:26] Sure.

Vance Crowe [01:02:27] Tell me more about that.

Heather Haymart [01:02:29] It's really just about observation. And so when it, you start with drawing, like typically art progression starts with drawing and goes to other things. And so when you're doing a drawing, it's typically art teachers will have a student draw a still life or draw a figure like the human being. And it's a, it's a, a process where you try to draw what you see and then you learn ways to do it. Like you learn tools and tricks on how to draw what you see. Like one of the tips is to draw around things rather than draw the thing, draw the space around things. And when you do that, all of a sudden you're like, oh, I drew the thing.

Vance Crowe [01:03:12] Oh, that's interesting. Because you'd be just saying, it's almost like not looking directly at it in order to be able to see it.

Heather Haymart [01:03:18] Yeah, yeah. In a way.

Vance Crowe [01:03:21] Wow. That is meditation. That that is true. True. At its very core. That is definitely meditation. Look at the thing, but don't look directly at it.

Heather Haymart [01:03:29] Yeah. And there's just all kinds of ways to do that. I mean, gimme

Vance Crowe [01:03:32] More of these. I like, I like that. What are other tricks?

Heather Haymart [01:03:35] Well, there's more just technical things too. Like, you just learn which pencils make different kinds of marks and which are gonna be dark and which are gonna be light, and then which kind of marks express this type of thing. And you know, how do I shade and blend, you know, naturally, so where it doesn't look like scribble, but it looks like a blending. And that's all technical practice, you know, just like everything else that everybody learns in the world.

Vance Crowe [01:04:02] Wow. You know, I kind of have felt like there are people that are artistic and people that are not, and the people that are artistic can hone in on a style. But I'd never really thought about it. Well, I'd never thought about it in, in any way like this. And I, I was talking last week about the Mc Escher exhibit that I thought was really neat because on the first floor of the exhibit at the world Chess Hall of Fame, you see when he was just getting started and then you go upstairs and you see how he was a master.

Heather Haymart [01:04:32] I didn't see it. I would've loved to, but I didn't even know about it until just recently. But I knew I missed it.

Vance Crowe [01:04:37] Oh. I mean, it, it was phenomenal. I'm, I'm, and I would like to see more art like that. In fact, it'd be really interesting. I'd be interested to see your previous art and then how it grows. Because I, it wasn't until I saw that, that exhibit that I realized like, oh, people grow over time, they hone this, they become a master. You aren't just a master artist just 'cause you have that innate talent. Right.

Heather Haymart [01:05:01] It's not, it's not magic. There's nothing magic about it. I mean, some people are, you know, technically minded and some people are mathematically minded. Right. Or, you know, biology is their really, they just understand more easily. But, and so creativity that's true. But I think creativity spans across everything. Like I have a sister-in-law who's a doctor, and she's also took drawing classes in college too. But she, she explained to me that she feels her profession is creative because she is trying to be a creative problem solver when she hears symptoms and she's trying to help someone figure out what's wrong with them. You know, that's creative too.

Vance Crowe [01:05:45] And, and it's always true that you can't, the, the more that you become an expert at some, the more you know the rules, then the further you get away from them, the more you can apply it. As opposed to being like, I don't know, I don't care about the rules at all, so I'm just gonna start from scratch. So I guess what you're saying here makes, makes a lot of sense. I just never really thought about it that way.

Heather Haymart [01:06:04] Yeah. I think most people don't. I feel like for some reason society has made art be so many things. It's not, it's not, we're not starving artists. That's just a silly thing that people have said for years and years and like, we're not crazy. I mean, some of us are, but aren't we all like, there's crazy doctors and crazy truck drivers. So like

Vance Crowe [01:06:27] Sure.

Heather Haymart [01:06:29] Just all those stereotypes about art.

Vance Crowe [01:06:31] Yeah. I mean, to be totally candid, I was expecting you to be less well put together. I I, I was imagining a person that, you know, would show up, you know, carrying bags of things and, and be dis disorganized. But this conversation has, I mean, you seem to be a very disciplined person.

Heather Haymart [01:06:51] I hear that a lot. And I've met lots of artists that are the full range people that are, you know, totally disheveled and don't have anything together. And people who are maybe more together than me. And I, mine, mine has come over time. I think that I was a mess. Like my room was a disaster in college. I had crap everywhere all the time. I was late everywhere. I don't, I kept a calendar, but you know, like, it, it happened over time. It happened over I think out of necessity basically when I had kids. I think that having kids made me become more disciplined

Vance Crowe [01:07:29] And do you now clean up your room and make your bed in the morning? And

Heather Haymart [01:07:33] I get my husband to make the bed.

Vance Crowe [01:07:34] Hey, it doesn't matter as long as it gets made. Right? Yeah.

Heather Haymart [01:07:37] Yeah. I

Vance Crowe [01:07:37] Mean, I, you're describing about out of necessity, that was me as well. You know, I, I, in college I was in sha If you had gone to my locker in middle school or high school, I was just dumping things in there. And then I was a deckhand on a ship and I was probably the worst bunk mate because I just, I just didn't care. Right. And then it wasn't until I was in my thirties when I was like, Hey, wait a second, if you make your bed every day, then you get to go to bed in a bed and it's pretty great.

Heather Haymart [01:08:05] Right?

Vance Crowe [01:08:05] And then you start realizing like, wait, I can expand out from clean up my room to all these other areas of your life. And I would, I, I'm, this is a really good conversation for me. This is cathartic in some way

Heather Haymart [01:08:19] Good.

Vance Crowe [01:08:20] But that, that my, the level of creativity that was open to me is always higher the more I ratchet down my discipline.

Heather Haymart [01:08:28] Yeah, I think so too. And maybe not everybody works like that, but that's how it works for me. For sure.

Vance Crowe [01:08:35] You were saying earlier that you are trying a, a new diet Before we, we, before we put this on, when you start a new thing, like a new discipline and we can talk about it, is, are you worried about that messing with your creativity? Is that something that you, you are like aware of or No, I've got enough flexibility I can try new things.

Heather Haymart [01:08:55] Yeah, no, I'm, I can be flexible and try new things.

Vance Crowe [01:08:58] And what are you trying?

Heather Haymart [01:09:00] I've been trying inter intermittent fasting

Vance Crowe [01:09:02] For how long?

Heather Haymart [01:09:03] Oh, maybe two weeks.

Vance Crowe [01:09:05] Oh, okay. So this is brand new.

Heather Haymart [01:09:06] Brand new. Yeah. And

Vance Crowe [01:09:07] Is this the first time that you've experienced hunger? Like intentionally?

Heather Haymart [01:09:12] No, I think I've, I've over the years maybe had some bad habits.

Vance Crowe [01:09:17] Oh really?

Heather Haymart [01:09:18] Yeah. But per, like, this is, I'm, I'm a healthy, I have a healthy attitude around food and things now. But when I was, you know, younger in college, I was like, oh, I'll just go without eating till I lose weight, you know?

Vance Crowe [01:09:32] Oh, okay.

Heather Haymart [01:09:33] Not like I had anything clinical, but yeah. It was stupid. And now, yeah, I was just thinking, did you bring this up? 'cause you heard my stomach growl.

Vance Crowe [01:09:40] No. Uhuh. No, no. Uhuh.

Heather Haymart [01:09:43] 'cause I, yeah, so this is brand new. I have a girlfriend who came here to visit from Arizona and she told me about her sister and, and she, her trying it and I was like, I'll try it. My husband, you know, he's been trying to lose some weight and, and get healthy and he was trying the low carb thing again, which he's typically had success with. And this time it's just not really working for him. And so I told him about it and we watched a couple YouTube videos. I haven't even read a book yet. And so we, we just kind of like, have halfway been trying it like, like five days a week. And then maybe because we've had things going on on the weekend, we haven't really tried that hard.

Vance Crowe [01:10:21] I know there are people that will disagree with what I'm about to say because they'll say no, there's things like leptin and ghrelin and there's all these chemicals and hormones that get set off in your body from inter intermittent fasting. But my belief is one of the, the curiosities about modern civilization is that we have access to unlimited amounts of food. We can have it in any quantity we want. There's no, there's no season in which carbohydrates are readily available. And then ones where only fats are available. But now in order to be able to manage that, we have to have rules. And those rules, it doesn't always really matter what rule you're applying, just that you apply one over the long term. And it's that, it's that sense of discipline that if you, if you do the same thing over and over again, eventually you will dial it in and, and it'll work. And that's why I think intermittent fasting is a, is a great idea for some people because it says, Hey, I can only eat meals during these hours. And it, and it, it cuts out all of that decision making just like wearing the same clothes every day does.

Heather Haymart [01:11:22] Right. In the very short time that I've been doing it, one of the things that I have loved is the time it saves me, like really

Vance Crowe [01:11:30] In

Heather Haymart [01:11:30] The morning I realize, oh, I don't have to worry about rinsing out my smoothie cup and I don't have to worry about actually making the smoothie. You know, just, and, and then, and

Vance Crowe [01:11:41] The activation energy that you waste, like is it time to make a smoothie? Should I start making a smoothie?

Heather Haymart [01:11:45] Right. Just everything about it. I'm like, wow, this is kind of awesome. I just gained like at least a half hour in my day.

Vance Crowe [01:11:51] Wow.

Heather Haymart [01:11:51] You know, just not messing around with breakfast. And I know some people skip lunch and they do just like one meal a day. We've been doing two meals a day, so lunch and dinner and I don't know, I, it's, it's kind of nice. And then I hear about these things called this thing called GY at a autophagy.

Vance Crowe [01:12:12] Yeah. The name is familiar. How say I'm not even gonna try and say it 'cause I don't wanna be wrong.

Heather Haymart [01:12:16] A-U-T-O-P-H-A-G-Y

Vance Crowe [01:12:18] Autophagy.

Heather Haymart [01:12:19] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:12:19] Okay. And

Heather Haymart [01:12:20] Apparently it's some kind of phase that your body gets into when you do intermittent fasting where your cells will regenerate more willingly or more frequently or something. I truly don't understand it completely. But the idea is that like, it helps improve your skin condition if you have a condition of on your skin like eczema or something like that. Right. It can help with that. I just think that's what a fascinating thing.

Vance Crowe [01:12:45] And, and, and it's great to explore, right? Like what a, what a wonderful position we're in in society where you can try these things and, and the cost to, to try them is just your discipline. And it's just the does this throw other things out of whack in my life? Because unless you go to an extreme on them, they're not really all that dangerous of an idea. No.

Heather Haymart [01:13:09] Right. And and honestly what I think about it in the beginning here is it just doesn't, I think you mentioned this before when we were talking, it does feel like, oh, I'm just skipping breakfast. Well, I always used to skip breakfast. Like I have to make myself eat breakfast honestly. 'cause I don't really want it. And so yeah. It just seems not very different from that at all.

Vance Crowe [01:13:28] Yeah. I, I mean, just like everything else in my life, I have become extremely ordered about my food. So I ate the same thing at breakfast and then I have my, my dinners planned throughout the week, so then they, they couple with my lunch. But if I didn't, if I wasn't that regulated, it would seem like intermittent fasting would be, it would be a fine plan because it, it just, it sets up a heuristic where I don't have to know a lot of the details. I just know that when I do this thing, then I get this result. Right.

Heather Haymart [01:13:56] Well, the other thing that, and I know that lots of people approach intermittent fasting a lot of different ways, but one of the things they say is that like you can kind of eat what you want to and you know, when you are person who like tries to find new ways to be healthy. Like for instance, my husband was being low carb and I don't eat meat. You know, so like having that always be a part of your life where you're constantly trying to figure out what am I going to eat? You know, what's allowed in this particular diet I happen to be on right now. You know, it's just, it takes away all of that. And really if you just say, okay, I'm only gonna eat from this time to this time, but it doesn't, you know, it's not the end of the world if today I had corn chips and salsa for lunch. You know, it just is freeing, you know, in a way.

Vance Crowe [01:14:48] And it's, it's really ama it's amazing how much time we spend thinking about wanting to be fit and wanting that to be something that's a, that's a deep part of our lives, but it's so complicated to know how to do it. Right. That,

Heather Haymart [01:15:04] That's

Vance Crowe [01:15:04] Why I love heuristics. Right. Just if I follow these rules, I don't even have to know why it works. Right. Have you heard of this guy named Naval Ravikant? So Naval is a philosopher, I think he was like a venture capitalist. And then he, he started tweeting about interesting ideas and he has a, a phrase, and I'm interested to see what you think of this as the artist, which is that all people want three things. They want to be fit, they want to be wealthy, and they wanna be happy. Does that seem right to you? That that kind of triangle?

Heather Haymart [01:15:42] I think so. I can think of other things too, but yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:15:47] What else? Because this is a, this is a, a thought experiment that I've been having with my friends lately,

Heather Haymart [01:15:52] Which

Vance Crowe [01:15:53] Is to say, is he right?

Heather Haymart [01:15:55] So fit wealthy and happy. Happy. Of course my first thought was creative and so, but I guess happy, you know, creativity leads to happiness for me.

Vance Crowe [01:16:10] Okay. And

Heather Haymart [01:16:10] So then my other thought was, yeah, fit is good for sure. And and wealthy, it, it definitely relieves pressure,

Vance Crowe [01:16:19] Right? And wealth, well really all of them. Wealth is one of those things that a lot of times it's a relative scale, right? Like you feel wealthy compared to what? Just like beautiful, you're beautiful compared to what?

Heather Haymart [01:16:36] Right.

Vance Crowe [01:16:37] And, and, but the happy one is the one that is, is a nebulous, nebulously defined idea. Because if you can use happiness circle everything, then you would include creative in there. I I would also think people like progress. I think even if you were wealthy, happy and fit, the the real, the real sense of satisfaction in life is moving towards any one of those three things or all three at the same time as opposed to the actual accomplishment of it.

Heather Haymart [01:17:09] Absolutely. I I do think that drive is like one of the things that keep, oh, I'm sorry, it that keeps us going. And so yeah. Pro I can see how those three things can eventually not be enough because you may wanna achieve more wealth or maybe you wanna achieve a different type of happiness or wanna be fit in a different kind of way.

Vance Crowe [01:17:33] It, when you've talked about your husband and how he makes the boards for you, and he's not an artist, has he been understanding of, of the world of an artist to, to you do you think? Yeah,

Heather Haymart [01:17:45] He's been extremely supportive. Like always, I, he, he wants to see me succeed, but I think he also feels a sense of ownership over the business as well. Not, I shouldn't say ownership, he's invested.

Vance Crowe [01:18:05] Okay. Like

Heather Haymart [01:18:06] Emotionally invested in my business because, you know, as an artist, I don't really have like coworkers and you know, he's, he's my guy, you know, like he comes home and I talk to him about my creative problem or my particular prospect of, of business prospect that might be happening. Or he helps me work through controversial things with, you know, fellow artists at the time back when I had to deal with artists more often or, you know, so he's, he's just in it a hundred percent with me. And financially he has supported us all these years. He's a financial advisor. He owns his own business now where he has partners, but he has his own business.

Vance Crowe [01:18:49] What's it called? Do you mind?

Heather Haymart [01:18:50] Oh, strategic financial.

Vance Crowe [01:18:52] Okay.

Heather Haymart [01:18:52] Yeah. And you know, he's successful. He's doing a really great job and he is worked really hard to get there. 'cause there was a time when, you know, a while back where he had lost his position and that's what caused him to start his own business. And so he's, you know, I'm so proud of him and, you know, I have to be held back from trying to think of new ways for him to make, make his business a success. You know, 'cause I'm like marketing crazy brain sometimes. But yeah. So financially he's just, he's supported us more consistently all these years. And then I'm, I am competitive so I try really hard to stay there with him if I can.

Vance Crowe [01:19:34] You've been a very different artist than I was expecting. I don't know what I was expecting, but now I see that my brother-in-law is the one that told me, Vance, you should, you should have an artist on, or a musician or something that's far away from, 'cause a lot of the people that I was talking to were technical experts in things like chemistry or cardiology or architecture and, and architecture is, is art in, in a large way. But we didn't get into the creative part of it. And I'm realizing now that his advice was really good because I had a caricature of who I thought you as an artist would be. And I wonder that must happen to you a lot when people hear you're an artist.

Heather Haymart [01:20:14] Absolutely. Yeah. It's, yeah, it can be very, when we talked about worrying about when people say something bad at an art fair, the most recent one I can think of is we were at the St. Louis Art Fair and my husband was kind of sitting back a little bit and I was sitting up front and someone made the assumption that this was my hobby and he's the one that pays the bills. And every time, you know, he too, he's like, what did he's, he's like, well, she's the one making money this weekend, so thankfully he's my champion. You know?

Vance Crowe [01:20:48] Yeah.

Heather Haymart [01:20:48] But yeah, it's hard to swallow Yeah. For people to make those kinds of assumptions that I'm not a driven person or that I'm crazy, or that it's like my hobby, which there's nothing wrong with that. Like, art can be a hobby just like knitting or gardening, you know, like, that's fine, but that's not for me, that's not not what it is for me. Maybe one day when I retire it might be my hobby, but like, I'm a driven person and this is my business and it means everything to me. And so for people to assume that it's, I don't know, optional or not as important or I don't know, it's, it hurts

Vance Crowe [01:21:24] And it's gotta be a little bit weird because when you, like we said before, business and art seem to be an opposition to one another. And so it, you know, it's to be seen as a business person or to be seen as an artist. Either one is not a full picture of you.

Heather Haymart [01:21:41] Right.

Vance Crowe [01:21:42] But yeah, I don't even know exactly where I'm going with that, but it, it seems like an interesting situation that you must be in all the time.

Heather Haymart [01:21:50] It is, it's true. I, I would say the thing that makes me most like quote unquote artist like is probably how I am in my personal life. Like, I'm a, my kids call me a hippie, you know, I'm a super big earth lover, environmentalist. I love music. I love to go to rock shows and you know, like I, there's another side to me, but like, I do approach being an artist as a business. And so, I don't know, I, I think that I probably have those aspects that people think of. I mean, I am a little crazy. Like I, I'll admit it.

Vance Crowe [01:22:27] Yeah. We're all a little crazy. Yeah. Anybody that's putting anything out into the world that is them is a little bit crazy. Yeah.

Heather Haymart [01:22:34] But it doesn't, it doesn't define me as an artist. Like, I don't use that as my description of me as an artist. Does that make sense?

Vance Crowe [01:22:43] Yeah.

Heather Haymart [01:22:44] I don't want, you know, she's full of anxiety and loves rock music to be my tagline on my website, you know, I want it to be the part where I spread joy. I want

Vance Crowe [01:22:54] In, in the, in a world of an envir, my sense is that most of the people that are environmentalists are worried that the world is getting worse. And you're a person that's trying to put joy in the world. Is that an, is that an accurate representation? Do you feel like things are getting worse and is that a good reason to put joy in the world?

Heather Haymart [01:23:15] Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so my paintings also can tend to be kind of like abstracted landscapes. We talked a little bit how I

Vance Crowe [01:23:25] Do Yeah. About the trees. Yeah. Tree

Heather Haymart [01:23:26] Paintings. Yeah. So they're, I do paintings. They tend to be abstracted landscapes either way. And sometimes I just happen to have trees in them because I have a strong connection with trees. But the abstracted paintings are, they tend to look like landscapes too. And it's not always purposeful and it's definitely not realistic, but it, it's my attempt to, I am always connecting with nature always. And when other people can connect with it that same way, I think that it's just good for everybody to, to connect with nature whenever possible. And so if you know, a beautiful art reminds you of nature, reminds you to respect nature reminds you to love la nature. That's all good.

Vance Crowe [01:24:08] I love that. So I'm really glad you brought it back to trees. So if there was one form of art that my wife and I, we are very, very different in what we like as far as art

Heather Haymart [01:24:19] Her.

Vance Crowe [01:24:20] So mine is, I love human form, so I love like sculpture of people. And hence the Bruno Lucchese, I don't know if you know who he is, but he does all these, these really exceptional ways of like somebody shaking out a sheet. Oh.

Heather Haymart [01:24:36] So

Vance Crowe [01:24:37] You can see the motion within the, the sculpture, but you can also see their body mechanics, which I think are just, I, I love it. I could look at human sculpture for hours and hours and hours and my wife re likes art that she can tell the artist took a long, long, long, long time to work on it. Yeah.

Heather Haymart [01:24:55] So

Vance Crowe [01:24:56] Like going to m mc Escher for her, this is great because there's no way you can put those, those tessellations together unless you really spent time pouring over it. But the one area where we both overlap is that we're both really d drawn to trees. Mm.

Heather Haymart [01:25:10] And

Vance Crowe [01:25:10] So we have tapestries that are trees and metal pieces of art that are trees. And then my mother-in-law recently came back from a trip to Ireland where she found my, my family crest and

Heather Haymart [01:25:21] On

Vance Crowe [01:25:22] It is a tree, which I, which I thought that was incredible.

Heather Haymart [01:25:26] That is so cool. That's really neat. So it's no accident, right? I

Vance Crowe [01:25:30] Must not be, I mean I had, I think I had seen that before as a kid, but I'd never really registered. Yeah.

Heather Haymart [01:25:35] But

Vance Crowe [01:25:35] There's something almost spooky about that, about that is about seeing the family crest as having the tree. 'cause they're all over our house.

Heather Haymart [01:25:42] Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. I wonder what your wife's connection is.

Vance Crowe [01:25:46] Yeah. I don't know. Probably. I think she became a crow when we got married, so

Heather Haymart [01:25:49] There you go. I don't know. For, for me, trees have just always been like the special thing in the world, you know, that there's so many things I think about trees. I think about like, if they could talk what they would tell us, like there's trees that have been here for so long and just imagine if they could tell us everything they've seen, it would be amazing. And then to think about like, every, everything about them is about growth and, and working together and making the world a better place all by themselves. You know, like we can't, we can't survive without them and they can't survive with some of what we do.

Vance Crowe [01:26:35] I'm struck by trees about the speed with which they interact with the environment around them. Like the, the time it takes, you know, an oak tree to grow, you know, over a hundred or 200 years. My my friend had a magnolia tree in his, in his yard that was like 120 years old and it just died and they had to cut it down. Oh. And he was devastated. But to your point, like the timescale of that tree and what it is seen and what is a, you know, what's important and what's not important is really, really different to a tree than it is to a human.

Heather Haymart [01:27:09] Absolutely. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:27:12] What other forms of of art do you find yourself being attracted to that, that aren't your own?

Heather Haymart [01:27:19] Oh, I love, I love every kind of art. There's not like an art form that I am around that I don't find some value in. I was just thinking about recently that we went to see the Gogan exhibit at the St. Louis Art Museum.

Vance Crowe [01:27:41] Oh.

Heather Haymart [01:27:42] And I don't know if you know very much about him. No. But he is, he's like an abstract expressionist that I never, this is probably gonna sound terrible. I never thought he was that great of an artist. I never understood why we were studying him.

Vance Crowe [01:27:58] Okay.

Heather Haymart [01:27:58] And, but you know, he had this exhibit at the art museum and my girlfriends wanted to go see it too. And so I was like, you know, I would like to see maybe like how he got to where he was and maybe like you mentioned like seeing Mc Cher's sketches from prior to what,

Vance Crowe [01:28:15] Prior to becoming a master.

Heather Haymart [01:28:16] Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I thought, well, that maybe that'll bring me around. And instead I learned, I don't know why they had an exhibit for him, because I found out that he, this is totally off topic,

Vance Crowe [01:28:28] This is great.

Heather Haymart [01:28:30] But because he, I learned that he basically was like a pedophile that he, he like moved to, I can't remember what island, some island. And he had lots of 14 and 15-year-old girls that would come and stay with him. And he would impregnate and then he would leave. And he had this whole career where he was this, you know, famous artist and make all these paintings of these villagers that were beautiful villagers. And some of his paintings were okay and some not so great. But he's a, he's like a staple in art history.

Vance Crowe [01:29:04] Wow.

Heather Haymart [01:29:04] And all of, all of my girlfriends and I, as we left, we were just like, why are we celebrating this man if we know? Like why, who cares? That,

Vance Crowe [01:29:12] That's an interesting question about if you, do you think that what he was doing was wrong in his time?

Heather Haymart [01:29:21] No, unfortunately it wasn't.

Vance Crowe [01:29:23] That's an interesting question about judging an artist today based on societal norms that weren't there

Heather Haymart [01:29:32] Right.

Vance Crowe [01:29:32] To you. Do you feel like good, good to judge them it's okay to do that? Or just that's just the way that it is?

Heather Haymart [01:29:39] I'm not sure I, I, I have mixed feelings about that, that idea that like, you know, just because right now we know this and think this, do we judge someone back then that didn't know and think that I, I have mixed feelings. I don't, I don't think anything is ever really cut and dry, but my personal reaction was, I don't wanna have anything to do with this guy and I can't let go of that.

Vance Crowe [01:30:01] Yeah. I mean, and therein lies the exact challenge because you find out somebody did horrible things and you think, well I now I I don't have a choice but to view them through the lens of, of, of who I am today. But at the same time, if you wipe away everybody that has, that didn't fulfill the standards of 2019, I'm pretty sure 2000 Vance wouldn't be, wouldn't be acceptable today.

Heather Haymart [01:30:27] Right.

Vance Crowe [01:30:28] And that actually one of the concepts I mentioned before, Lindy, have you heard of this term before? This is a, this is an interesting one. It's probably a good area for us to explore and then kind of wrap it up. But the concept of Lindy is the odds that an an artifact, an object, you know, whether it's art or writing will be around in the future, is in direct proportion to how long it's been around so far. So, and you're not always gonna be right about that. But, so for example, let's say Oprah Winfrey's book that was written 20 years ago, probably be around for another 20 years, maybe it'll be around longer than that. But we can say pretty confidently that's how Long To Kill A Mockingbird will probably be around for another 50 to 60 years. The Bible has been around for, you know, a couple thousand years. It's likely it will be around for a couple of thousands of years. So when you hear that concept as an artist, does it resonate with you?

Heather Haymart [01:31:22] Hmm. I don't know. I've just never ever given that any thought before. Do you mean like in relation to my own art?

Vance Crowe [01:31:33] Yeah. Do you think your art will be Lindy? Will it last long into the future?

Heather Haymart [01:31:37] I sure hope so. I mean, so I made my first paintings in 2001 and I've als I've often thought like I know where one of 'em is 'cause it's, my cousin has it. But the other one I've always wondered like, so is that like in the trash now? Or did like that ar did that, you know, owner of that bar, which closed now? Like what did she do with it? Is it in her home? Did she give it to someone? You know? So I do, I do think about that.

Vance Crowe [01:32:02] You've put a lot of your own emotion and things into the world and it just goes,

Heather Haymart [01:32:08] I'll never know. Right? I mean, sometimes I'll know,

Vance Crowe [01:32:11] Wow, I did not think about that.

Heather Haymart [01:32:13] I've thought about it a lot. Like I, you know, of course the bad thoughts are, oh my gosh, I'm gonna see this on Craigslist one day, or, or you know, in a sitting on the side of the road next to a trash can. That would be horrible. You know? And then your fan, my fantasy is, you know, what if someday, you know, maybe after I'm gone, people put them all together somewhere and have a show, you know, at some museum or something, that would be pretty awesome. But if my goal was to always spread joy, I suppose that's all I ever needed them to do. And if they did it during their time with someone, then I, I did what I set out to do.

Vance Crowe [01:32:57] That's great. I love that. Thanks. That's really cool.

Heather Haymart [01:33:01] Yeah, I don't know, I just thought of it.

Vance Crowe [01:33:04] It's amazing. You know, I think most of, most of the time we don't know what we think until we say it out loud, which is one of the joys of having a podcast is that you get to ask somebody questions and then they get to decide what they think. And you may, you may get, you know, down the driveway from, from the studio and be like, wait a second. I'm not so sure. I do think that. Yeah.

Heather Haymart [01:33:26] But,

Vance Crowe [01:33:26] But at its core, it's fun to just explore what do you think about things? And, and it's been a really great pleasure to have you here and, and to explore and to, and to open up your world of artistry. You've been incredibly open and I'm, I'm, I'm really grateful for it.

Heather Haymart [01:33:41] Oh, thank you. It was my pleasure.

Vance Crowe [01:33:42] If people wanted to learn more about your art or just stay connected with you on social media, how would they do that?

Heather Haymart [01:33:48] Well, my website is just www Heather Haymart dot com and you can connect to my social media through my website. But I'm also on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. All with my name Heather Haymart or Heather Haymart Fine Art.

Vance Crowe [01:34:03] And what do you put on your, your Instagram and Twitter? How do you decide what goes on there?

Heather Haymart [01:34:07] Well, it's usually my process. A lot of my studio work goes on my social media. And so like, I just kind of made a rule for myself that every day that I make something, I'm gonna share that on Facebook. Or at least I try to remember too. So I'll take process photos while I work, or maybe like when I'm finished working, take a picture of what I just worked on that day and then share a photo and maybe what I was thinking about. Or today I'll probably share a picture with you.

Vance Crowe [01:34:33] Oh, that, that'd be great. I mean, this is, that's neat to, to have that creative process. I will definitely follow and see if you brought your bucket of water down. And

Heather Haymart [01:34:41] I also have done videos too, but I haven't done that in a while. I would do time left videos.

Vance Crowe [01:34:46] Oh, really?

Heather Haymart [01:34:47] Of

Vance Crowe [01:34:48] The whole painting process?

Heather Haymart [01:34:49] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:34:49] Oh, I'll definitely check that out. So I'll throw some of that on, on, on the, in the links in the description. Cool. So this has been a great pleasure. Thank you so much for stopping by. I, I feel like this was one of the times when I learned the most about a person and a way of thinking about an entire discipline. I knew nothing at all about. So that's awesome. Thank you so much for coming

Heather Haymart [01:35:10] By. Thank you.

Vance Crowe [01:35:11] Well that's gonna do it for this week's interview with Heather Haymart. Thank you so much to Heather for stopping by. I recognize that I broke up her morning creative process, but I hope it was worth it. I know that I was dropped right into the center of a whole different network of people that I didn't know anything about. And that was when Heather posted her Instagram photo of us doing this interview. There were loads of people there that were really excited for her. And I got to see not only Heather's art on Instagram, but then the artists that were interested in seeing her do a podcast. And that's a great piece of advice. You know, if you are listening to this podcast and you find one of these guests interesting, go stop by their Instagram or their Twitter, check out what they're talking about, what they're interested in, and then look at who are they interacting with, who is interacting with them. Because that's how you make one hop out and you find people that you would never have found on your own. And I know from exploring some of Heather's network that she has friends that run the gamut, an incredible spectrum. Everything from artists to what looked like bookkeepers and all sorts of other people. So today, this week, if you don't have somebody to follow or some new network to get into, go check out Heather Haymart Art and send her a note that you heard her on the Vance Crow podcast. I'm gonna sign off for here. Just remember to stop back on Friday when we have a bonus episode. This week I am going to be talking about the art of journaling, which if somebody would've told me that I was ever gonna make a podcast on journaling, I would've laughed.

Vance Crowe [01:36:49] But it actually is probably one of the foundational skills that makes me me. And I think that it could make you even more you that you can be. So I'm gonna sign off for now. Thanks for joining.