Trenton ReynoldsThis is Room in the Trees, a podcast about living a creative life. Room in the Trees is hosted by Sabrina Ward-Harrison and me, Trent Reynolds.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonShow notes including pictures, links, video, and more for every episode can be found at roominthetrees.com.
Trenton ReynoldsIf you like this podcast, please consider showing your support. You can become a subscribing patron at patreon.com forward slash room.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonAnd now here's this week's episode. It's too light. We're right beside you. Ready to fight.
We're gonna win in the end.
Trenton ReynoldsWhat is this? That is the intro to the new Netflix She-Ra. Oh my God. It's just totally been stuck in my mind all morning. Oh.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonShe must be brave.
Oh.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIs that some character? Who is she?
She-Ra? She-Ra.
Trenton ReynoldsYou're not aware of She-Ra? She-Ra was like the opposite of He-Man back in the 80s. I'm not aware. Oh, She-Ra. You're not aware of She-Ra? Oh, well.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI think my parents, we didn't watch any cartoons or stuff, so I think we just watched Mr. Rogers.
Trenton ReynoldsWell, you might need to – and I'm not downplaying the importance of Mr. Rogers, but you might want to check out a little bit of She-Ra. Yeah, I will. Back in the 80s, it was just very, very similar to He-Man. He-Man would hold up his sword and say, by the power of a gray skull, I have the power. Then she has her sword and her incantation, and she turns from a normal girl into this Amazon, this power woman with a sword. Anyway, Netflix revived the series or the story, and it's all updated animation. And they're actually really well-written stories, and my girls love them. And Laura. Yeah. Love to watch them. So we just, they were watching the final episode of season four this morning.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonSo is it the old, is it like remastered old?
Trenton ReynoldsNo, completely new, just the same characters.
Okay.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonAnd what would be a typical, like, what would you go do? Would you save people?
Trenton ReynoldsYeah. So there is the Horde, which is the bad guys. Yeah. And there's always something going on between the Horde and She-Ra and her. She-Ra originally was a member of the Horde, but then somehow she got called to the Bright Side. And now Queen Glitter, who just became Queen this Glitter Force or Glitter? Shoot, I can't remember. I kind of watch out of my periphery. Queen Glitter and She-Ra are like besties. And she just became queen and now the Horde is infiltrating and trying to take over their domain. and there's this whole kind of separate plot about the original people who all this, created all this technology that, that the Shira and her friends inherited. And that's kind of cool. Hmm. But yeah, a typical thing would just be like, the Horde is up to it again. Like they're trying something new. They're trying to find a ship so they can take over the kingdom and rule the earth, you know, and Shira's got to come in and, and uh save the day save it with all her friends Netflix is in some some of their shows they're hitting out of the park I think I think they do a great job
Sabrina Ward Harrisonyeah I love their revived their uh new take on Anne of Green Gables Anne with an E
Trenton ReynoldsI think we watched a couple episodes and it was kind of dark yeah it is yeah
like there's uh
Trenton Reynoldsjust like this gravity or there's like psychology to it yeah i think we stopped watching it just because it felt like it was maybe a little bit older than yeah the kids were at the one my dad
Sabrina Ward Harrisondid was for pbs and that those are really good he did the series of three of them i didn't know
Trenton Reynoldsyour dad did that your dad did anna green cables for pbs that's he directed it pretty awesome
Sabrina Ward HarrisonDo you remember that I did that video, Sixpence and the Richer?
I do.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI just showed Sean that this morning.
It's funny.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIt's an oldie but goodie.
Trenton ReynoldsThere she goes. Oh, and everybody knows that song.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah. 22-year-old Sabrina. For those that don't know, when I was back in 2000, I think a friend of mine, directed the video for Sixpence and the Richer. There she goes. And it's all my art. And I had to build like a 40-foot piece in about two weeks. And it was great because it really pushed me to, I'd never really worked on wood before and worked large and collage with big pieces of fabric and paint and shellac. It was great.
Trenton ReynoldsSo how did that work? Did you, there was like a sound stage that you would go to and?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah, we did. I know I had to build it in my front yard. It was so big. Yeah. And then, and then we had to use a big moving tractor. There were 24 panels there.
Wow.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThat some of them were four feet by 12 feet.
Trenton ReynoldsHoly cow. What did you paint them with?
Sabrina Ward HarrisonHouse paint.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd there was some kind of support on the back or was it just sheets of
Sabrina Ward Harrisonpaper? Yeah, luckily they were all built out. They were delivered. It was hilarious. They were delivered to my... I lived in this little upstairs sunroom in Berkeley. And just, I forgot that. Yeah, they were all built and sent to me and it was crazy. And so at the time I was teaching my Art of Becoming Yourself class to, you know, girls that were in third grade. So there's pictures of them working out. I had them started helping paint the, just the bases of them. So you see them all in the backyard painting. And I hauled those around. I sold a lot of them and then I still have some of them. My boyfriend, Alex, at that time is a graffiti artist. And so it was a beginning. He helped me understand the concept of like working big and buffing out spaces and stuff like this was sort of like doing it on a wall. It was a really cool project.
Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsYeah, if you've never worked big, it's a very different mindset.
Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsI think we make so many assumptions about making art based on the size of our body and how it can move and the limitations of just physically being in space. And then when you blow that up to four or five, six, seven times what your normal space is, it's like... it starts to just require all sorts of different approaches and techniques.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah, I remember I would have to go upstairs and look out of the windows of my roommate's windows to look down to get perspective and run up and look down for the second story to see...
Trenton ReynoldsYeah, because up close you're like, what? It just looks like a big mess or it looks distorted. And it's not until you get far enough away that you can see how it all works together.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWhat's the biggest piece you've ever done?
Trenton ReynoldsI've done several murals. So those would be the biggest. And those are like, you know, in the neighborhood of 22 by 16 type. my advisor challenged me to make the biggest, messiest painting I could. He asked me what I love about painting, and that was what I said, big and messy. And he said, okay, that's what you got to do. You make the biggest and messiest painting you've ever made. So I took a piece of muslin, which is just a really thin cotton fabric, and we had this big shared workspace, and I spread it out. So that must have been... I don't know, it was the biggest width of muslin I could get. 20, not 20 feet, but it was big. And then I used squirt bottles and like a broom and whatever I could get that was long to smush the paint around. like Then I stretched it on stretchers that I bought. You can get stretchers really big. Anyway, so yeah.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI love that assignment too. Make the biggest, messiest painting you can. I love it.
Trenton ReynoldsYeah, his name is Galen Gerb, right? We've talked about him before. Yeah, you've talked about him before, yeah. He was the advisor I had that he was all about lists. Like, you know, write down when you think of art, what do you think of? And that's... Like, what are the words that come to mind? And like, what are your favorite things? What are your favorite things to eat? What are your favorite places to be? And it was all about just like writing down concrete things that defined your experience of the world and what was important to you, what defined you, what defined art and your relationship to it and everything. and it was so so helpful to uh to like build that foundation you know like just yeah really solidify exactly what what what it is that you are and what you're trying to do anyway that's yeah he was he was fantastic he really changed you know my perception and my approach to art.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWas he also the one that you did the assignment about make the ugliest piece of art,
ugliest painting?
Trenton ReynoldsYeah. Yeah. So, man, I love that. I loved that assignment so much. I was a graduate student, but it was an undergraduate painting class. And I took it just because he was a teacher. And it was more just like every week we'd come together for a crit. It was called a painting class, but it wasn't. It was just like everybody. He would talk to us. He would give us each our personal assignments and we'd come back and discuss what what we did that week. And one of the one of the kids just had a lot of anger about or angst or something about abstract art. I just thought it was like there's no real way to determine quality or good or bad or whatever. So he gave this kid the assignment of making the two ugliest paintings that he could possibly make. So he brought back the paintings the next week, these two really – Like one was just this really nasty color of brown with like two little lines in it or something like that. They were legitimately really bad, you know, paintings. But then we started critiquing these two bad paintings and talking about what made them bad. Then we started talking about, well, which one's better and why is that one better or more compelling? Then we brought in somebody, one of the people that was working in the office who was an artist as well and asked him to talk about these two paintings. And he came in not knowing the assignment and he looked at him. He's like, those are two of the ugliest paintings I've ever seen. Oh, that's awesome. But, you know, but then he like took a minute to look at him. He said, but there's something kind of going on in this one. And, you know, pointed out the thing that we had been talking about. And, you know, anyway, so it was like this moment where it's like you understand the limit and then you're, And you understand that there is a good, there is a, you know, a better. And what is that better? You know, what causes this to be better than that? And I don't know. That's a great question. And it doesn't need to be that it looks more like something that I understand. You know, it could just be colors and light and contrast. Yeah. You know, and I think for people that don't feel any connection to abstract art, that's like an aha moment. Or it can be. It's like, wait a second, there is a way for me to enter this and understand that, you know, there is love. I'm having a certain kind of connection that helps me determine or allows me to determine what is good and better and best and stuff like that. Anyway, I'm kind of overstating the story, but just a very kind of profound class in many ways. And that was one of my favorite assignments.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThe power of a good teacher is amazing. It can completely direct the whole course of your life.
You know, subtle.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI feel that about my photography professor, Chris Johnson, was just such pivotal, like really brought great questions to the surface about... vulnerability and the human experience.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd in retrospect, we, we talked to Chris Johnson on the podcast. Yeah. In retrospect, I don't know if this is the case with Chris Johnson, but with Galen Gerber, it was like, somehow he was able to frame things. It was like something that I've heard a million times or seen a million times or, you know, something that in another context might seem so cliche and trite, but he was able to frame it in a way that just, helped connect all these dots, you know, and, and helped me see a larger picture.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonSo true. Yeah. Being part of a community or a tribe or something where our school, you know, maybe you're assigned a teacher or something. and you don't have control of it, or you have a... You're around an uncle. I don't know. But they have a profound impact on you versus you sitting at home by yourself watching stuff on YouTube where you're picking, oh, I want to watch this, I don't want to watch that, versus the natural flow of... people having an influence that you didn't go seeking them, but circumstances brought you to them.
Trenton ReynoldsAbsolutely. I think there's something very profound about the way that our society is changing. And the wonderful thing about the internet is it enables you to go out and access information But it reinforces exactly what you're saying, like this practice of staying in your own space and searching for the things that your mind comes up with to search for, right? Yeah. Which just is a very limited scope and you're limited by the things you think to write in the search box, right? Or the people you think… to a follower here that are good to follow instead of, right. You know, being forced to go out into the world and bump into people that, you know, maybe are, are somebody that you would have never, ever talked to, but yeah, you know, can open up your world in so many profound ways. You just don't have that same level of opportunity or, or, you know, percentage of chance to, to really be changed and altered and stretched. And yeah, no, I think, I think there's something to that. I mean, that's one of the things about families I think that is so wonderful is you're kind of forced into this group of people, you know, like it's like my, my formative years of having, you know, being the, the fourth of six boys. And now growing, having grown up and, you know, all, every single one of them is a completely different person that I probably would never, never have like sought out, you know, in a, in a typical social setting, but who has blessed my life and changed my life and informed my, given me something to push against, you know, given me a way to identify myself in, in opposition to, not necessarily in the, contentious way, but you know, and like, I, I, I, you know, I love all my brothers and they've all been, you know, fantastic, but yeah, I don't know. And I think there's something, there are mechanisms in society that help us do that too, uh, that help us kind of come into contact. with people that we wouldn't normally have sought out or chosen.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah, I remember the feeling of going into a certain class.
Trenton ReynoldsEven that, like it's like there's so much communication and information available that there is very little chance that you would go into even a high school class without a pretty good understanding of what you're getting into. Whereas, you know, when we were in high school there, yeah, I guess you would hear rumors and stuff like that, but it's not like you would have video recordings and, you know, text messages and pictures of that teacher. Is that how it is now? It's pretty close, you know, like... it's, you know, there just, it wasn't as much recording going on of life, you know? And so, so I don't know. I think, I think there were, there's just not that same kind of possibility of, yeah. chance. Suspense. Suspense too. Suspense. Yeah. Suspense and boredom. I was just talking to somebody the other night is that, uh, Oh yeah. Last night I was visiting with some friends and we're talking about kids and how I've, I've noticed this. And this has been a common conversation at, at high school is that noticing that the generations of kids that come up have shorter and shorter attention spans. And then I think of my kids and the way they watch, uh, if they get disinterested in a video after two minutes, they just click on the next video. There's no like commercial that they have to sit through. There's not like, I have to wait until the end of this show to get to the next show. So I'm just going to sit here and watch. It's just like this, you know, and you see it in class. It's like, there's this anxiety or impatience that the kids start to start to shift in their seats. Like they want a button to stop me from talking about what I'm talking about and just get onto the next thing. Wow. You know what I'm saying? It's like if, if they had a button, you know, just like they do for a lot of the other places in their life and how they interact with people to push so they could turn me off and, or skip to the next thing or speed me up, you know, they'd be all over that. So it's like this, they're being trained, you know, they're being trained to not be able to handle waiting, you know, or just, and it's like, there's something wrong or the, this device is broken or, you know, like I, where's the off button here, you know, anyway. Yeah. I just think it's fascinating to think of how we're kind of grooming our next generations to have zero attention spans. Oh, God.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonOh, man.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd like waiting and having no noise is going to cause like... distress. You know, boredom is like the worst thing. My kids, like it's, and you know, obviously we need, we're trying to be thoughtful and vigilant about, about those things, but it's hard not to like, there's so, so many advantages of, of having all this
Sabrina Ward Harrisontechnology but there's potential damage well it's sure fun to meet your daughters when we were in los angeles it was really a treat yeah that was a ton of fun all the different personalities
Trenton Reynoldsyeah and you don't get it's it's got to be a trip to see that you only see him like every
Sabrina Ward Harrisoncouple years right or i've only met live yeah and she was a tiny baby so that's right you hadn't
Trenton Reynoldseven met the other one or you guess you'd met uh zoe because we came out to madison yeah so we uh you you came out to california and we recorded another uh collaboration video and in this right now i just want to say to everybody that i have it is my fault that the first collaboration video is not out yet it's been put on the back burner and it's there it's like posted on the website i just you and i just need to decide exactly how that's uh you know going to be presented. So it is coming very, very soon, but I look forward to also seeing what's coming up in this next collaboration video. We had a lot of, a lot of
Sabrina Ward Harrisonfun. I'm still thinking about how I got the, I mixed the ratios wrong and almost started a combustion, combustible fire in your studio. The resin started smoking. That isn't the first time
Trenton ReynoldsI've, I've seen resin smoke in the studio. So don't feel like you, you know, you were doing something that hadn't already been done. It's easy to do. Some resins, if you get the ratios wrong, can start.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah, it's just funny because you show me exactly how to do it, and I just didn't want to follow the directions entirely.
Trenton ReynoldsI think you must have put too much of the catalyst in it. All right. The hardener, and it just –
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah, went too fast. Yeah, it just was a whirlwind trip. I felt like I was gone multiple months. It just was... I was only gone 11 days, but it felt like forever.
Trenton ReynoldsWell, you packed a lot into that trip. Did you want to say anything about the things that you did on that trip?
Sure.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonSo I went to a convention in Arizona called LaunchCon, and that is put on by Jeff Walker, who's the creator of Product Launch Formula, PLF. And I was one of the finalists to represent the program he has called Launch Club. that's a higher end mentorship program that I love being a part of. And, uh, yeah, I was one of the,
Trenton ReynoldsI couldn't believe it. I was like, so you didn't find out until you got there or until the day before you had to present and yeah. Yeah. So I then, so what did you present if you didn't have anything prepared? Do you just got up and talked or did you have images to,
Sabrina Ward HarrisonNo, we could use images. We could either use images or we could use our slide options that was either up on the screen or down for notes. And I chose to put them down as notes, but I didn't even end up looking at them because I just was so nervous. So we had four minutes to present. There were nine, ten of us. And it was just the experience of, you know, I have so much respect for Jeff Walker and people, Donna Davis and Barry Friedman, the other coaches. And just to be in the backstage and just sitting with Jeff Walker was really cool. It was really, it's really special and amazing. Getting up on that stage was 1,300 people, and it was great. It was empowering. So I talked about isolation, and I talked about, I said, four years ago I was slurping wine off a dirty floor in my apartment. That's how I opened the thing up.
It's like, you're right. Yeah.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI'm going to speak to the person that's out there in the audience that's doing that. And it was pretty cool because people ended up coming up to me and they said, thank you for talking about that. And they're like, mine was vodka. Or, you know, I did not know that I was going to talk about that. But a few hours before I decided, you know, that's part of my story. And yeah. With the success I've had, there was a real, real friggin' bottom. And there was a real despair and a pain, a deep pain of frustration and being stuck and alone and professionally not knowing how to move forward. And that's something I'm really proud of. I lived with so much shame about it and embarrassment. And I'm now proud of it. It made me who I am. And it gave me the grit to trust myself. And I think back then I thought I was too sensitive for life. And that's not the truth.
Trenton ReynoldsI wish I could have been there. For any of us. Sounds like an amazing event.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonIt was great. It was really great.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd I had planned on going originally. It's something that I'm definitely pursuing as well. And it just didn't work out for this year. Hopefully next year.
Sabrina Ward Harrisonfuture. Yeah. And I was able to bring a special guest. So I brought Molly Franks, who's my best friend from sixth grade. So it was such a treat having her there and her getting to experience it.
Trenton ReynoldsWe should have Molly back on the show sometime. Yeah. Update on where she's at. I'd enjoy that. I thought maybe it would be an interesting thing to talk about, not as solid in my mind as it ought to be. It's something about like this moment right now and going forward, like- what's is there a roadmap? Is there a vision? Do you have a vision for who you are and where you're going? Because I feel like me personally, I've been in the mode of just like trying to keep up with the moment, you know, that and everything changes so quickly. And there's so many variables that it's hard to really grasp on to a longer vision, you know, or something, a structure for the future. I guess I've kind of lost trust in my ability to, you know, create a vision for the future. I'm curious if like you have been on at a pretty rapid clip. Yeah. breaking new ground and going into new territory. So you're in a similar type of situation where there's been a tremendous amount of new and growth and trying new things and success that brings new options and opportunities. And do you feel like you're just trying to like, keep it together and be here now? Or are you, do you have a greater vision? Do you feel like PLF has given you a greater vision or a structure? Or is it just kind of like keeping up with the chaos? There's a question in there, I think.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThat's an interesting question. Part of me wants to say, if I'm committed to showing up as the healthiest, clearest version of myself every day... I don't know. It's personal because I would want... It's very spiritual for me. So my sense of my relationship to my higher power, you know, that I can't do it all myself, that there is some bigger force that's a part of the path of my life. And so when I think back... the things that have unfolded I couldn't have even imagined so I can't there's a part that has to stay open to the mystery of what's happening and why it's happening.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd that's, you know, we've talked about many times that's the wonderful thing and perhaps the most compelling thing about art making is that that space of remaining open to possibility and potential that, you know, not closing off. or deciding too quickly what something needs to be, or, you know, is, is this kind of back and forth between you and what you're creating that you like that space of faith and, uh, and conversation and openness and risk. And, you know, like, that's a very satisfying and wonderful space to be in.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah, it doesn't make it necessarily easy, but it...
Trenton ReynoldsNo, not easy. And I think there might be a lesson for me in what you just said, and that is bringing your best, healthiest self. So maybe the focus should be less on the anxiety about not having a clear view of what's next or how to create a new vision or a new structure for my future, but... the focus should just be on like getting to be clear about with myself, you know, and get to a healthier, stronger, more empowered state. And as that gets better, then, you know, my ability to take the opportunities that do come and have a clear vision of making decisions in response to things that come. - Yes, absolutely. - Does that make sense? - Yeah. - Like it's a shift of like, just being caught up with what ought to be and what will be, you know, and focusing more on just like, how can I be the best me right now? Always a good lesson. Always a good thing to hear. And that is, I mean, that's a pretty empowering message, isn't it? Like you always have control over you. You don't have control over events and other people around you, but you do have the ability to, to improve yourself and make decisions.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah, and then the rest follows. The rest unfolds. The rest follows.
Mm-hmm.
Trenton ReynoldsYeah, I always liked the whole metaphor of unfolding. I remember when we were building the room with the trees, having conversations in the backyard there, and I remember you telling me that metaphor for the first time of... of unfolding you like having things unfold and was that part of um an alan watts tape or or cd or or is that something kind of an idea or a metaphor that you came up with yourself
Sabrina Ward Harrisoni think it comes from a real key poem that image yeah though the quote is i want to unfold i don't want to be folded anywhere because where i am folded there i am alive
Trenton ReynoldsWell, that's kind of like your experience with making your presentation and deciding that you wanted to share that part of you that was dark and hard. And that is an unfolding of sorts.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah, not knowing quite why, but doing it, being deeper knowing was like, you should do this and that. It wasn't for me, you know, it was just one person and who knows why.
Trenton ReynoldsGood to talk. Glad that your trip was so successful.
Yes.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonGreat seeing you and the kids and Laura and we will. Oh, and it was a treat. I met Nicholas Wilton, the great painter whose work I've admired for a long time. And so he's going to be a guest on the podcast today.
Trenton ReynoldsAwesome. Thanks for listening. We'll be back next week.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonPlease help us grow our audience by rating us or writing a review on iTunes. To do that, you can use the link roominthetrees.com forward slash iTunes.
Trenton ReynoldsYou can follow us on Instagram at Sabrina Ward Harrison and at Trent Reynolds Art.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonAnd check out the show notes at roominthetrees.com where you can also get in touch if you have any ideas you'd like to share.
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With a friend.
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