EP 177: John Bukaty - Exploring the Transformative Power of Art

Have you ever wondered how art can transform your perspective, shape your life, and even the world around you? Meet John Bukaty, an artistic trailblazer, known for his dynamic live paintings of grand events like the NFL Super Bowl and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. We dive deep into John's creative mindspace, exploring the transition from businessman to artist, the power of mistakes in sparking creativity and how the ability to stay present has influenced his artistic process.

This episode is not just about art, but also about personal transformation. John opens up about his struggles with ADHD and how art became his lifeline. He shares how he broke free from addiction, mastered his energy and tuned into the unseen and unknown, leading to a simpler, more fulfilling life. From understanding the power of intention to acknowledging our shadow aspects, John's insights are an inspiration for personal growth and self-exploration.

But, the journey doesn't stop there. We discuss the profound importance of receiving, learning to trust the universe, and appreciating life's blessings. This conversation is a rich tapestry of wisdom, creativity, and self-discovery, woven together by John's personal experiences and artistic journey. This is not just a podcast episode, it's a transformative journey that will leave you inspired and looking at art, and life, through a fresh lens. Tune in for a thought-provoking conversation that's sure to inspire your own creative and personal exploration.

Connect with John here:
https://johnbukaty.com/pages/about-john-bukaty

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https://geni.us/FinallyThriving

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Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:29

Welcome to sing. You can understand yourself better in these crazy times, all this craziness going on around us. We have to come back into ourselves, which is home. What I have coming up is the portal to your heart day retreat I have here in Portland. It's gonna be a one day retreat, in person, and we're gonna be doing story work. We're gonna be writing, journaling and channeling the messages of our heart. I'm gonna put you through some movement and vocal toning that will really bridge the gap for you with this, because our voices is the in-between between our mind and our heart. It's that connection for us. So I'm gonna teach you how to do that through simple practices, how you can do this every day and it can be really fun. We're gonna experience it and just help our bodies relax. We're gonna have an organic lunch for everybody as well. That's included and then my friend, sarah Eegert, is going to do a sound bath for everybody in a breath work meditation as well, and it's just gonna be lovely. It's gonna. I'm so excited about this. So if you wanna sign up for that, I'll leave the link in the show notes for that as well. That'll be September 23rd, on a Saturday, and if you'd like to join us. I'll leave the registration in the show notes.

Speaker 2: 2:32

Today's guest is my good friend, john Bukati. John is an American pioneer of the live painting movement. He began his career 20 years ago on canvas, capturing weekly band performances at a Kansas City brew pub, but has since traveled to India, ireland, mexico and beyond, creating and sharing his work through mediums ranging from painting and sculpture to poetry and apparel. One of Bukati's most unique gifts is his ability to capture the essence of live action on canvas. He has been selected to commemorate such events as the NFL Super Bowl, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship. As a result, he has created a vast national network of fans and collaborators. He works often with Grammy award-winning musician Anders Osborne and on the Send Me a Friend Project, which helps support newly sober musicians on the road.

Speaker 2: 3:36

Leveraging his work and artistic influence, bukati has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for organizations such as the YMCA, the American Cancer Society and the Community Service League, and the Halo Foundation and SPCA. He has an annual feature at Paul Rudd's charity event, the Big Slick, to help raise money for children's Mercy Hospital of Kansas City. He also devotes a great deal of time to teaching art to students of all ages. These charitable pursuits have not only shaped his work over time, but have cemented his belief in the powerfully important impact art can have on our communities, with socially conscious and visually stimulating.

Speaker 2: 4:23

John's work has been featured in numerous solo shows, having owned and operated three fine art galleries himself. He has also been featured in shows at the Denver Art Museum, the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Nelson Atkins Art Museum in Kansas City. Celebrity collectors of his work include Matthew McConaughey, penelope Cruz, jj Kale and John Popper. He has dedicated his life to serving art by living with creative intention, giving back to his community and using his talents to connect with the world around him. It is my honor and my pleasure to introduce my good friend, john Bukaty. Everybody enjoy ["Joy of the World"].

Speaker 2: 5:22

That today we're welcoming my friend, john Bukaty, to this show today. He's an amazing artist and I got the opportunity to meet him through the Artist's Way group that I was a part of. I got to teach one of the classes and he was one of the teachers too, and at the end of the class we got to do this amazing retreat in Ojai, california together. I got to know each other even better and he is just such a special person and near and dear to my heart as well. We definitely resonated and shared some common experiences and he's got such a unique background that he's gonna share with you all today. He is an amazing artist and he has a very unique way of expressing his artistry, and we're gonna talk about that today. So welcome, john, to the show. Thank you so much for coming on.

Speaker 1: 6:19

Thank you, drew, for having me. I feel the same way about you. You mean a lot to me and it was such a great experience for 12 weeks and to cap it off with that retreat was so great, so thank you for letting this kind of happen.

Speaker 2: 6:35

Yeah, yeah, you're so welcome. It's my pleasure because I love having people on that I'm both connected to but also are doing some amazing things in the world, and I feel like you're definitely one of those people. You check every box there and I would love for you to start by sharing with my audience what you do. Just give everybody an idea of also how you came to be doing what you're doing, which is a very unique thing.

Speaker 1: 7:07

I will. That's a loaded question. I'll try to keep it simple and deep. Right, I started off in the Midwest Kansas City as kind of a suburban white kid football player right my dad played for the Broncos.

Speaker 1: 7:24

I grew up loving football. What I didn't really notice is that I look at the world really different and when I say look, I'm 30% deaf in my left ear and I'm pretty much a visual person inside and out. I've got an inner screen, I have had Cinecesia where I see colors, and so I have a unique way of looking at things because I'm always seeing things with my imagination and I see the world a little different than most people come to find out. High school terrible student Got kicked out right away.

Speaker 1: 8:06

Grade school and high school ADHD, hyperactive, hyperactive mind, hyperactive physically, and just the only two things that I really did well was football and art, and everything else was Greek to me. So that took me. I would say I had some charisma and I was able to talk teachers into passing me because, when I say I was at the top of the bottom, my scores were very low and, like I said, if you got a score for being the worst, I was the best at being the worst all the time. So I had that created a lot of shame, actually, and a lot of guilt, thinking I was stupid, which drove me further into my strengths, which was football and art. So I get this football and art scholarship to college, which is pretty rare, and when I was in the art class in college I was like chewing tobacco and had a flat top. I was six, four, two, 50, wearing sweatpants and said grizzly football and, like everybody else, was wearing black fingernails and trench coats and look like the cure and I felt like a turd in a punch bowl in the art class. Now they probably finally felt at home when I say that that time period I was pretty much two archetypes, like I said, artist, football player and one was very voiceless and intense and the other was very, you know, shy and bashful.

Speaker 1: 9:48

I don't think I gave any love to that artist, I just think I was really good at it and it calmed me and I didn't really give it any love. And I played at the University of Kansas, where football is like everything at that time. We were really good. It was my dad played there, my great uncle played there, so that archetype really took over my life. I then went to Chicago, followed in my dad's football steps, or you know as a salesman and you know he went from football player to salesman.

Speaker 1: 10:28

I did the same thing put a tie on. I totally burned out. I hadn't done a painting in years At 26, around like Y2K. I moved back to Kansas City from Chicago, get rid of the big city and then grow a ponytail, lose a bunch of weight, start smoking weed, start listening to music, start doing this, acting like an artist. Right, I'm gonna be broke. I'm gonna act like I'm, you know, a whiny bitch. I'm gonna bitch about everything. I'm gonna be an artist.

Speaker 1: 11:05

And that didn't work very well because I had already tasted what music was like. I mean, money was like and I needed money. And so I started painting kids' rooms, curious George and elephants and stuff, as all my kids' friends were having babies. But when it came to my art, I couldn't find anything. So I couldn't figure it out. I had 50 unfinished paintings. I was about to fail. I was about to like quit. Now.

Speaker 1: 11:35

I was bartending a couple times a week and I started when I would go to live music concerts. Everything would light up, right, like all. I would see colors, I would have all these ideas and I'd be like I wanna paint, like right now. So that was kind of the. You know, I had seen a guy named Denny Depp who had done this live performance art and I said that is me. So this introvert that was an artist, I would say this performer was like I'm gonna show you how to do it. I'm from Missouri, I'm from the show me state. You know, my dad was always about its the action, and so that became I'm like I told the bar owner I'm gonna paint next to the musician every Thursday night. What do you think? He didn't have any idea what I was talking about. That was like November 29th 2001,.

Speaker 1: 12:27

I believe George Harrison died. That night it was my birthday. Just so happened I cut my painting, my thumb on my painting hand, and everything kind of started that night. Truly, I had several chances to back out of that and I didn't, and that there was no turning back. A lot of things happened in that night, I believe, and I started painting live to live music and then for seven years I was in the music business, painting all these famous people. I was on stage with some of these famous people.

Speaker 1: 13:03

I was doing festivals all over the country and there was specifically the jam band scene and the hippie scene and this free love world. That was actually a counterculture of what was going on. It was 9-11, people were pulling back. In Kansas City, nobody was smoking weed. I was getting kicked out of people's houses for smoking it on the back patio. And then in Denver, this little microcosm of what was going on was music and hippies doing hula hooping and fire dancers and all this stuff. And I found peace in the middle of absolute chaos, and that is also part of my old story. That is where I would sit there and find harmony and peace and just do these flowing paintings in a crowd of 900 people and that was kind of beautiful Somewhere around like 2007,. I went through a lot of loss. I lost my dad, I lost my best friend to suicide.

Speaker 1: 14:14

I lost my girlfriend, my gallery, my minivan. I just lost everything and for me, I had an awakening of sorts. I had this idea that this isn't really about me, but this is just life happening and things happen and people die. And I started to taste a little bit of spirituality and also I realized how selfish I was as an addict and I was a really self-absorbed narcissistic.

Speaker 1: 14:45

a addict who was coping with all sorts of trauma and stories through more and more dopamine or feel goods or whatever you wanna call it, you know, to just more and more piling it on, running to stand still, so to speak, just really running from all the pain. And so I moved to Crested Butte, colorado, in 2008.

Speaker 1: 15:10

I get really sober through nature in a recovery program that we all know and that helped. That really turned the Titanic around before it sunk. I ended up going to India in 2009 and did a hundred paintings in a hundred days to go find out outwardly like, oh, I'm gonna go find myself in India because that's what you do when I get over there. It's a funny story. I pay like a couple hundred bucks for a guru on the Ghatsevera Nasi right and this guy basically paints my head and I give him the money and he's like the guy translated and he's like, yeah, you're a Christian, you came into this lifetime as a Christian. You're gonna leave as a Christian and I'll get the hell out of here.

Speaker 1: 16:02

I thought that was pretty funny because that was like the one thing I was running from and my Christian friends love that story.

Speaker 2: 16:11

I love that story. That's funny.

Speaker 1: 16:14

All the way to you know is that same thing. You gotta go to all the way to India to find out that the answers are inside right.

Speaker 1: 16:20

Yeah, since then I've been married, I've been divorced, I have two kids. I have been a jack of all, master of none. I do corporate events all over the world and paint live. So I've taken that live music out there and they're giving back because every time they hire me they have to hire a local band. So I feel pretty good about that and we show up and I do a painting, a big painting, in about two hours and then they all get a print. That's kind of my business. I love it. I'm going to Greece, maui, scotland and London all in the next like four weeks, so I do get to see the world and get paid to paint, which is kind of what they all told me I wouldn't be able to do. They all told me you'll never be able to make it as an artist and that's probably something you don't want to tell a younger John Vukati, because he'll give you, you know this, he'll give you half the peace sign on that one. So that's kind of been my story.

Speaker 1: 17:24

The last 12 years since I've had these kids have been me kind of working towards that. I've written, you know, a book about my dad. That was really short. I've written hundreds of poems. I've done thousands of paintings since then. I paint every day, I write every day. Art truly saved my life and one of these days I'm kind of kind of stop like making this about my brand and just maybe I'll just be a teacher for the world one day soon. So I'm kind of I'm at a very big crossroads right now as a creative, as you've kind of seen, and I've been very shy about my poetry and my writings, so much so that when I'm like sharing them now I'm like should I share that?

Speaker 1: 18:18

And you know I, I I'm kind of like you know 49 and I'm looking really out at this horizon and it's, it's wide open and it's, you know, lots of hills and lots of flowers and lots of beautiful landscapes, but I don't know which, which, which route I'm going to be chosen to be taken on, even though I have a clear view. I feel like I've always been in the, in the trenches, but something has happened where I've kind of got this like scope and I don't, and it's like getting over a mountain range and seeing this huge, wide open space and and I feel really good, this is some of the best I've ever felt, not an extreme high, not an extreme low, something like we shared after that, after that retreat, something close to equanimity, and that's kind of what I've been being intentional about. Maybe it's the Buddhist middle way or whatnot, you know, but that's kind of where I'm at now. I hope that answers your question.

Speaker 2: 19:32

Oh yeah, that was amazing. Thanks for sharing that, john. Yeah, and it's a. The way I experience it too is like it's like creating an inner calm and an inner knowing where you don't there's like less anxiety around what the future holds right, cause we're just more even. You know, you're able to experience the present moment even more in some ways, and so I think that's much of what we experienced and so, yeah, so that's thank you for sharing your story, john, and it's a.

Speaker 2: 20:07

I can relate to a lot of that, especially with your, with what you were sharing about being in school with ADHD and not feeling very smart. I had a very similar story. I was an athlete as well and didn't do very well in school, wasn't really interested in school, it was kind of boring to me, and but I love that you were able to really bring art and the athlete, the artists and the athlete, together, and that's something I've been talking about for some time now with my book as well. It's like it's that those two archetypes we can actually we see them as so separate, such separate and opposite ends of the spectrum, but they're really one and the same, and so you have the discipline of the. They kind of compliment each other.

Speaker 2: 20:55

I guess, in some ways, too, you have the discipline of the athlete and then you have the, you know, the creative expansion of the, an expression of the artist, and that I feel like we need both of those in our lives enabled so that we can find the balance there with our lives and our personal expression. So, yeah, yeah, you said a lot there and I was gonna say some more about the athlete as well, but I think, yeah, yeah, it's like it teaches you how to focus, but then it comes to a point where you need to not focus, right, so much and it's like you kind of have to let go and open up, and I feel like that's what you did with the work that you're doing now, which is such a beautiful expression of energy and motion, as, like, what the athlete expresses through their body. Now you're expressing that through art, because you're actually painting the energy that's literally in motion.

Speaker 2: 21:55

When you're listening to music, right, what you're seeing which is so cool, yeah, and so it makes sense that you had those two experiences. They brought them together to express what you're doing now, which is so beautiful. I wanted to get into some of the things that you wanted to share here. You listed a few things and I'd really love to kind of touch upon how recovery has made a difference in your creative process and because it has played a big part.

Speaker 2: 22:37

And I feel like, from what you've shared with me, it wasn't until you were able to like something I experienced in the retreat was like okay, I'm actually loving how like really honoring my feelings and feeling actually for maybe the first time, not being afraid to feel in a way or being ashamed of it and just let, and being so like grateful for feeling, because I think that's a part of life, and for me personally, I'd put a lot of shame on feeling or really suppressed it or numbed it out, also with substances too, in the past, and that sounds like a similar journey for you, john is like sometimes we feel so much, it's so overwhelming, that we feel the need to numb it out, because we feel either ashamed of it or it's just too much for us to really handle in that moment.

Speaker 2: 23:47

But I think that, like you said at the end, like if we can find some peace around that, acknowledge it, love it for what it is and just let it move through, then we can actually express ourselves in a healthy way. So I feel like the recovery process for you has a lot to do with the numbing initially the feelings out, but then making peace with them and acknowledging that, oh my gosh, it's so good to feel like this is kind of amazing, right.

Speaker 1: 26:42

Yeah, I really relate to what you're saying, especially with the retreat. For me, where I've been focusing on is not writing the story to the feelings and man I have gotten a feeling wheel on Amazon. I've really tried to decipher, expand on the feelings and like let's talk what the difference between compassion and empathy is and really study what the Dalai Lama says about that and how empathy can rep you if you're not careful but compassionate and really getting into these words, Cause I think my body knows what these words are.

Speaker 1: 27:29

But to go back to my earlier thought, it's like, really be careful of the story you write. You do not have to have a freaking story to every feeling. And that's where I think it helped me for years to like, wow, I'm feeling anxious, maybe I had six cups of coffee and that was the story. And yeah, that's probably I need to change that narrative and it helped me. And now it doesn't.

Speaker 1: 27:57

Now it's a thought's sausage of too much thinking and the problem really is the thinking and the addiction to thinking. And I was with a friend over the fall I spent some really good time with and she amazed me, because I hang out with a lot of people in recovery and we just keep going on and on about our thoughts and we're just replacing food with alcohol and we're replacing complaining with alcohol, and then it's this and then it's thought. And she had talked about how she said she had never really been addicted to anything except thinking. And I went oh, that's great, you actually. You know you have been able to control your thinking and that there is a lot to do with you know meditation and stop attaching all these things to it.

Speaker 1: 29:02

And that was my breakthrough and the retreat was.

Speaker 1: 29:05

I set an intention to be deep and simple and not, or simple and deep, not complicated and shallow, and, at the end of the breath, work and all that. I wasn't on this, you know, like I wasn't on this, like overwhelming high. I did come down a little bit on Wednesday and Thursday after the retreat, of course, because it was such a feel good thing. But there's something that is the first time in my life, at the perfect time of my life, that I'm not trying to maximize every minute of the day and I'm actually trying to achieve nothingness. These are the things that got me to where I wanted to be as an artist.

Speaker 1: 29:52

Jim Carrey talks about deep rest and depressed. I went through a huge depression before I was an artist, yet at the same time I was sitting there staring at the ceiling, dreaming about a giant studio in big walls and visualizing what a life would be like if I had all these colors in my life and I was able to have the freedom to just paint on big paintings, that thinking or detaching from anything and just wandering around and riding a bike in my neighborhood without any direction at all and this Bob Dylan attitude and just didn't give a fuck. That was what got me to kind of not think my way into like creativity, but just play, yeah, and how do you do that? There's that's, play is so important and I lost that. I lost that.

Speaker 1: 30:57

And when I say it's the first time in my life that I'm like searching for nothing. I think that I had so many addictions back then that I was only tasting it and I wasn't really having it. I was really addicted to drugs and alcohol in those days but I respect them now because it's what broke me out of that, that archetype of like businessman. I went from a suit and tie making six figures with a company car and a laptop and a cell phone when people didn't have cell phones and, like in the year later I was broke. Six months later I was selling $12 pieces of art with a ponytail on the lot of a widespread panic concert in Colorado.

Speaker 1: 31:51

I made a huge transition at that point to really like. I remember crying one night for three hours, so something. So that transformation and I know I'm like a little bit all over the place, but I feel like I'm having that now in a slow kind of a slow like shedding a little bit over over over it's I don't know how to say it, because putting words to it kind of ruins it, but I think you know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 32:27

It's just a midlife like transformation.

Speaker 2: 32:30

Like an unfolding. Yeah, it's unfolding.

Speaker 1: 32:33

And I'm more so finding myself where, instead of like, I guess the what is it? The crystal is, so whatever the butterfly thing is, it's like. Instead of like ripping out of it and like being like, ah, I'm just kind of like, oh no, no, no, let's just pause, you know, and and and breathe, and that has never been a, that has never. That's just. That doesn't feel like anybody who's listening, who knows me, would be like pause what you know, I thought it was kinetic and movement.

Speaker 1: 33:12

But it's, it's, it's. I've turned a walk, I've turned a run into a walk.

Speaker 2: 33:17

Yeah, and that's because you're starting to master your energy, and that's what I I started to look, how I started to look at it too, is, you know, that is actually there is a, an aspect of us that's not tangible, it's unseen, it's unknown, but it is moving like. It is energy and motion too. It's just a different kind of energy and motion. Right, then, what we see in the physical world, the physical, you know, everything that you see with your eyes, it's like it's not, that's not everything that there is. There's so much more that exists, and so it just be open with your mind to that is a huge, huge thing. And I think, like you're saying, john, you had to break your break yourself a little bit, like, and to open yourself up to all of these things. And it had to be extreme, because I know the feeling of being of, like having ADHD and and like the mind, like I've really acknowledged this lately, like I haven't done this before, like this year, but my mind works differently, and that's okay, you know, and I get that. I get a lot of information all at once and it becomes very overwhelming, or it has in the past. I know how to I've done my much better job of managing it, but in a way that doesn't take a lot of energy. So before I would have to manage and focus on it, in on it by like kind of what you're saying, like like the, the idea of putting on the suit, acting like you have it all together, being a certain way for certain people right, kind of like presenting yourself a certain way and trying to really intensely focus on something. That's a way to do it, but it it gets really tiring after a while, it gets very exhausting. Right To do do things that way and to always kind of present yourself a certain way. That's because you're just trying to focus, you know, like that's just really what it comes down to from my perspective, because you got all these things coming in at once and but it is. I appreciate where I'm at with it, because it is a sign of higher creativity. I'm finding out and because my mind just works differently, I see things differently than other people and, and you know so, seeing it more as a gift, a unique gift for myself, is is the way I look at it and then learning how to work with it and learning you know what I need to support it and doing it, using my mind in a certain way where I can honor that but also not, you know, be able to like. That's been my journey, to being able to let go of trying to hold it all together or present myself a certain way.

Speaker 2: 36:09

I've my journey has been allowing myself to make mistakes, allowing myself to play with that, even making mistakes intentionally, like those who listen to the show know that I will keep mistakes in the show just because I like to, you know, provide examples and be a role model for people to not feel like they have to be so perfect all the time or have it all together. Like mistakes in play are a part of life and that's actually what makes life so fun and interesting. Otherwise, like it would be so boring, right? So this is how we we come to these new ideas, these new, this new openness in our mind, this new, these new levels of imagination, through mistakes in play and we say mistakes. Is it really a mistake or you know?

Speaker 2: 36:58

But you know what we view as a mistake, like there's such a broad range for that, right, like what I think of as a mistake could be, like an accident, you know, or something, but like a mistake, like if you're, if you say the wrong word, so what you know, so people, I tend to worry about those kinds of things, but I think that you're kind of it's a waste of energy. You know you may have something that comes out of that that's really beautiful, but if you're trying to edit yourself or trying to really present yourself a certain way, so hard, you know, so focused, then you kind of miss out on that, that creative aspect, I think. And you may have missed out on what? On the gift that you're giving people today if you were still doing that, john. So you know, in a way, that that was the journey, that that was a path that you were to go on in order to bring you back to here, right.

Speaker 1: 37:56

Yeah, I definitely think that there was so much pain and suffering and a lot of it was self, you know, induced. I'm going to, you know, I'm not going to blame everything on being an addict. I made some terrible choices. I do think there is something that is a real. How do you say allergy of the body?

Speaker 1: 38:20

when you do drink and drug. That is a compulsion of the mind and that is what I described to a lot of people as addiction. To me it's a very real thing on a very big spectrum and I kind of lost my thought in there, but I was going to say something that this bandwidth of pain that I had is also a very big. It's also a very big book that I can help people in the future.

Speaker 2: 38:57

Maybe that's just what it is.

Speaker 1: 38:59

Maybe that's all that it is is you have the bandwidth to help people. You have the bandwidth to, you know, have the empathy for the next guy you work with. I'm working with a guy who's continually going to rehab. Right now the focus is on me through his counselor and rehab. So I have that ability to hold this face and try to help this guy, because it's extremely heavy stuff and I have been gifted this past of extremely heavy stuff, right, so maybe that's just it.

Speaker 1: 39:40

And I told y'all at the retreat I have gone through an enormous amount of pain, just a ton of violence, to be able to be in this much peace right now. And you know I have it on my wall right here. It says responsibility plus kindness equals peace. My dad's dying words were peace. You know I have this peace sign to try to remember that I have done it through. I have done this life. You know I've been in probably 50 fistfights. I've been in, you know, car wrecks. I've been in violent arguments in my late teens and you know it was something that I have really evolved out of. You know I don't know about 50 fistfights, but it sure feels like I've been out of a lot of scuffles. I've been arrested for public intoxication. I've been, you know, I've screamed in road rage before, and all that's not who I am anymore. Matter of fact, I'm like you know. I don't even know who that is anymore, you know, but it was part of my story and it can help me in the future.

Speaker 1: 41:02

And that's so your past. You know your past doesn't own you, right.

Speaker 2: 41:10

Yeah, I mean, you have to sometimes.

Speaker 1: 41:13

If you don't own your past, your past will own you.

Speaker 2: 41:18

Right, right, Like if, yes, exactly like you're not acknowledging the shadow aspects of yourself, right, it's like if you keep bypassing that, it's going to keep presenting itself stronger and stronger. Right and, to you like, really acknowledge it.

Speaker 1: 41:33

And none of this is mine, Right, Everything I've probably said. I mean, I'm just imagine me and like a human disco ball, like 900 pieces of me here in like a body suit. That's like a disco ball. I'm just a reflection of what I read or what I, you know, heard. I heard a lot of stuff from my friend Anders today on a long walk. We were talking about all sorts of stuff that will probably bounce off and get it and then it'll get in here and then it'll bounce off somebody else and they'll tell it to their mom and their mom will say it's their original thought and yada, yada, yada.

Speaker 1: 42:16

I mean none of this is none of this is, you know me.

Speaker 2: 42:21

Yeah, yeah, that's a great way to see it. Yeah, it's a reflection. You're just reflecting back to people and I don't think there is any original thought. Really, yeah, it's like all in the collective consciousness Like we have. We have access, everybody has access to it. It's about being open to it, right?

Speaker 1: 42:38

Yeah, I mean the light is bouncing off of all sorts of beautiful things and it's changing shape. I mean, what you see in the reflection of a lake is not exactly what's above it because of maybe a stick sticking out of the water or some ripples, but for the most part it's the same thing, right In a different form. And you know, I want to claim that my style is my signature piece and my, my little signature is mine. But the truth is is like it's really I wholeheartedly accondoid to the universe and I'm like I'm more like an extension cord that just lets current kind of come through me. You know, yeah.

Speaker 2: 43:19

Like a channel. I love the same.

Speaker 1: 43:22

Yeah, I'm maybe an antenna and I love the same Francis prayer and you know, I feel like I mean I prayed up my paintings and sage them and you know I, I'm like God, please work through me. And you know, let me, let me, let me be an instrument of your piece, and then I do this painting and then I am just like right at the end of it I'm already an ego, like you, katie.

Speaker 2: 43:48

You know that was me Well you're just unveiling what was already there. You know, like it's like what Jamie was saying with what is it the sculptor?

Speaker 1: 44:03

right, he's just right, Michelangelo, he, he, he just. He already saw David. He just went out and chipped it away.

Speaker 2: 44:13

What is funny?

Speaker 1: 44:14

though I did have a thought this morning that I want to share with you, so I just wrote. I woke up at four and I went and wrote like three or four poems that I wrote my morning pages, and then I got tired and it was like 5.30 and I went and laid down again. I had to take the kids to school around 6.30 of seven.

Speaker 1: 44:35

you know I had to get up with them before they get up, but then I closed my eyes and I had this vision of like angel wings, and all the feathers were hands, just like 60 hands on each side and they were all, and I was like I'm going to sculpt them, I'm going to make them all different with my hands, I'm going to do this whole thing. And, man, I almost fell asleep because it was that right, that area. And I woke up and I typed it in my phone. Not well, I do it.

Speaker 2: 45:05

I don't know.

Speaker 1: 45:06

But I wanted to share that. That is kind of that's a gift, that's not, that's getting this moment where I receive something and I'm able to do something with it. I don't know if I'm going to be like Nicolangelo and go find rock and pull it out, or if I'm going to go mold you know 60 hands and then glue them to what would be a wing, but I think I mean that just starts a creative conversation. I thought you would love that because you know you did want me to share some of my process on that. Yeah, absolutely, I never know how, like, that is going to go to an idea, or you know, maybe 10 years from now, and I do it. But I did want to share that with you. And then I wanted to share this quote with you and that's about all that I wanted to do. So I'm going to use this time to take that quote that I love I heard, because you know I I'm pretty intuitive in like somewhat impulsive, in a creative way.

Speaker 1: 46:11

And I like I remember when I did my teaching. I'm like I had to pull over and listen to that song and then I printed it out and read it to you guys. But this quote, I love this quote. You see things and say why, but I dream things that never were and I say why not? And I believe that's kind of that creativity and I'm gonna read it again. You see things and say why, but I dream things and that say that were never were, and I say, why not?

Speaker 1: 46:48

And that's George Bernard Shaw. I got that from Wayne Dyer and I thought I would share that because that to me, I feel that I see that and I call myself a dreamer and I got that hope card at the last moment when we left the retreat. I've written it down like six times. Those are the messages that keep me going and I feel that's under the creative umbrella. I really I don't wanna say believe, because we had that talk.

Speaker 2: 47:27

I wanna say something about that in a second.

Speaker 1: 47:29

I have a lot of faith and the unknown has always treated me right and I don't wanna say always, because that's not true. I've had a lot of stuff that let's just put it this way the unknown has been really good to me. I in 99, I quit my job and I said Allison. I said I'm gonna go pay all over the world and get paid to do it and everybody laughed at me.

Speaker 1: 47:59

I was dead serious. I thought this is gonna be like van life, this is gonna be like me with dirty hands, and I let it go and I didn't think about it. I radiated that energy. A couple of years later, I'm painting live and I'm in that kind of vibration and you know cause I'm leaning. I'm just basically tapping into music. Not within, but eight years. I'm at like the Ritz Carlton, and you know I'm getting paid to do this all over the world. The universe had a better idea of how I could do it than I did. I thought I could do it with a band and a low budget, but the universe is doing a way better job of it. So I thought I'd share that with you too. You know, I believe or I have faith in the dream.

Speaker 2: 48:49

Yeah, yeah, that's so, it's so appropriate. I tell people all the time you do this.

Speaker 1: 48:54

There are thousands of people millions making millions of dollars in art and music and production and film and dance, and this industry under the umbrella of art is huge. So for you to go in and tell yourself there's no money in it, that you're just gonna do it for passion, what a crock of shit. There are people making a lot of money and some in something and this isn't about money. But this is my little soapbox to tell people that if you walk into a situation already saying you can't do it, you're really in trouble.

Speaker 2: 49:30

You know you're blocked.

Speaker 2: 49:31

Yeah, I wanted to bring up the power of intention because you do it so well and hopefully you have about 10 more minutes to spare here. But I would love to get into that and I wanted to comment on something you said as well, because the word belief came up in our class and it's so funny. I came across this book called Project 369. And it led me to this quote in the book that gave me a little bit more of a I guess clarity around that Like because, yes, all beliefs are untrue, but we limit ourself with our beliefs too. So like it's kind of like what I was sharing in the class, like beliefs can be stepping stones on to get yourself into a deeper sense of faith.

Speaker 2: 50:32

But what this quote said true separation is created by believing we are only our beliefs rather than believing we are the believer, which I really liked because it's like okay then that you stay open. Like you say you're the dreamer, you're the dreamer of your own dream, right, and when you can look at it like that, no beliefs can limit you. You know you are the belief, the beliefs come from you, like it's all coming from you, right In a way. So with that I wanna just talk. If you have till 10, 10.

Speaker 2: 51:07

AM my time about the power of intention and how you use it, because you're one of the one of the few people that I know that uses intention like you do, and just the level of manifestation that you experience is just mind blowing to me. Like, so you know, because you'll put the like you were describing, you'll actually take action and put these words in front of you, so you have your intention right there in front of you. You will repeat them, you will remind yourself of them, and just I would love for you just to share how you, first of all, you know how the power of intention has changed your life, but also how you use it on a practical, daily basis.

Speaker 1: 51:55

It's great question, that's your answer. But the most part I try to listen and I try to get real quiet and I try to detach space off and just let go and I hear something that may not be mine and then I know that's good stuff. We talk about the whisper. For me, I don't know if it's a whisper, I don't know if it's clear audio, I don't know what it is, but it isn't me and it's a gift, and so when I get that I have been able to. I have had several times where I have held that gift and dropped it and I have had several times where I have taken that like in the ashes of that ember and it's brought me to tears and I've had a little bit of spark flowing on it, maybe lighting a stick and then taking that stick and lighting a fire and some paper and igniting that idea and choosing the right people and then, writing that idea on a Post-it note and then writing that idea on a 5x7 index card and then writing

Speaker 1: 53:53

that idea on a big piece of butcher paper and then praying about that idea and letting that idea have its own life, and that is intention to me, and letting that have its own life, knowing that that was a gift for me and if it doesn't go to me, it's like a toaster with wings it's going to go to somebody else and it's going to be given to them and they're going to be the conduit and sometimes missing out on.

Speaker 1: 54:25

It is the inspiration that I need. I do Joppa. If you don't know what Joppa is, you can Google it. I think it works. It's talking about the vibration of what is the sound of God. God, allah, buddha, krishna. I mean, they're all the same thing. It goes back to the same thing, and it's the sound of ah, God Right.

Speaker 2: 54:54

Call whatever you want.

Speaker 1: 54:56

Some people call it quantum physics, some people call it manifestation, some people call it the placebo effect, some people call it prayer. It's all the same thing for me, and when I put it out it multiplies. When I put it out, it began to multiply, unless I don't put it with the right person. I used to show my brother my abstract paintings and he would go I don't get it and I would get down on myself. I learned through a lot of things Don't show people, don't sabotage. So I mean I would say that we could probably do something creative right now with the intention and do take two minutes and write a quote and manifest it and let it be something. I mean that's how playful it has to be. I like to put strictures in place that create healthy boundaries around play, and sometimes that's intensity and sometimes that's peace. So I could say maybe we're gonna light the room with candles lay down for an hour. Our intention is to lay on a canvas and squirt blue paint all over it and you squirm around and write it, and then that's peaceful. Or I could say hey, listen, in the next 45 seconds we're gonna draw a happy face. So those strictures are giving permission for play.

Speaker 1: 56:37

I love spoken word. I love that spontaneous flow of energy of the stream of consciousness. I was actually really into that in my writing a few years ago and then I'm not. I'm more into. Well, I guess that's not true. I'm more into the stream of consciousness part of painting now. So I just kinda like squirt yellow and squirt red and squirt blue and then just kinda play with it. That's how I came up with those 100,000 pages during COVID and I just let them happen. I never judged them, I never shed anything, I never showed them, and then I would just squirt paint on the thing, play with it and then write what that said, if it looked like a clown.

Speaker 1: 57:33

I might write a thing about me that's a clown. And then you saw them.

Speaker 2: 57:38

It was amazing. Yeah, I loved every one of them.

Speaker 1: 57:41

Now I'm carefully making them a book.

Speaker 2: 57:45

Yes.

Speaker 1: 57:46

They became a book, I thought you know. So that was an interesting thing. I also am manifesting right now something I'm probably not gonna share with you because I don't think it's a safe place to share to the universe. Yeah, because it's such an embryo, I actually intuitively think if I say that right now I might risk. It's not healthy enough to share with you the root time.

Speaker 2: 58:19

I respect that. Yeah, that's important for people to discern between, yeah, when to share and when not to.

Speaker 1: 58:26

But when I went to India it was very intentional. Yeah, I was like I'm gonna do 100 paintings in 100 days because I was so scared to get over there, fuck around and not work. And I was like I can do a painting a day. I'm going to India for 100 days.

Speaker 2: 58:44

Because it ended up we were going 100 days. I was like we're going 100 days.

Speaker 1: 58:47

I'll do one painting a day. We'll do 100 paintings. We'll call it 100 paintings ago. What a great title. And then, little did I know, doing 100 paintings in 100 days was a lot harder than I thought, but I had a great team and that was intentional. I put a lot of goals in order to get to be a be a.

Speaker 1: 59:12

I put a lot of goals in my process to get to a place where I can paint every day or create naturally. I don't know if I'm a gifted painter or if the gift was the juice that I have to really want to communicate through art, music and poetry. I don't know, because there is such a drive behind it that that isn't me. I was born with that, yeah.

Speaker 1: 59:48

I think it can be both, but I've got that great of an artist, like as far as like skill, like I'm not like this portrait artist that blends better than anyone. I'm just creative. I am creative, I, you know, I. They say a jack of all is better than a master of one, because the jack of all is they kind of mess that quote up you know.

Speaker 2: 1:00:15

You want to have a broader, broader way of seeing things. You know, like it's a holistic view and I don't know. I don't think it really matters, john, that you're the artist, that you, that you're saying that you aren't. I think that you're an amazing artist from my perspective and it's like you inspire me. So I think that's what art is here. You know, this is why we express ourselves in this way is to inspire each other, to find that within ourselves.

Speaker 1: 1:00:46

Yeah, I would tell you this and this is we're getting to this final thought and I want to. I just took a walk I mean the Dow talks about when you mentioned God. If he no longer becomes God, really all talking is ego. Yeah, we're really. You know, I don't want to say this in a self-deprecating way, but we really don't know shit about fuck and I laugh when I say it.

Speaker 1: 1:01:15

Yeah, I go back to this isn't an irresponsibility, I'm just sharing what. I will probably listen to this in two years and think, wow, that was really good, but that wasn't. I'll probably listen to it in five years ago. That kid is crazy, I might you know. Or 10 years later I might go oh, that little, look at that guy. You know how sweet. Because that's really how I'm always kind of changing my I don't want to say belief system because you know, but there are things that don't. I'm shifting a lot, you know, and what works for me today it won't work for me tomorrow, but overall I have been the same person my whole life in a lot of ways a seeker, you know, a creative and somebody who's in movement, you know, and loves, loves the earth, you know.

Speaker 2: 1:02:19

Yeah, I mean, it's that energy and motion. You know that you're bringing into it and we're all energy and motion. It's just whether we realize it or not. And so there's always a deeper circle of truth that you don't know. That's the unknown. But if you are willing to continue to step into the unknown in a way that is curious, then I think that's where the magic happens. You know, of course we're gonna be different, we're gonna continue to change, but that's just part of life, you know, because we are energy and motion.

Speaker 1: 1:02:52

I love that. I will tell you time T-I-M-E things I must endure. I like that. Another good one, Then that didn't come from me. Another one that I love is practice, not knowing.

Speaker 2: 1:03:13

Yeah, yeah, it's to open this in expansion to knowing what you do not know you know, or learning about it and getting curious about it. So I think that's what our childlike curiosity is all about. You know, we can always come back to that. So, john, before we close up today, will you please leave everybody with ways to find your work and to connect with you if, like, they wanna go see a show or they wanna hire you to do a show or a performance?

Speaker 1: 1:03:48

Yes, Shameless self-promotion has been a big part of my marketing plan. So not that I really have one, but I would be. Let's see. I would tell you that you could go to johnbukadycom. Johnbukatycom and message me. You can go to johnbukadycom and Instagram. Johnbukady, my personal page on Facebook and yeah that's it. Those are the best ways to be and to see my stuff and yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:04:27

And you have course, if people wanna buy your art as well. That's a great place to go, right, okay?

Speaker 1: 1:04:32

Buy my art so I don't have to go back and be a bartender.

Speaker 2: 1:04:38

You don't have to go back to the ponytail, right? Well, that's wonderful. Thanks so much, John. This has been a pleasure to talk to you today. It's so great to connect with you again and I'm looking forward to seeing you again in the future, sometime in Shirk or past or across again. But yeah, Get down in. Portland.

Speaker 1: 1:04:58

Yeah, I will. You never know, I might be out there.

Speaker 2: 1:05:01

Yeah, I mean my family in Atlanta. So I'm gonna go to the Shirk and I will be back in the future.

Speaker 1: 1:05:10

I have a family in. Atlanta so it's not too far from there, yeah, so yeah, I appreciate you so much. Thanks so much.

Speaker 2: 1:05:50

Don't you know? Ride that wave in the flow of your life, don't you know? Ride that wave in the flow of your life, don't you know? Creating a calm disposition sets the stage for you to receive what the world has to offer. When you're able to receive what the world has to offer, you automatically build trust that you will receive what you want in your life. Why is this important? Ride that wave in the flow of your life, don't you know? Ride that wave in the flow of your life, don't you know?

Speaker 2: 1:07:22

You could say, our ability to receive depends on what we learn from our parents, what we did or didn't get, and our level of trust that we'll be taking care of and in the universe's abundance. Many of us grew up in households that weren't perfectly nurturing, so our ability to receive was compromised. Receiving became something we needed to learn how to do on our own, and for some of us, we're still learning. We're still learning. We're still learning. If you're not allowing yourself to take in the goodness life has to offer by acknowledging your wins and receiving love from others, you will always be searching and searching and never feel like you're doing enough. Ride that wave in the flow of your life, don't you know? Ride that wave of your life, ride that wave, ride that wave.