Episode 001 of the Paint and Palette Podcast
Episode 002 of the Paint and Palette Podcast
Transcript for Episode 001 of the Paint and Palette Podcast hosted by Kasey Child. Interview with Joan Terese hayes
Kasey: You’re listening to the Paint and Palette Podcast my name is Kasey Child and on this episode we’re going to be talking to Joan Terese Hayes, a watercolorist, acrylic painter and art dealer. So you just got introduced to JW Turner?
Joan: I did it was incredible
Kasey: Yeah
Joan: Something I’d like to strive for.
Kasey: Have you heard of him before?
Joan: Not before you told me, last night
Kasey: What about Thomas Kinkade?
Joan: I’ve heard of Thomas Kinkade (Laughing)
Kasey: Would you interested in doing a Disney series, if I tried to call the Disney Corporation?
Joan: No I’m all set
Kasey: What about Pirates Of The Caribbean?
Joan: (Laughing) No I’m good
Kasey: Yeah
Joan: No faires in my painting
Kasey: What about light, do you use light in your paintings?
Joan: I do
Kasey: Would you consider yourself a painter of light?
Joan: (Laughing) again, no, no, I like to pay attention to the light source but no and I would never want to… use that term because of Thomas Kinkade because I’m so opposed to his philosophy on the self-righteous artist he thought he was.
Kasey: What do you mean by that, that he wouldn’t use the term ‘Painter Of Light’?
Joan: Painter Of Light Is just associated with his name… and it disgusts me as an artist. The integrity of that man was just in marketing, he was appearing as an artist he was just trying to make... as much money as he could… unfortunately short life.
Kasey: But what I’m learning from researching Kinkade and JW Turner is that Kinkade lived to the phrase ‘Painter Of Light’ and JW Turner who’s a 1700’s Impressionist, like the first Impressionist.
Joan: You read that somewhere or...?
Kasey: Well that’s what he was referred to as and then Thomas Kinkade trademarked the phrase ‘Painter Of Light’, so he and his company owns the sentence.
Joan: Did you actually read that he got it from Turner?
Kasey: That he… took the phrase, I didn’t read somewhere Kinkade took the phrase ‘Painter Of Life’ but Jay W. Turner was referred to as the ‘Painter Of Light’.
Joan: I don’t understand how you can take a phrase and own it though. It seems in the big world of words and phrases, how do you own the rights to a phrase?
Kasey: That’s…
Joan: ‘I love you’, how… I own ‘I Love You’, you know what I mean?
Kasey: Like Chick Fil A owns the term ‘Eat More’.
Joan: Right ‘Eat More Kale In Vermont’.
Kasey: Right so I think its…
Joan: A balloon
Kasey: Yeah people in businesses get to own words, we’re talking about trademarking finally is the opposite of Thomas Kinkade trademarks.
Joan: Exact opposite
Kasey: Yeah or Painter Of Darkness
Joan: (Laughing) How about not
Kasey: Painter Of Sadness
Joan: Thomas Kinkade Epitomizes all that we don’t want to be, you know he marketed like…
Kasey: He marketed what?
Joan: He marketed like crazy… but the more I hear about him… even after his death its just more and more disgusting, thinking he was like a prophet.
Kasey: A prophet with a PH and an FI.
Joan: Yeah
Kasey: Or a false prophet
Joan: A false prophet, well one can think of one’s self any way they want right but it doesn’t mean it’s a fact right.
Kasey: Right and I heard you say and I’ve read it several times that he was a marketing genius, which is true to a degree but I also think… if you’re running a scam, it’s easier to market your line like (Inaudible 4:13) wasn’t a smart guy but he was stealing, lying and cheating like, they were saying Thomas Kinkade’s works were originals and these editions are 28,000 with an open edition and you know even today after his own death, they’re coming up with the Thomas Kinkade Studios with works that were published after his death, original works of art. Is that a marketing genius or are you running a scam that’s still hooked?
Joan: I wasn’t… I was being a bit satirical in my ‘marketing genius’. He… you’re right knew how to make lots of money by lots of scamming. I’ve been in the business for over 30 years and I can’t tell you how many years I would talk to gallery owners that knew off or had been associated with someone who owned a gallery that was a Kinkade gallery that they had to go under because he had to undercut them by opening a gallery nearby or selling to the cruise lines… selling online under price from what he was expecting the galleries to pay or price and to me once you’ve sold to the cruise lines, its the bottom of the barrel for art because that to me is not proper source for selling your wares as an artist, that to me means its the beginning of the end… and ethically just a bad man in the art world and for one to have editions over in the thousands.
Kasey: Tens of thousands
Joan: So fantastic that the entire world made to see 10 - 15,000 of that 1 edition in multiple sizes, on cups, I mean… Kasey you and I have promoted the non- reproduction, we believe our artists do fantastic work
Kasey: They’re purists
Joan: They’re purists but they do not need to reproduce to be a viable artist, we can make enough money for them doing originals, they love to paint, they love to produce and not mass produce and that’s the beauty in what they do.
Kasey: And that’s also the challenge of what we look for in artists, that they have to be able to produce works that are individually compelling enough but they have to be prolific enough that they can produce on a large scale without reproducing, which is a hard plateau as an artist. I paint but how many paints have I finished in the last 5 years? Like very good ones but I’m not as good enough to keep it.
Joan: But I’m not opposed to artists and I’ve asked artists and say they do a portrait of a… or a still life with a vase with tulips in it and I just love that and I can sell that, they can do it again but it will never be the same, you can do a tulip 5000 times but if it’s original, it’s always going to have its original little touch to it and that’s okay to do but that doesn’t happen very often.
Kasey: Why can’t you go back to the same scene?
Joan: I can, I mean you have a beautiful sunset, you want to paint that sunset several different… you want to study it on many different levels, different mediums.
Kasey: what they did over and over the times of day, I think that’s a mistake artists make or misperception that you do something once and you can go back and explore that subject.
Joan: Some of the best works I’ve seen are studies, the looser ones, they’re not coming in real tight actually just observing and studying a piece… or a location they want to fine tune.
Kasey: I actually just used the company credit card I bought in a Disney series, Kinkade the decorator prints.
Joan: (Laughing) I bet you didn’t
Kasey: And what I find funny too and I’m changing the subject a fact of Kinkade is I was on their Facebook page and they’ve got the Kinkade studio artists doing these gallery exhibitions or gallery events… where other people are painting onto Kinkade’s work and I’m like what other case do you… at a museum or a gallery, here’s Joan’s exhibition with Kasey Painting on it.
Joan: Do you remember I told as a child I started taking art lessons from an instructor at 13 and her name was Mrs. Zimmerman and very good instructor but she always wanted to touch my paintings and she loved purple. So I would finish my painting and even as a young girl, I can tell you exactly where she touched my paintings, so she would come in and not only just say, you might want to add this or subtract that, she would take the palette knife and go to my paints and paint on my paintings.
Kasey: To finish it for you?
Joan: To help me make it right and I was too young to say don’t but it bothered the heck out of me and... when I got older and I did several years of instruction, students would say,” Go ahead and show me Joan”, and I would say, never, never will I touch your painting because it’s your painting and you’re never going to feel right if I go in and I’m a professional, so ofcourse I can go in and make it better but I’m not going to do that because to me that’s defacing someone’s art, so when you get someone like Kinkade… in the grave has people… touching his art but when he was living he had people touching his art, in mass production, that’s no longer Kinkade’s art.
Kasey: Is that oil painting with the purplest sky, was that painted around when you were with Mrs. Zimmerman?
Joan: Yeah, yeah
Kasey: Did she do the sky on that or just the purple?
Joan: She always wanted you to put purple in.
Kasey: That’s funny
Joan: I have… I can remember a… its daisies a vase with daisies and there’s purple in there, she may have touch the sunset ones.
Kasey: Was that from high school you think?
Joan: Yes that’s from high school
Kasey: High school
Joan: Highschool 79, 78 something like that… yeah but that left such an impression on me, I was beginning my independent thinking at a young age, where I wanted to speak but I was too afraid at that time… In the early 70s, you weren’t as a child suppose to say any thing to an adult like that. I remember cringing every time and it stuck with me because I think that’s so important, its my art, not your art, tell me about it, tell me what to do but don’t touch it. Just like writing a story, would you ever want someone to come in and rewrite part of it.
Kasey: I’ve had that before where like someone proofreads and changes it and I just
Joan: Yeah
Kasey: You know, change the D and the E that are spelled wrong
Joan: Or tell me what you’re thinking and then I’ll modify it.
Kasey: Yeah
Joan: These are my words, these are not my words and Betty Sue’s.
Kasey: And recalling off my skin of this happening. Alright we’ll wrap it up, Joan’s got to go to work.
Joan: Okay bye