This week I speak to Dorset based artist Mala Hassett.
Mala's website: https://www.malahassett.com/
Mala's instagram: https://www.instagram.com/malahassett/
My Website: https://www.williamjohnmackenzie.co.uk/
The Things That Drive Us
Episode 22 - Mala Hassett - The Things that Drive Us
Welcome to episode 22 of The Things That Drive Us, I'm William Mackenzie and this week has a certain amount of post-match analysis about it because this week I am talking to Dorset-based artist Marla Hasett. Now Marla is a landscape painter producing very colourful abstracted landscapes and she along with the other previous guests on this podcast have been part of the newly mentoring programme and we last week just had our Epoch show down at the Tremene Gallery in the Tremene Sculpture Gardens just outside Penzance. So if you did come along to the show thank you very much for coming, if you didn't I'm sorry you've missed it and we are talking about our feelings in relation to having come out of that show, the paintings that we like and our actions when people don't like our favourite paintings but like different paintings of our work, how damage to paintings can change the way in which the work evolves as well as Marla's inspiration for the very beautiful colour scheme she has in her paintings. So listen to the show and I hope you enjoy it. Now episode 22 of The Things That Drive Us with Marla Hasett. So we've kind of covered this a bit before we started recording but how are you feeling now the Epoch show is finished? Relieved, the first emotion is relief and then I'm excited because like you said I've got all these ideas and it's like I'm stopping myself from starting anything because I think I'm not very good at not doing anything or I think especially over the last three months I've been in the studios so intensely that it's just become a routine for me and I know if I start doing something I'll go right back into it and there is just so much housework that needs to do, you know, Ben's been great, he's just said to me you do what you need to do, don't worry about all this and the fans, your husband yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's not fair is it, you know, all that and yeah, yeah, yeah and I mean it's the odd tension isn't it between what extent you dive back into it and what extent you give yourself time to kind of work like all we learned and the experience and the exhibition and formulate something slightly new, exactly, yeah and also just recover right because I don't know about you because it's a very bizarre ending because the show suddenly stops and then you all take it down and then you go and then you go and some people sort of leave without you noticing because people have to head up quickly, some people you have a more prolonged goodbye and then you get home and you realise not only is it the end of the exhibition but it's the end of the course, the last, yeah, so there's sort of nine months long process is yeah, dot, yeah, it's very odd, isn't it? It is odd and I almost think it would be great if the exhibition was actually the penultimate weekend, so we still get together the last weekend and maybe we have a party or something, you know, some sort of celebration just amongst the proof because it's too much to do it around the exhibition. That's true, that's true but I mean and Jesse was talking a bit about this and he did say they've tried that before and it just doesn't work. Oh it doesn't, no, right, right, right, we can say have after the exhibition there's kind of no point to them, they don't achieve anything in terms of content for the course because you're all building up for the exhibition. That's right, yeah, but it was a good show for you what was, yeah, I was really, it was a good show, even without, you know, the feedback I've had from Mercedes Smith, where I am at my practice, it's the best work I've done till date, yeah, and you know, that really, that's a special place really, when you think, you know, I've done my best, yeah, next year hopefully it'll be different but for now, I don't, there's only one piece, the larger one that Jesse decided not to display, that's the only one I was going to continue working into. Okay, yeah. But all the others were resolved and I was happy with them, so, yeah, it was. No, I thought your work, look, it's interesting seeing people's work up on the wall and the work they bring, because I thought the work you bought and ended up on the show was very strong and much stronger than the stuff we'd seen over the course of the previous few months. Oh, that's interesting, right. Yeah, and I particularly liked, well, I told you at the time I particularly liked the one you'd done at Portland Bill was a, well, it's not black, isn't it, it's a very dark colours that look like. Oh, no, it's open. Yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, you've told me this before, but you're talking a very interesting way about where you got your coloured palette from. I mean, I always knew that my colour palette, I think everyone has a colour palette, and by what I mean is it's not just artists, you know, it's the colours you choose to wear or the colours you're attracted to, everyone has a set. And now I've always known mine was different, you know, I've been in the UK for 30 years now. Yeah. And invariably in any gathering, I'm always wearing a brighter colour or combinations that no one else wears. And having been through the Newland cause, and you know, it's made us think a lot about where we get our ideas, where we get our colours, where we get our compositions from. And I've realised that it is from Sari's, you know, my mum was quite unusual for her generation that she had a career. She worked in, she was a bank manager. And she had the most fantastic collection of Sari's. Yeah. Even now, I still dream of them, I still dream when I dream of home. It's not terrible, isn't it? It's not people I dream of. Yeah. It's clothes. Yeah. And the colours, yeah. Yeah, clothes and colours. It's, I dream of the clothes I used to wear, and I dream of my mum Sari's. Yeah. Quite a lot of them, she doesn't have any more, but she had a way of arranging them as well. They were colour-coordinated. Yeah. So she didn't have much time in the morning to decide, you know, ponder about what to wear. She knew when she opened the cupboard right up. It's green. So, you know, and they were all hung in their shades, and it was just ugly. I think that's where it's come from. Yes. So you have these very bright reds and golds and greens in your work as well. And I think your work is, I think the best way of describing it is an abstracted landscape and that it's not obvious it's a landscape you're looking at until you realise it is, and then it is obvious, if that makes sense. Yes. Yes. I think I was encouraged to make it more abstract than I was willing to. And I think that leap, that taking of that risk has been worth it because, you know, the horizon line used to be quite important for me because that sort of centers you. No. It's good because you've got very strong bright colours in these very interesting, not quite geometric state. Some of them are a little bit more organic than that, but there's definitely a strong geometric element. And then the colour combinations are not what you would call, not what you would expect in a classic Western tradition of painting, if that makes sense. Yes. I've always, I think in all the different forms of art, landscape has been what's always attracted me. But landscape gives me the most satisfaction. It was realising that I can do my landscape and still use the colours I want to use. It doesn't have to be, I mean, maybe England in November, but it doesn't have to be grey skies. Or if it's grey, it could be an interesting shade of grey. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And because where is it you're based then? Where do you live? Is it round bars somewhere? Not just, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because a lot of the paintings I've seen are sort of from the South Coast, from the Cornwall area and along there. Yes. So, is it sort of coastal landscapes that inspire you most? It's the, it's, I think what I really like is the line. You know, the sort of juncture where you either have sky, cityscape or coast. It's that line of demarcation that I find most interesting. And I think for me, it's almost like, when you're quite a sorry, the kind of sorry I'm attracted to, always have been, are ones which have, which are mainly one colour. Yes. And the border is quite intricate or it has a very intricate, there's a part of the sorry that you drake over your left shoulder, you know, the more the day to day type of wearing. And that part is called the Palau. And the Palau is the bit that's, that can't be quite dramatic. That's the bit that's got the most, most embroidery or weave or colours or whatever. And I've always liked ones that have quite intricate embroidery, but in, in a very confined space. Yes. So just around the edges rather than over the whole dimension. Yes, just around the edges. So I think when I compose my stuff, I sort of didn't realise I was doing it until Jesse pointed it out. Yes. So I push things to the edges and I think for me it's the pleasure of painting the, what can be viewed as a single colour, but it almost never is because it's zillion layers of many different colours. Okay. So if it's an orangey, orangey colour I'm looking for, I don't need to sit on the palette. I start off with, it could be magenta or yellow, and I just build layers of different types of magentas or reds, in different yellows. Okay. So although I'm looking for a colour, it's never a colour. Yes. It's, yeah. It gives you that sort of wonderful depth of the colour and a slightly more model feeling to it because it's not consistent the whole way across the field. Yeah. And is it acrylic or oil paint you use? Well, it's been acrylic. I've been working in acrylic for about five to seven years. Yeah. And through the Newland course, you know, Fay and Jesse and Kate, they've all said, you've got to use oils, Marla, you've got to use oils because of what you're doing and, you know, the background to it, oils will suit you much more. So I tried it, you know, all this fuss about oils, I tried it and I've already had, I'm not surprised people love oils because it's just, it's beautiful to work with. But you know, well, because you work in oils and it was quite a recognition, but I felt like I was being unfaithful by acrylics. Yeah. It's, it's, I went through a period where I almost couldn't make eye contact with the chef of acrylic because I felt like cheating on them. But towards the end, I thought, I know what, what I'll do is I'll underpaint with acrylic. Yeah. And then I'll paint with oils. Yeah. So that sort of made me happy on my media. Well, I do know exactly what you mean. When I'm painting, if I haven't used the color for a while, I do want, worry that it's feeling left out and they almost deliberately try and find a way of putting it in. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So same with my clothes. If I haven't worn something for a while, I worry vaguely that it's feeling left out. So wear it even if I don't particularly feel like it. Well, you know what I do? Well, there's a, well, what I do is especially where there are clothes that you put one in top of the other. When I wash anything, I put them right at the bottom of the pile. Yes. And because I almost invariably take the first T-shirt. Yes. So, you know, it automatically gets, you know, I distribute my love equally. Well, I do the same thing. And when I've told other people about this other than you, they look at me as though I'm completely insane with the sort of- Oh, no, no, no, you're not. I think we are on to something that no one else has realized. Yeah, no, it's interesting, isn't it, this sort of affection and projection we put onto the things we own and use. Exactly. And I think for me, I paint has given me so much, you know. It takes me to a special place where, well, you know, when I leave that place, I'm a lot calmer, I'm less anxious, I think good thoughts, you know? So forgetting the career part of being an artist, that itself is a huge reward for me. Yeah. Yeah. And how are you finding oil paints because they take so much longer to dry, presumably if you're using lots of layers. Yes. That's the annoying thing, but I know, but what I do, I haven't yet, well, I sort of have really the big one. So in most of my works, I have certain areas that are quite gloss, shiny areas, right next to very, very matte and flat areas. Yes. So I've ended up using a lot of turps and alkaes and so that dries quite quickly. And I am just going to have to live with, or maybe the bit that I want shiny, I use acrylic and use gloss medium, you know? Yeah. Well, I mean, you play around with these things and you find a thing that works for you. I mean, I've said this before, my solution to this problem is to have at least three or four paintings on the go at once. So while I'm waiting for one to dry, I can move on to another one. You can go on to the other, yeah. But to be honest, it takes two weeks. You know, if you add a bit of lense, that's it. It takes two weeks. Yeah. So even if you're working on three paintings, that's maybe three days by the time you come around to the first painting, it's still wet. That's true. But my painting is such that I can paint wet on wet because I don't paint in layers, at least not very often. Always me. Yeah. So what is wet of a wet, similar to acrylic? Well, I mean, I apply paint so thickly that I can have a still slightly wet, I mean, it depends on what I'm doing, but I can have a still slightly wet previous layer and add things over the top. And provided I'm not mixing the paint, so you can apply it in some ways that it doesn't mix. It just sits on top of the wet paint. Oh, I see. It might mix a little bit and that's okay because you can get them a little bit of a diffuse edge. But if you're wanting to... Right. And it depends on which colours. So... Oh, I see. Right. Yeah, because different colours dry and move in a different way. So interestingly, titanium white will sit on the top of a still quite wet black and not really mixed with it too much, whereas yellows and greens seem to... Of the brand I use seem to mix quite easily and you have to wait quite a long time before you can apply one on top of the other. The all the landscapes I've seen are of the UK. Have you ever done landscapes from abroad? Because you used to live in Switzerland, didn't you? I did. I have, but not after I returned here. Yeah. But I haven't done mountains and things. I've done lakes, so it's been water. Yeah. The water, I think, attracts me more than the mountains, more than the mountains are still there. But yeah, I have done lake and... But again, more abstract. Yes, it's interesting, isn't it? Because there are views that I love looking at, but I have no interest in painting. Because... Yes. But in that way, or I know they won't work with the style I use, so sort of pure landscape, I find very difficult to paint and I'm not that interested in painting. For me, it has to have a building or an object in it that I can focus on. And I guess you're probably the same with water and that kind of building sky, water land division as well. Yes. Yes. Learning with everyone I do that, at the moment, but where Horizon was very important to me, the Horizon line, it's not anymore. Okay. In fact, I think the Horizon line sort of gets in the way, because the black painting, everyone refers to it as the black painting. Yes. And the black painting is actually the view towards Portland from Abersbury. Yes. And the two triangles, the triangle on the right is actually a slice of the sea. And the triangle on the left is a little bit of the land. Okay. And the bottom left-hand area is the sand, is Chezz of Age. Oh, I see. Whereas the top is the sky. Yes. And, you know, I think it is stronger for not having that demarcation. Oh, definitely, because you can read it as not a landscape at all. You can read it as just an abstract color composition. Yeah. And then if you know the view and you know the landscape, you can superimpose that if you want. But even if you do know that, it's a sort of free enough composition that you can forget about if you like and just enjoy the scheme of the painting, I suppose, the color presentation and all that kind of textures and all those things. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And how did it feel to have Mercedes Smith's like her paintings and a great... Oh, my goodness. You know, when she gave us the talk and it was a really useful talk. And she said, "Oh, I know which one I'm going to walk out with." Yeah. I was absolutely convinced she was going to take one of Lizzie's orange paints. Me too. I just thought, because for me, that Lizzie's work, there were a couple of people whose work I thought were, they just bowled me over. And I was convinced it was going to be Lizzie's. Yeah. And having the chat and Jesse had this really worried... He was really quite hurried that day. And he had this really worried look and he said, "Mala, can I have a chat?" I thought, "Oh shit, what have I done?" Not done. You know, it's like being called into the principal's office and said Mercedes wants to have a quick word. I thought, "Hey, oh my goodness." And yeah, it was... you know what it's like when someone says, "Oh, I really love your word." I know. It's... Yeah. It's not feeling, isn't it, because it's gratifying and unexpected. Absolutely. And... But at the same time, you don't want to jump up and down and hug them. Yes. That's true. Indulmentally, that's exactly what you're doing. You want to act cool. Mm. But not too cool. Yes. Yeah. Yes. It's a difficult dilemma, isn't it? I know. But I always have this odd sensation because... so I sold the painting at the show. Yeah. And there's a moment where you go, "But that's not my favourite." So why did you buy that one or not? I know. My goodness. I was talking to Luciano about it. You know, certain paintings that are my favourite... Yeah. ...is to like. I know. You want other... Yeah. Yeah. And other ones that... One of my questions, you know, I didn't get to ask at this, but, you know, perhaps I will one day, is why did she like that one over all the others? I know. Because that's my favourite. I like it more than others, but my favourite one is the black one. Yeah. See? I'm calling it the black one now. Yeah. That's my favourite. It's interesting. It wouldn't have looked the way it did. It ended up looking. Had it not been damaged? Oh, I see. Interesting. Yeah. So I dropped all my stuff off on Sunday and I used protective corners, the cardboard things. Oh, yeah. Which didn't do... Which did a good job of not protecting them. And in fact, they took some of the paint away. Okay. But my paint and everything and I worked on it. And I think the last layer of paint absolutely sort of did something else to it. Right. Much better. Interesting. It just needed that extra coat of paint. It's interesting, isn't it? Yeah. It's been a theme we're talking to a number of people of how, I mean, particularly Lizzie, how reacting to damage to paintings improves the paintings itself. Oh, entirely. I will never ever throw a piece of work because I've spoiled it. Yes. Because the ones that have really gotten big, I mean, gotten good have got there because they've been through some trauma. And the ones that have been plain sailing, I've always felt like, you know, it's a child who's never had any trouble, never. Yes, it is. And then you're sort of waiting for something to go wrong for. I'm wondering how that child is going to go with some sort of disappointment. So yeah, it's interesting, all my paintings go through an ugly stage, but I really don't like them. But I have learned over the years that if I keep working through it, it comes out of that phase. That's true. I think experience teaches you to shorten that phase, whereas, you know, four or five years ago, I'd have just put the painting aside and mooped for a bit and, you know, done something else and thought, Oh, I'm terrible. I can't do. I can't. Why am I doing this? I've just learned to just get back in the studio or maybe start something else, but go back to it and it works. Yes, but I know exactly what you mean about that because that the white painting I had was the white with just the blue pot. I'd finished. That's my favorite painting of yours. Thank you. Yeah. I was very pleased with it. And it's interesting what you say. So what makes a painting favorite, one of your paintings favorite for you? What makes your painting become one of your favorites? I think to me, it possibly is the backstory to it. There's a painting I did for my first solo show and, you know, it's like, you know, if you have a child who is not very attractive, then you have another child who's very good looking and everyone goes and talks to the good looking child and, you know, it's like that child. Yes. But it's up on my wall, I love it, I was, I was, I'd done a daffodil and then I was abstracting out of the daffodil and this was the more abstracted version and I love it. It's quite a large painting, it's 150 by 120, something like that, really large, but it's bursting with color. Yeah. It just makes me smile and it was, it, that taught me about abstraction. It taught me about how far you can move from, from an abstraction and still leave the essence of it, which is what I think for me makes a good, a good abstraction. Yeah, I mean, I'll tell you what makes, I agree with that. I think that does make a good abstraction that there is an element of the original inspiration that is somehow very important to the piece you're looking at. Yeah. But I tell you what makes a painting favorite, one of my paintings favorite for me and that this is why the white painting was my favorite was that it turns out almost exactly how I conceived of it at the beginning. Right. Okay. So if I, it doesn't often happen with the way I paint, but every so often I have a very clear image of how I want a painting to look or like when it finishes and it even more rarely happens that the painting actually ends up looking like that. Interesting. And so when it does, they're the ones that I'm fondest of and most proud of, but they, with the exception of the white one, which went down very well, they are rarely then the painting that other people like. Other people like? Hmm. Yeah. It's, I think, you know, that's where taste comes in, isn't it? Yeah. I quite like the ones which have gone through where I suppose I've spent a lot of time with it. Yeah. I mean, sort of going back to the issue of damage. I mean, that slightly happened to the white one actually because I'd finished it and it was still sitting in the studio working on a red painting because I was a bit careless. It got some red paint spattered on it. Right. No. So I managed to remove some, but I ended up just working some of it into the white and then painting some white over it and knocking it back with the freckles come through, don't they? They do a bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it sort of had a sort of slightly purpley glow to various bits of it, which I think worked really well. Yes. But it isn't odd thing, isn't it, seeing your paintings up on the wall. And during the show, I went through sort of several phases of they originally go up and you look at them and you go, "Oh, these are great," and you're very proud of them. And then I went through a phase of looking at everyone else's work and going, "Oh, everyone's much better than me." Yes. And, but then you sort of go, and you kind of go backwards and forwards between those two sensations throughout the weekend, don't you? Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, you can't not feel that. I think it was a comment Ben made, my husband made it. He seen all the shows or group exhibitions of her show name and he said, you know, it's very obvious that the people at the show are at par with each other. Yes. There isn't one person who's a superstar. Yes. You know, everyone, it's a very high standard and you're all at a high standard, which I think is great because when I look around and think, "Oh my God, Lizzie's work is fabulous." Yeah. And Lizzie's, the wax paper hanging, just stunning, mine don't really, mine have colour, but that's it. Yeah. They don't really stack up. But then I think, well, maybe that's why they stack up because mine has colour. Yes. They not have the deep emotional content that Lizzie and Julie's work have, which is probably why I'm attracted to their work, mine, I think has less of that. It's more of a visual reaction. Well, that's very interesting you say that because I find your pieces quite emotionally charged. Oh, that's interesting, Will. Yeah. What emotion would you say? Joy, usually. Okay. They're very joyous paintings. I mean, you're quite, you would say, you are, I think, quite a bubbly, positive personality. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Except when it comes to my work, and you know where there are times when nothing's going right and I can be a miserable cow. And then, you know, "Oh my God, my work is terrible." You know, you just, it's quite easy, I find to slip into the dark side. It is. It is. And in a way, since I've started painting, I haven't really had that. That's very interesting. Except for this one time, the year before COVID, when I finished a group show and I just hit rock bottom. Yes. And I struggled for months to get out of it. And that's when I decided, right, you know, I saw this, I'm going to have a solo show. And I had to book the venue in advance, and then, of course, COVID it in a way worked for me because I just worked, you know, I had nothing else I could do, I just worked. But since then, since I've been aware of the up and down of the process, as long as I keep doing something, I don't get the downs, not as much. Yes. So even though the last few days after the exhibition, I haven't supposedly painted. I have, well, I've had this idea for ages. We needed to buy some dinner plates because we have this ramshackle collection of ones left over from years and years. So we thought, finally, we'll get rid of all of them, get dinner plates. I bought a bunch of white dinner plates. Yes. And I've drawn on them. Oh, nice. I love it because I'm not great at drawing, but this sort of fun vegetable drawing is, you know, I've really enjoyed it and they've made me smile. So even though I'm not painting canvases, yeah, I'm still dipping into that, that place which keeps me away from the dark side. That's very interesting. If you ever watched Grayson's very Paris art club, you know what, I keep meaning to do that. And maybe now that I'm taking a break, I will, because his tend to be quite inspirational it is and there's an episode where he and his wife decorate plates that they own. What you said reminded me of that. Right. I will. Is it on YouTube or something? I don't, it used to be on BBC iPlayer. I've not checked. I probably have a look for it there. But also I was watching earlier this week the sewing bee. I don't know if you ever watch it. Oh, I love the sewing bee. There's an episode which is India Week and they play with old stories and that makes me think of you. Oh, I must have a look at that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you'd love it. I'll have a look at that. But I found myself going because a number of them went for colourful choices, but a number of them managed to find sort of quite conservative. Yes. Sorry. What do you mean when you say conservative? Well, sort of light, blue, not strong. I suppose. I suppose not. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Because I think not everyone in India wears the kind of bright combinations I'm attracted to. Yeah. In fact, my sister-in-law has a beautiful collection of very pastel coloured stories. Yeah. Soaks, embroidered, they are, and she really likes pastel colours. I never have, but maybe as I'm, you know, getting older, I, I, I will, I don't know. It's pastel colours seem to be more popular in, you know, different parts of India have. So in the south, for example, which is where I come from, your, your traditional stories are quite bright coloured. Yeah. If you go to a wedding, you won't find pastel coloured stories or if you do, you'll have a bright border. Yeah. Okay. I see. A really high contrast border. There's, there was this article I couldn't get access to it. I just saw the title where it says, have Indians gone over to the pale side and was talking about how Indian weddings, because they, they are so choreographed now, that they are moving away from the red, bright reds into the beige's and the light pinks and the hand. I just think, yeah, I mean, whatever makes you happy, but you won't get me into one of those. Well, I think I must have been, I could feel, because I was thinking of you as I was watching it, I think I was also, I didn't analyse your colour scheme. So I was, I was, I would have racked it much more positively to the people who chose the stronger colours. Oh, that's interesting, isn't it? Yeah. So there was one particular woman who stows this very striking orange starry and that really reminded me of a number of your painting. Ah. Yeah. That's nice. It is, it's really, it, see, happy is quite a cliche word and at the moment I can't think of... Well, I think happy is a bright word, actually. It is, but I think it's more than that. When someone looks at my painting and says, that colour is fantastic, it really makes me cheerful. Oh. I just think, you know, you said the paintings that make you happy are the ones that come out the way you imagine them. Yeah. That's what I imagine my painting to do. Yeah. What I would like to do, one day is a six-yard painting, six-yard is five and a half metres, which is the size of a sort of standard, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would like to do a painting so long, that when you're standing a couple of feet from it, it is still the periphery of your eye. Yeah, yeah. So you are just flooded with colour. I mean, I think that would be spectacular. I would love to do that because I think, you know, colour does, can raise your mental state or it can lower it. You know, rockers' colours, rockers' paintings towards the end of his life, before he eed down to suicide, they were very dark. Well, I mean, it's interesting because I went to see the Roscoe murals that are in tapes and types. Yeah. And I'd seen them before quite a few years ago when they were in the Tate Modern. And I enjoyed them then, but this time I found them deeply unsettling. Quite oppressive. Do you think, did you see them after the exhibition? No beforehand. Oh, right. Okay. You did? Okay. Yeah, gone. I was wondering whether, because quite often when you see a painting, the way the impression it leaves in you depends on your state of mind when you're watching, when you're seeing the painting. Well, that's what I was wondering as well, I was wondering, perhaps I've shifted rather than the painting shifted, or perhaps it's been lit slightly differently here than it was in the Tate Modern. Yeah. Because it was in a smaller, slightly more oppressive feeling room than it had been the previous one. Okay. Yeah. I've, I struggle, you know, my earlier paintings, a few people have said, oh, it's like Rocco. Yeah, I think my God, it's really not like Rocco at all. I struggle with his paintings, they, they, they don't take me to a happy place. Yeah. Yeah. And then I found out how he died and I thought, you know, it doesn't surprise me. Yeah. Yeah. You know, he's been telling everybody how miserable he's been feeling through his work. I think, I think there's a great deal of truth to that. I think, and you can pick up on that element. But then I also, I always wonder to what extent, because I mean, this is something that's, or I found very interesting from the course, which is, you come along and people say things about your work, you know, the interpretations they have in terms of their emotional response to what they think it's about. And you go, Oh, I'm not sure that's what I intended at all. I wonder, I wonder if that's them or me that's putting that in to the work. Yes. How did you deal with that? I went away and I thought about it. And I came to a conclusion, it was a combination of the two that some of it was definitely things I'd put into the work that I hadn't really realized. And then some of it was stuff that other people were putting onto the work because of, well, you know, whatever it was, where they came from, or they haven't had their coffee. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think sometimes it can be as mundane as that, you know, yeah, it's a sort of very interesting dynamic, isn't it? But definitely your work has a joyous demeanor. And of course, once you know you or meet you, that's more, I think you're more likely to read it in that way, to be honest. Thank you, Will. Thank you. You wouldn't have said that if you'd met me, when was it eight years of, well, yeah, that's very true. Well, you know, we all change in fundamentally different ways. Eight nine years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I was, you know, caught in my dark side that time. And yeah, it's painting that brought me back. Because that was Marla Hasett in episode 22 of The Things That Drive Us. By the way, the Mercedes Smith we talk about is a expert in fine art communications and gave us a very interesting talk about promoting our art and getting it from front of audiences and so on. I put a link to her website and Instagram along with a link to Marla's website and Instagram. I highly recommend you have a look at Marla's work. It is very beautiful stuff. But I'll also put a link to my website and Instagram and the Newland School of Art website. So check this out and please do subscribe to the show, like and review it. It really helps. And thank you very much for listening to episode 22 of The Things That Drive Us.