Mythic U

Idolism: Artists, Art & Morality

• Karen Foglesong and Erin Branham • Season 3 • Episode 7

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 53:35

We'd love to hear from you. Click here to send us a text.

Join us as we explore the ethical dilemma of enjoying art created by people who have done bad things. We discuss the tension we experienced after we had recorded an episode on The Sandman by Neil Gaiman and then discovering serious allegations about Gaiman from several women. The conversation delves into the concept of the "great artist," the impact of social media on artist-audience relationships, and the complexity of separating art from the artist. We reference Claire Dederer's book "Monsters" (highly recommended for those interested in this topic) and the concept of ethical consumption, acknowledging the humanity of artists, and the need for grace in navigating these moral quandaries.


SHOW NOTES

Neil Gaiman's wikipedia page outlines his extensive artistic work as well as the allegations against him, and the legal proceedings that have occurred in relation to them to this date.

Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer


We want to hear from you! Please rate and review us wherever you find this podcast. Join our Patreon: patreon.com/yourmythicu

Erin Branham:

Welcome to Mythic U. Just a quick content warning- on this episode there will be discussion of sexual assault.

Karen Foglesong:

Hi everybody. Welcome back to Mythic U. I'm Karen Foglesong

Erin Branham:

and I'm Erin Branham. This episode today, we are actually doing to explain another episode. A little while ago, back in 2023 because we record relatively far ahead, we recorded an episode on the work The Sandman, which was originally a graphic novel and then became a Netflix series. In between the time that we recorded that episode and now a number of allegations came out about the author, Neil Gaiman, of whom both of us were big fans. And the allegations are not good. They are not necessarily criminal, but they are of the using your power in the wrong way to gain sexual access to vulnerable people, disgusting misuse of power kind of stuff, right? And we realized it left us with a dilemma. We had this episode on a work of art that we feel very strongly about, and now we have the author of that work who has turned out to be a morally reprehensible person. And so we were like, What are we going to do with the episode that we had. What are we going to do with that work of art now? Yeah, and so here we are.

Karen Foglesong:

How do we feel about that work of art?

Erin Branham:

Exactly. So we and this, of course, is a dilemma that many people have been dealing with over the last several years - Harry Potter and JK Rowling and her political action and the way that has alienated many of her fans when they're struggling with the place of that work of art in their lives now. Roman Polanski, wouldn't Woody Allen those films, what do we do with those films? Joss Whedon and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Long, you know, held up as an incredibly influential series. You can kind of keep going and keep going. I don't know if you even know Karen about Marion Zimmer Bradley, because I think we both loved Mists of Avalon back in the day.

Karen Foglesong:

Yes, no, what are you going to do to me about Bradley? What'd she do?

Erin Branham:

Okay, I don't want to tell you right now.

Karen Foglesong:

Okay. Okay.

Erin Branham:

And to be clear, in this episode, we are not going to discuss the allegations of anybody, including Neil Gaiman. They are well documented in the media. We will link to some of the coverage of Neil Gaiman, just because that is the main subject of what we're talking about. But the kind of bigger issue is, what do we do with great art? Because I think we both feel that The Sandman is still, no matter what, a great work of art.

Karen Foglesong:

it is a great mythic work of art. Yes, it is.

Erin Branham:

A great mythic work of art. Thus why we were covering it on the podcast. And then what are we to do with great works of art by terrible people, or people who have done terrible things? I don't want to- you shouldn't be judged by the very worst thing you ever did, but by people who did terrible things.

Karen Foglesong:

Okay, yeah,

Erin Branham:

And so that's what we're going to talk about today.

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah. How do you separate the story? Or can you separate the story from the person who's telling the story. Is it possible? What does it mean to be the teller of the story? Do you have a responsibility? And I think you found information about what does it mean to be an ethical consumer, right?

Erin Branham:

One of the things I did to research this was I

read the book Monsters:

A Fan's Dilemma, and it is about this exact question. And it is the author is Claire Dederer, and she herself is a writer. That's why she wrote a book. And she starts off with Roman Polanski and the films of those of which she is tremendously in love with the films and sort of, how do you cope with that? Polanski did do something illegal. You know, had sex with a drugged 13 year old girl. Yeah, did have bad things, and she was struggling with what to do with those works of art. And one of the things that she brought up was this question of, I want to be an ethical consumer.

Karen Foglesong:

Right?

Erin Branham:

And I also want to be immersed in the world of art, where these, where there are just multiple, multiple, multiple great works of art that we are aware of the fact that the artists did some terrible things. So how do you balance being an ethical consumer with being involved with the world of art and culture, which is people creating stuff, and people are not going to be pure.

Karen Foglesong:

No, yeah, it's very true. There's no easy answer here. Okay, let me just say that there's no easy answer. But one way I try to handle this is that when you're creating a mythic or a fantastic work of art, often it is not only you. You are more like the channel or the vehicle that is allowing - you're practicing a form of storytelling, like writing or painting or playing the piano or cooking a meal that the story that is trying to come through finds a channel through and can and move through and become, and be born into this universe, and other people can touch it and be moved by it, or not moved by it. And, you know, it becomes a thing, but it there's an idea in the creative world that this is only a channel that that the creation wants to become, in and of itself, and so is looking for a way through, to become and that doesn't mean that the channel is pristine.

Erin Branham:

Very true. And actually, Dederer in Monsters, talks about which has a whole chapter dedicated to the great artist, the concept of the great artist. And for the example, she uses Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway, and the concept that is certainly attached to those artists, that, yes, the artist is a channel. And if the artist, if the great artist, were to suppress himself and not allow all the impulses to come through him, then he would cut himself off from the channel that is what allows him to make the great art.

Karen Foglesong:

Interesting.

Erin Branham:

And I think it's very true I was when she was talking about I was like, yeah, yeah, I've certainly read things particularly about those two artists that implied that. And I have certainly read it about other artists, that the sense of, you know, the artist has to be in touch with all the wild impulses, all the parts of humanity, and has to keep that energy flowing through them. Otherwise they would not be able to make the great art. And I do think it's one of the things that had sort of excused the behavior of a lot of these great artists and Dederer, in the book is very dedicated to the concept. In fact, the whole second half of the book gets very into kind of gender things that that concept of the great artist is a man. That there is no -

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah.

Erin Branham:

That there is no version of that that is a woman. And as you said, she takes two or three chapters to discuss that and that, how a woman is automatically because of the role and the definitions of women as caring, nurturing, mothering, being truly mothers, like actually having children that that just women don't have that kind of freedom. They just don't have that kind of freedom to let all the impulses run through them. And if they do, there's a whole chapter she has on abandoned mothers and writers and poets who were women who said things like, you know, in their therapy or in their diary, said things, my writing is as important as my children.

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah.

Erin Branham:

And how difficult that was for them to say. She, as a writer, is saying, I said that out loud and immediately felt sick to my stomach.

Karen Foglesong:

Right. Yeah.

Erin Branham:

And so it's a very it was really interesting. I hadn't, kind of, I mean, I've thought a little bit about the gendered aspects of it, but not entirely, just because so frequently the terrible things that the artists do when we say these artists have done terrible things when it's men, it's almost always sexual.

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah, yeah.

Erin Branham:

Right. It's almost always that they misused their power or took advantage, or committed sexual assault, or, you know, did something that had to do with them having an orgasm.

Karen Foglesong:

Yes, it's more about, I think, I believe that it's more about power, not about pleasure, so to speak.

Erin Branham:

Oh, sure, sexual assault, always.

Karen Foglesong:

But dominance, dominance.

Erin Branham:

Sexual assault, is always more about the power than anything else. However, it almost seems to get pretty universally expressed, yeah, in this sexual manner by men.

Karen Foglesong:

It is often masculine.

Erin Branham:

Whereas the crimes of women, right? JK Rowling's not doing any like that's not the problem people have with her. It's not that she sexually assaulted anybody.

Karen Foglesong:

No.

Erin Branham:

Her issue is political, using her political power in ways that were not Alice Monroe and Marion Zimmer Bradley, who I mentioned before, both allowed the men in their lives to sexually abuse their children.

Karen Foglesong:

Oh, oh, my God. And this is proven? We know this?

Erin Branham:

Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. Very much.

Karen Foglesong:

See, and that's just so antithetical to like, I I mean, like, the stuff that I have read from Marion Zimmer Bradley is all about the power inherent in the feminine archetype, like I can't even believe that.

Erin Branham:

Yeah, I really struggled with it.

Karen Foglesong:

How does it get so twisted?

Erin Branham:

I really struggled with it when I first heard it, because it was same thing. And I think that's exactly the thing that we struggled with, with Neil Gaiman, who we really appreciated the female characters, they frequently had characters that had

Karen Foglesong:

elevated!

Erin Branham:

We felt real power, or that we identified as having real power. And you know, beloved female characters who said all the right things during metoo on social media, said all the things I believe the women while he was himself taking advantage of or exploiting various women, right? Which is, yeah, which is creepy, like this gets into like, how do you reconcile the morals of the work of art versus the morals of the artist? And that's where I frequently, when I have these conversations I work in the arts, and so,

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah.

Erin Branham:

People talk about this all the time.

Karen Foglesong:

Right?

Erin Branham:

It's just that. It's just saying you cannot, you know, it's the thing of, don't confuse the art with the artist. A completely horrific person, can make a beautiful work of art.

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah, it's true.

Erin Branham:

They just can. This is, this is a human paradox. That's just true.

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah.

Erin Branham:

And we have this kind of sense that somehow, I think it's also that we have this sense that when an artist makes a work of art, they are exposing themselves.

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah.

Erin Branham:

Right, they are. An artist will tell you that I put so much of myself or this or that or the other thing as being the channel and coming through them. We think that it is them. That it is their inner world. But it's not, it's

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah. your imagination. I'm a writer. I have written some things that are, are like terrible, because I like thriller stuff, so I've written some like, terrible, terrible people, things I would never in real life actually do. Right.

Erin Branham:

So why would we think that when somebody writes something beautiful or morally right, that that means that that's what they would actually do?

Karen Foglesong:

I don't know, but I've experienced it too, like I played bad characters or evil characters in productions, and that then you're seen outside of that production and you're yourself is associated with the negative aspects that the person witnessed in the production.

Erin Branham:

Do you know that Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 Wizard of Oz, she once appeared on Sesame Street specifically to try to make the point of, I am an actress. I am not the Wicked Witch of the West. And it was so upsetting to so many children that Sesame Street had to apologize, had to publicly apologize.

Karen Foglesong:

That they had the Wicked Witch of the West on their show?

Erin Branham:

That they had the Wicked Witch of the West on their show. So just as what you're saying, she was so identified with that character that people began to believe that the artist who brought that character to life was that thing.

Karen Foglesong:

That thing. Yeah, so I think we're talking about multiple types of psychosis here, or maybe not psychosis, but constellation, to use the word from Jungian. So you have the artists themselves experiencing being like, like the Wicked Witch of the West, being pigeon holed as this, this character, not the person at all, like she can't be anything else ever again, because we've said, No, you are this. And so that's the detriment. But the other side of that is if you're the superhero, like we never saw Christopher Reeves as anything but Superman from the time, you know, like headline, Superman fell off of his horse, Superman paralyzed, you know, like it wasn't Christopher Reeves.

Erin Branham:

Yeah, it is a weird thing that we do and that we have to be aware of. An interesting point about the book Monsters was that very shortly as she was getting into the topic, she said, I think this is an autobiography of the audience, that this isn't really about the artists at all. It is about the audience and what happens within the audience.

Karen Foglesong:

Yep, and, and, I mean, we've talked about before, like, whatever your story is, when you look at a work of art, that's how you're going to interpret. It is through your story

Erin Branham:

that's, yeah, that's just what I was thinking. This gets so into what we talk about on this podcast, which is how the stories, how much, what the stories are that you have, what the stories are that you tell yourself, the stories that you believe. And so we're not talking about just stories that you tell or that you encounter, talking about the stories that you believe, because we all do.

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah, they're the core.

Erin Branham:

We all do, we believe things so strongly that we think Margaret Hamilton is the Wicked Witch of the West, because that's It's the belief aspect that is coming into play there, and that's why we're like if you don't understand what you truly believe, what the stories are that are telling you what reality is, you don't really know anything.

Karen Foglesong:

Right? And this, you don't, it's such an Yeah,

Erin Branham:

Just this subject matter, talking about the confusion between art and artist, and how do we feel, and what is moral art, or moral artistry or moral it is. It's right in the deep part of what we talk about, which is why we were when we were struggling with, what do we do with this episode on the Sandman? Because we do want to publish it, and we intend to publish it. Yeah, we're going to put this one out, first that we're we're talking about this, and then put that one out, because it really does discuss the work of art, which I think is still valid to discuss the work of art.

Karen Foglesong:

Yes, I think so too. It's beautiful. I am still, I can't let go of my love of Death and and Delirium and Desire and

Erin Branham:

Which are characters in The Sandman.

Karen Foglesong:

Yes, sorry.

Erin Branham:

it's okay. It's just that, like, I can't get rid of that in in Monsters, Dederer talks about that when you learn this information about an artist, because at first, you just encounter the work of art, you don't necessarily know anything about the artist. I certainly when I first -

Karen Foglesong:

Anything about the artist, yeah.

Erin Branham:

When I first encountered the Sandman, which was literally as it came out in individual issues in the 90s, in a comic book store.

Karen Foglesong:

Right?

Erin Branham:

I had never heard of Neil Gaiman, that was absolutely my introduction to his work. And to be honest, I've read a bunch of his other work, and nothing has been at the level of Sandman.

Karen Foglesong:

Right? I agree. I absolutely, yeah, yes.

Erin Branham:

I have read some of his other books. I have enjoyed some of his stories and things like that, but just nothing has touched Sandman. And so it's like, but then once you learn about this, you have this work of art, and it's living inside of you. And then you learn this thing about the artist, and it's she uses the metaphor of a stain.

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah.

Erin Branham:

That it kind of comes across and stains your knowledge of the work of art. And then you have to decide, is the stain so much that I have to throw it out, or can I live with it with the stain, and can I still see the beauty of it, even with the stain.

Karen Foglesong:

Right?

Erin Branham:

Even in spite of all that I know and and in the end, I know that I frequently come to the point of, yes, I can live with the stain. Like you said, I've worked in the arts for many, many years, for my entire career. And you learn enough about any artist, you're going to find something that makes you go eww!

Karen Foglesong:

Well, I mean, if you thinking about this in terms of our podcast, and I hate to be just divisive, but the truth of the matter is, how do you learn about the witch trials and still be a Christian, you know? Like humans have the ability to disassociate the author and the message. Well, that's a good you know, we do it all the time.

Erin Branham:

Yeah, that's a good point is that that's and that's what I mean not when I said you learn enough about any artist, you're gonna find something that makes you go ugh, yeah. What I really mean is, you learn enough about any person, and you're going to find something that makes you go ugh, because humans are not pure, right? We are not purely good creatures. We do terrible things. I am still, you know, I have so many regrets at this point in my life, of times when I did something stupid, morally wrong, cruel, even sometimes thoughtlessly cruel, but still like there are just you know yourself.

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah.

Erin Branham:

That there are things that have not stood up, and that if other people were to hear them about you,

Karen Foglesong:

You would be - I would be embarrassed.

Erin Branham:

They would have all the reason, yeah, yeah. And they would have all the reason and the right to cancel you and to go, oh, well, you're not pure enough. And I worry about this desire for purity.

Karen Foglesong:

Yes.

Erin Branham:

That we have and -

Karen Foglesong:

It touches on the utopian.

Erin Branham:

Exactly, which is just whenever you get we, as we've said many times, our our personal belief systems have to do with few. Identify too much with all that is pure and good and right. You don't actually get rid of any of the evil, gross, you know, bad parts of yourself, they just get pushed down out of your consciousness.

Karen Foglesong:

Right.

Erin Branham:

And then they erupt in ways that you have no control over. And that's not good, like -

Karen Foglesong:

We have become monsters.

Erin Branham:

Right. We have to. And most of the time when that happens, people push that out onto the world, and then the next thing they want to do is go kill somebody else.

Karen Foglesong:

Yes.

Erin Branham:

Because they've pushed that monstrous part of -

Karen Foglesong:

That guy over there's the monster.

Erin Branham:

Not inside of me, because I am pure and good and right. And that's to us that is a very dangerous way of thinking about things. And I think it's very true that when we look at art and we say, I expect all of my artists to be good and true and right and pure that you're getting into that area. You're getting into the area of, yeah, this is good. Now we have to say at this point, though, a lot of people at this say, but are you going to financially support an artist who you find morally reprehensible, meaning are you going to buy their next book? Are you going to, if you're, you know, if you're having in the Harry Potter fandom and you're struggling with JK Rowling, are you going to buy that video game?

Karen Foglesong:

Right.

Erin Branham:

Because you know that money is going to go to that person. I have to say, this is not a huge sacrifice for me. As I said, my favorite work by Gaiman is the Sandman, which is one of his earliest works. I quit reading his books a long time ago because I got I read a couple of them, and they just weren't my thing, yeah. And I sort of kind of fell off my radar, yeah. And so, no, am I not going to? Did I watch Sandman Season Two? Yes, I did.

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah.

Erin Branham:

Yes I did.

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah.

Erin Branham:

Because I've been waiting 25 years for a decent adaptation of Sandman. And you know what the Netflix adaptation of Sandman is really, really good.

Karen Foglesong:

They did a lot of really nice things that they-

Erin Branham:

Really good. Yeah.,

Karen Foglesong:

And there are a lot of people that worked on that that had nothing to do with Neil Gaiman.

Erin Branham:

Exactly. And so am I gonna go? I really think about that in terms of films and things like this. It's really easy to go to the author and this. And yes, are they going to get some money from that? Yeah, of course he's getting paid for that. Of course he's getting paid for that. And again, it's like, it's that, I can I be a perfectly ethical consumer? No, I can't. We had a whole TV show that was about the fact that that's just impossible.

Karen Foglesong:

It's great.

Erin Branham:

If you never saw The Good Place watch it.

Karen Foglesong:

It's great.

Erin Branham:

And it's, how do you have a - Dederer in Monsters, she talks about, she's like, I wish I had a calculator, where on one end, you know, like a graph, where on one axis I could put the greatness of the work of art, and on the other axis I could put the moral reprehensibility of the crime. And there would be a formula that would be like, here's the limit. If the work of art is only this great and the crime is this bad, then you shouldn't have anything to do with it.

Karen Foglesong:

Yes, oh, that would be great. I think the first time I really came up against this was Neil Donald Walsh and the Conversations with God and his act. As far as I know, nothing criminal, but I met a man who knew him personally, and I had read like the first book. Was like, Oh, wow. This guy is so connected. This is like, I don't know about you, but I have this resonance inside of me when I read something that lines up for me. And I was like, Oh, this was great. It was toning everything. And then the second one, I was like, meh. The third one, I was like, Oh, well, maybe I don't know what's going on here, but, and I stopped reading, you know, then I met this man that knew Walsh, and he told me that somewhere around the second book or so, God told him that he could leave his wife and hook up with this younger girl. I was like, sounds like what I it took me a long time to come to this, but what I decided was that the first book Walsh was in an open state. He was in a state of need. He his life needed to change. He was calling out to the universe for guidance, and he became an open channel, and the universe responded and gave him real truths that he then recorded. And then slowly, ego seeps into that and takes over, and it's just ego. Now he's preaching from ego, from this Lordship and, and then it's easy for God or the inner voice or ego to say, Yeah, you should leave your wife and, and it's cool that she supported you all these years. Just, just go hook up with the younger chick. That's okay.

Erin Branham:

It's a good point.

Karen Foglesong:

Not only is it okay, but you should.

Erin Branham:

Yeah, I have to say that, because that was part of my issue around, was around Neil Gaiman, was I sort of wrote him off when he left his wife and kids for Amanda Palmer.

Karen Foglesong:

Right? Yeah.

Erin Branham:

It was like, Oh, I'm gonna go have an open, real, open marriage with the hot, young punk rocker.

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah.

Erin Branham:

And I was like, oh, Neil man, really? Because then that was sort of -

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah, it was sort of a letdown. Because, you know, you know, that woman has supported him while he was a struggling artist, you know, and now she's not Oh glamorous enough with the kiddos hanging off of her and whatnot. You know?

Erin Branham:

Maybe I don't know. I just know that when I heard that, that I was a little bit like, oh, you know, every time I hear one of these guys leaves their wife for some younger woman, I'm like, midlife crisis is terrible, isn't it, man?

Karen Foglesong:

Everybody, we're gonna take a quick break.

Erin Branham:

We want to hear from you. Please visit our website at mythic you.buzzsprout.com that is m, y, t, h, i, c, u.buzzsprout.com,

Karen Foglesong:

Welcome back, everyone.

Erin Branham:

But the point is, I mean, we taught we really have struggled around this with a lot of these works of art. We. Talking about recently that we want to do an episode on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which we both really, really love, and that we think is a great, again, a great piece of mythic work, a really interesting thing. And the creator of that basically doesn't work anymore because he apparently was so abusive on sets in terms of just making a really hostile workplace, which, again, it's like, where are the How are you judging these crimes?

Karen Foglesong:

Right?

Erin Branham:

How are you going at what level this is just what Dederer was talking about with the like, is there a calculator? Is it, you know, anytime you hear there's anything, and the issue of the amount of knowledge that we have about these artists these days, that we have so much access to information about them., And there is such a requirement these days for artists to interact online with their fans and to expose themselves. This was one of the big issues around Neil Gaiman, was that he was very he had quite a following on social media. I followed his account on Twitter when I was on Twitter, and there was this sense, he had had a blog for a number of years that a lot of people read and interacted with him. That was the other thing. You could literally interact with him. There's a few authors that on social media who I, you know, have had moments of talking to them, and you get your little dopamine thrill out of that, and oh, this artist who I really admire, just the great person just spoke to me.

Karen Foglesong:

Right.

Erin Branham:

Kind of sense of things, yeah. And you get this sense that you know them, which is the parasocial relationships. You start to believe that I actually have a relationship where I know this person in a way greater than you know I know somebody else's who book I just read, but who I don't follow their social media, or I haven't interacted with them on a blog or whatever.

Karen Foglesong:

Right - familiarity. Yeah.

Erin Branham:

Yeah, well, in this sense that they are being authentic, yeah, right, that you're getting the authentic person there. And, I mean, I have had some just from running social media accounts for this podcast and things like that, what you put out on social media is pretty calculated.

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah, yeah.

Erin Branham:

If you you know if, if you are selling something like your art, you think about it for sure. What's my persona? Who am I on this space? Because I'm sure even everyday folks know you're not exactly yourself on social media for the most part. You're not - so I used to joke about this when

Karen Foglesong:

Right. people were saying about, you know, Facebook envy 20 years ago, when that was all going on and they're like, and I was like, Well, nobody's gonna put on Facebook the moment when they had Cheerios in their hair and their kid was throwing a fit, like you only put the smiling moment when everything was going awesome and you look like, a great mom., Right?

Erin Branham:

Like, that's what you put on.

Karen Foglesong:

I love my kid, right? (laughter) Yeah.

Erin Branham:

Yeah, you're not seeing the moment that you lost it and screamed at them. Like, that's not going on there. Nobody is showing you their whole self on social media, right? And so yeah. So I think sometimes this kind of sense of betrayal, again, as as Dederer was talking about, isn't this mostly about the audience and the assumptions that we're making or the things that we are wanting? Right? We are wanting

Karen Foglesong:

Right.

Erin Branham:

With the artist whose work we admire, this sense that sense of intimacy with the great person. that somehow we really - artists, we really decide are special people. I, since I work in Art Education, I have to walk around and debunk constantly people from believing that they are not an artist.

Karen Foglesong:

Yes, yeah. I see that too.

Erin Branham:

Right to constantly say, Yeah, to constantly, because people will do this thing where they're put up their hands in front of and kind of wave their hands in front of their chest and go, I'm not creative, right? And I point that out to them all the time. I'm like, You're making this little wall. That wall is not real.

Karen Foglesong:

Oh, that's good. I haven't heard of that one before. I have to try that, yeah, yeah.

Erin Branham:

You're making this little wall because you should say you are creative. We're all creative. We're all artists. We all have the ability to do this. Most of these people who have done it, who are good at it, is because they do it a lot.

Karen Foglesong:

Yep, it's practice.

Erin Branham:

Practice. Yep, just like, just like anything else.

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah, it's practice. Where? Where do you focus your attention? If you focus your attention on finding a penny on a spreadsheet, then you're that's where your artistry lies. But humans are organically creative, even if you're an accountant and you feel like you don't have a creative bone in your body. There is a certain way you like your clothes, there is a certain way you like your food arranged on your plate. There's a certain color that makes you feel calm, happy. You know there humans are just creative beings. That's all there is to it.

Erin Branham:

Absolutely. It is something we do incredibly naturally and all the time. And some people hone those skills. Some people hone those skills and get noticed by the commercial market and and then the next thing you know, you think you know them, and it's or that they are in some way special. I also think that we have this sense. I was just having this argument with my sister where she was saying, Oh, I do think there are certain times and places that you know, really become these creative whirlpools or thresholds or whatever, whatever. And she mentioned the grunge scene in the 90s in Seattle. And I said, I sorry, I don't believe that that was special. What I mean is, I am sure that there were, you know, five other cities where that had really great music scenes that had the cultural eye come around to them, they could have been just as big. And then once you sort of get that attention and the money starts flowing, like, you create more of a scene. And it like, sometimes it it just, it's creativity is happening everywhere, all the time, and a lot of it we don't get to see.

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah.

Erin Branham:

We almost missed Van Gogh. Yeah. People don't realize Van Gogh was almost somebody yeah that we never heard of Yeah, because he was this poor, suffering artist who passed away, and his works got all put into his brother, Theo, who was an art dealers like attic. And there they sat for years, until Theo's wife came along and said, you know, these are really good. We should really try to get a show.

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah.

Erin Branham:

And Theo was like, I don't know, we tried to sell them all while he was alive. Nobody was ever interested. And she's like, No, I really think, like, let's just rent a little gallery. Let's do it. And they did, and it changed everything. And had that not happened, we would never know him. You want to tell me there aren't 100,000 other artists like that out there? Of course, there are.

Karen Foglesong:

Absolutely there are. And it just, you know, you just have to be lucky enough to find a woman that's smart enough to market you.(laughter) Sorry I couldn't resist there.

Erin Branham:

It is true. Sometimes these things, yeah, like I said, we get so we think something very real has happened when this person reaches fame and fortune. I was just at a choir concert last night at a high school, and there were 10 kids on that stage who could be pop stars, like had the voices, had the moves, had the looks, had the things and and I was really thinking about it, I was like, wow, what is going to happen? Look at all this talent. Is one of these people going to get picked up, or two of them? Is nobody? Are they going to go on and maybe this? They're not, like, they're just doing this for fun. Maybe they plan to be doctors, right, like -

Karen Foglesong:

Right. Yeah, you don't even know, yeah, it's true. I've had that same feeling watching auditions and things with kids.

Erin Branham:

Well, and I've had, I've been in an office where we've said, What's your hidden talent? And people have broken out things that I was that were just astonishing, right? Yeah? And, like, I had no idea you could do that. And they were like, oh, yeah, you know.

Karen Foglesong:

it's what I do? Yes, yep, I've seen that. Something I want to get around to, though in this episode, is this idea. We wrote this sentence, the art is God and the artist is the finger pointing at God, and and how we bring the artist to, kind of been pointing towards it and building up to this is that we have this feeling of transference, to use a Jungian term, and we associate the artist with the work. And as a like, for instance, as a female, it would be easier for me to transfer these kind of mythic ideals of representation to Neil Gaiman, because your subconscious is pushing out, and so, like my known self is feminine, so my subconscious is grabbing from the exterior, and that would be Neil Gaiman. So I am transferring this desire like you mentioned earlier, to touch or to grasp, this godliness onto this masculine exterior, and in my case, it might be even more powerful, because my masculine archetypes in my immediate family were not something that I felt was something that I wanted to work towards, right? They were more shadow elements of the masculine archetype that were being represented to me. So I'm always reaching out for an ideal of the masculine to personalize it, right? But everybody, if you're a man, then you're reaching for the feminine, because that's what you're projecting out. So it may be that you grab on to Buffy herself, rather than the artist behind Buffy, you know. So this kind of transferring our greatest desires out to our opposite self so that we can kind of see them. But really, all of that to grow has to be internalized. Now, Jung says in the psychology of the transference that this is a natural thing to do this kind of transference with our projection of our ideal, and that eventually a healthy psyche will grow to see what they're doing and internalize the process, and that it's simply a stage. So if we can look at it as a stage, then perhaps a story like Sandman can grow with us, right? So as I learned to internalize my shadow self and my animus, my opposite, then and that relationship becomes healthier, then I can, I'm more able to take the story of Sandman and hold it away from the artist and look at it through the more adult lens, maybe?

Erin Branham:

I think that, yeah, I it's, it's always what the Jungian gives us, I think, which is why we both like it. Because in the end, it says you don't get to be all light or all dark or all this or all that. You have to hold the opposites in tension.

Karen Foglesong:

Right?

Erin Branham:

You have to accept the complexity of the world. And that is essentially what I feel like around this question, to say, Oh, we can just forget what the artist has done and ignore it, which is one of the things in Monsters she talks about when she's discussing the works of Roman Polanski and Woody Allen. She started her career as a movie critic, and she said when she was discussing them with other critics, she was writing for her college newspaper, and she was going to the screenings with professional critics for newspapers and things like that. So she was one of the few women in the in the room, right? And she would say, Well, I have a hard time watching Manhattan say by Woody Allen, in which he is like a 42 year old man is dating a 17 year old woman. And in the construction of the story, the 17 year old woman is pursuing him, right? And, and she's like, I just can't, you know, given what I know about his biography and all of this, I can't. And she said, the male critic turned around and went, you should judge it just on its esthetics. So he was basically saying, look, the artist and their biography doesn't matter at all. If they've done terrible things. I mean, it might inform the work, but you can't. You shouldn't. It should not come into the work at all. You should just work, yeah, and I think that's simplistic. I just think that's simplistic. And then on the other end, you have the, you know, the cancelers who say, well, this person did something morally reprehensible, therefore you should never, ever engage with that work of art again.

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah, that's simplistic also.

Erin Branham:

And, again, I just think that's that simplistic. The truth is, it's just complicated. It's just complicated. It is not simple. It is, it is the work of art is stained by the biography now. The the I will definitely say I am not a believer in putting artists up on pedestals. I work in the arts. I've known too many creative people. People are people. They're just people. They're just people. And this, this sense, this idolatry, which is what you were talking about, the artist is just the finger pointing to God. The idolatry that gets involved with artists is, has always bothered me. I never like to say, Yeah, you know, before JK Rowling went to where she is now the the absolute worship, as if she were some other worldly being for having created Harry Potter just blew my mind, right? Mostly because I'm like, I'm like, it's super successful, which is great, and it's fun story. I like them. I read them, yeah, but the idea that somehow she had achieved some other worldly status by writing a cute little story about kids going to a magic school. I'm like, there's like seven other series of those like -

Karen Foglesong:

That came out around the same time, even. It's amazing.

Erin Branham:

Or before.

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah, or before, and they're not even original storylines. She basically is copying, like fairy tales and, you know, Greek and Roman mythology to create the stories anyway, yeah, but it became a fad. Somehow it had its own life and steamrolled. And I absolutely loved that there were magic wands for sale at the grocery store checkout rather than guns. But, you know, I I don't know her from Adam.

Erin Branham:

Sure, for those of us who are into sci fi and fantasy, yeah, it was a it was a fun moment. Yeah, at the same time, I have certainly been guilty. I've certainly said very hyperbolic things about artists. I will say that I have the one time I ever fan girled really hard was, was Neil Gaiman. I had one person like, it's like, this was I, it was in probably around, '06 or something like that. And I was visiting my parents in Chicago, and he was going to be speaking at at Ann Arbor, which is like two and a half hours away. And I drove over there to see him. It was a little literary conference about science fiction, and, I guess, about fantasy. So it was really that's right up my alley anyway. Like, I might have gone to that, even if he hadn't been there, yeah, but he was going to be there. That was part of the motivation. I was exceedingly excited to be, you know, at the bookstore, at a signing with him, to get a book signed by him, all of these things. And really had the little flutter of like, Oh, I'm in the presence, right? But in the end, I was really, came off the other end, and I was like, you know, really, it's still just Sandman that I it's still just like, that one work of art, like, I got a book for him to sign. And when I read the book, because I hadn't ever read it, I read the book after I was just like, yeah, that was cute. Haha. Yeah. But, and this was sort of in right after American Gods had come out, right after that book had come out, long before the series, yeah, and I was not, I was not a huge fan of that book, but it didn't matter. I went over there because this was the author of Sandman, yeah, and it was that was just all it was gonna be. And so it does, like it can happen to any of us. Because I think you were talking about this as we were discussing this episode, Karen, that, you know, we all want a little magic, yeah. And there is something magical about the act of creation.

Karen Foglesong:

Yes.

Erin Branham:

And so when you are around somebody who has successfully done something and created something that you love, yeah, you get a little of that sense of, I'm standing next to the magic.

Karen Foglesong:

Oh my gosh, even I Okay, I'm a giant Kermit the Frog fan, which, you know, I'm lucky. Jim Henson was not necessarily, he wasn't a bad man, you know. So he's not the best example here. But even if I see a Kermit keychain, I'm like, Ah, there's Kermit. And it's not even it's not even close. It's a reproduction of a reproduction of a reproduction of a reproduction. But I'm still like, Ah, it's Kermit. That's the magic, you know?

Erin Branham:

Absolutely.

Karen Foglesong:

it's how they live in our heads or our hearts or somewhere they come attached to us.

Erin Branham:

Well, we like to say, ultimately, it's the art that's exciting us. Ultimately it is, is that in the I guess the conclusion of all of this is just to remember that love, the love the art. The art is the magical thing. The art is the magical thing. And you yourself have the power to do that if you wanted to. It does take a tremendous amount of work. It takes a tremendous amount of fortitude, because mostly what you hear when you create art is no, no, no, not that. Yes, don't need it. Don't want to buy it. Nobody wants to see that. But like, that's most of what you hear.

Karen Foglesong:

Yes, yes. It is.

Erin Branham:

So it takes real fortitude to say, but I'm gonna keep making it anyway.

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah. And so I do always admire artists for that aspect of that. I really, I'm, like, you definitely have some strength in that, but the idea that that means anybody is, you know, morally upright, Nah, I just, I urge people not to think that. We're all humans, and people are going to be humans. And that means, even if you don't know about it, probably your favorite artist has something that's out there that you would not approve of, or you wouldn't like, but that's okay. Maybe they're not a vegetarian, yeah,

Erin Branham:

Or just, well, you know, we're fallible humans. Can't we have some grace for the artist? That's the other thing about this whole trend that bothers me. Can't we have some grace for the artist? Can't we allow them? Why do we need to put them on this pedestal and say you are other than human? No, they're just humans, and they're gonna do stupid things and bad things and, and that doesn't mean we forgive the bad things. Everybody should face the consequences of their actions, yeah, but the sense that, like, we can only enjoy the art if they are morally pure, just seems, I don't know, seems very rigid, seems very moralistic and, and not allowing for the humanity of it all.

Karen Foglesong:

Right. And anytime again, like we said earlier, anytime we get close to that righteous place, it makes me more nervous than it almost anything else, because the righteous place is where you start to kill and mangle and yucky stuff happens at that point. Project the monster. You know those things? No, no, no, no, no, yeah,

Erin Branham:

yeah, so. But to be absolutely clear, we do not approve of the various things that Gaiman has been accused of. It is, it's disturbing. It definitely stains the work of art. But I still, I have to say, in spite of it all. Like I can take it with the stain, I can still take that work of art with the stain.

Karen Foglesong:

That one, not the entire body of his work.

Erin Branham:

Nope, not really interested in any of that anymore.

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah, this one specific thing.

Erin Branham:

Yeah, definitely. But I think that we have to allow ourselves the grace to be able to do that without and we've talked about we're afraid we're putting this out there. Everybody is Dederer talks about it in her book. Everybody is afraid of being shamed on the internet, yeah? Everybody is afraid of having the pile on come at them and say, No, you you're now. You're now stained with that thing because you said you could take the stain, yeah, yeah. And, and you're not being morally upright enough, you're not being pure enough, that's so much of what that is. And you know, it's complexity. We just have to have some space for complexity.

Karen Foglesong:

Yeah, because, I mean, really, like I said about Christianity earlier, there's nothing that is untouched, unstained, because everything is coming from our humanity. And I think we also have to take some responsibility as the audience, and that we're always looking for this. I think my personal opinion is that, because we're herd animals, and we won't admit that we're herd animals, we get lost in looking for the alpha, the one who knows repeatedly over and over again. And we get disappointed by that, because we choose someone, we put them on a pedestal, the pedestal falls, and then we're disappointed. You know, it happens over and over again. I think it's repetitive, and until we come up with some kind of herd psychology, we're not going to really understand it. But it happens. And so as audience member, I think you have to take a take a look at how what are you projecting onto this person? What do you what is your responsibility in this situation? And like we say repeatedly, Erin, here, you have to learn to sit with the complexity. I think you just said it. We have to it's not and it's not this, or that it's this, and that, you know, like, how can you hold them?

Erin Branham:

Absolutely, I've said that when I do astrology for people, that's the first thing that goes at the top of the analysis humans are not or creatures. We are and creatures. We have a lot going on in there. And I think the other thing to watch out, because, like I said, I've certainly done it, I think we've all done it, is deciding that this person is you know, this person who you don't really know, who you only know through a work of art is you were sitting on it, like when we heard all this stuff about Gaiman we went, Oh my God, that's not who I thought this was. I'm so disappointed this is not the person that I thought he's not the person that I thought he was. And so I think my last kind of lesson that I'm taking from this is, don't think you know these people. Do not think that you know an artist. How could you? How could you, right? You are seeing something that they have carefully I write myself. You are seeing something that they have carefully crafted, knowing that it is going to an audience. It is something that has been shaped and created to create an illusion. Yeah, like that is what art is creating an illusion. The last thing you should do is confuse that illusion with the reality of the person who crafted it, carefully, knowing that that's what they were doing.

Karen Foglesong:

Even when it's a work of nonfiction, it is still true. Like I can't attribute anything negative to Angela Davis, but when I finally got to meet her in person I had I crashed into the pedestal, man. I realized that I had put that woman on such a high pedestal there was and I knew like meeting her made me understand that I didn't know her at all. Like looking like I and she's writing non fictional things, but it made me feel like I knew her. And that's not true. You know, I don't know her. She's not going to invite me out to tea or anything. You know, like I don't know her, no matter how familiar I feel with her. And that's I'm just using her as an example here at the end, because she hasn't done anything wrong that I know. Well, it goes to that still I don't

Erin Branham:

know her right. We want to hold a little of that glimmer we were talking about this too, that with the works of art that you say these people who you, who are your heroes, they become part of your identity. They're part of the way that you signal to yourself and to other people. This is who I am. I like this artist, I like this speaker, I like this thinker, and you are sort of conglomerating them onto your own identity, which is why, I think when you find out something like this that we found out about Gaiman, and we just went, Ah, this thing that I've incorporated into my identity is not what I thought it was, andc-

Karen Foglesong:

It's kind of gooey.,

Erin Branham:

Yeah, and you feel the stain actually on yourself, actually on yourself, and that that is part of I think, then why people just want to reject all of it and take the simple way out and go, I'm just going to pull it, you know, fully throw this away, and then I don't have to think about how it got on me. Yeah. But I think that it's important to think about that, because that is getting into the gooey, dark, muddy parts of life and consciousness, and actually, that's where a lot of gold is.

Karen Foglesong:

That's true. That's where a lot of gold is.

Erin Branham:

If you can't get down in that you you're missing part of existence.

Karen Foglesong:

One of my favorite artists is Salvador Dali, and he said that if you're afraid of shit, you are afraid of life.

Erin Branham:

Well, I think on that note,

Karen Foglesong:

And he was a character, yes, for sure,

Erin Branham:

for sure, definitely an interesting one. Oh, but I think that's a good note to end on. So thank you for joining us. I hope you can sit in the complexity with us.

Karen Foglesong:

Yes, have have a wonderful day. Y'all, thank you for being here. Bye. Please visit our website at mythic. U.buzzsprout.com that's m, y, t, h, i, c, u dot, Buzz sprout.com, for more great information on choreographing your own spirituality, leave us a comment and rate and review us on your padcatcher. It helps people find this podcast.

Head Shot

Erin Branham

Host
Contributor

Karen Foglesong

Host