Sanctuary: When the Host Becomes the Guest

Host becomes guest in this special episode of Lattes & Art, presented by J-Squared Atelier.

With Madame B’s Tarot Readings invited into Sanctuary at the Cloverdale Arts Alliance, the tables get turned as Gallery Director Will McCoy steps in to interview our own James William Moore about the strange, campy, theatrical, and deeply personal world behind Madame B.

Together, they explore the creative sparks that shaped the series, the role of performance and self-portraiture in James’ work, and how tarot became both visual language and mirror. The conversation drifts through fear, camp & humor, identity, storytelling, and the complicated reality that is created when self-portraiture isn't actually about the one in the portrait. 

Part artist interview, part behind-the-curtain conversation, this episode offers listeners a rare chance to hear the creator of Lattes & Art step into the guest chair and unpack the creative process behind one of his most personal bodies of work.

So light a candle, shuffle the deck, and settle in for a conversation about intuition, creativity, camp, and the beautifully messy act of making art.

Be sure to check out Cloverdale Arts Alliance where Sanctuary is showing through July 12, 2026.

Special Thanks to Plank Coffee for generously hosting the incredible coffee and amazing pastries at the recording of this episode.

J-Squared Atelier, LLC
For the love of art

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Follow & Subscribe to Lattes & Art
Stay inspired with new episodes every week! Don’t miss out on deep conversations with artists, curators, and creators exploring the vibrant world of contemporary art.

Connect with Us:

J-Squared Aterlier (J2Atelier)
🌐 Website: J2 Atelier
📸 Instagram: @J2Atelier
James William Moore
🌐 Website: James William Moore
📸 Instagram: @the_jwmartist

Leave a Review:
Love what you hear? Help us grow by leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform! Your feedback keeps us inspired. 🎙️☕

Be sure to catch our sister podcast - Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History streaming in all the usual locations:

Apple Podcast (audio)

YouTube (video)

Spotify (audio)

Transcript

00;00;08;12 - 00;00;34;18
James
Welcome to Lattes & Art, presented by J-Squared Atelier. I'm James William Moore, but today the tables are getting flipped because normally I'm the one asking the questions. I'm the one sitting across from artist curators and creatives trying to figure out what sparks the work, what keeps them going, and why art matters in the first place. But this episode is a little different.

00;00;34;19 - 00;01;06;09
James
Recently, Madame B's Tarot reading was invited to be part of “Sanctuary”, a show at the Cloverdale Arts Alliance. And somewhere between tarot cards, camp intuition and creative risk taking, the idea emerged what happens when the host becomes the guest? So today, Will McCoy, gallery director, the ringmaster behind this amazing show and someone kind enough to trust the fates, takes over the interviewer's chair.

00;01;06;10 - 00;01;35;09
James
We talk about Madame B's tarot ratings, performance, photography, storytelling, fear, camp and humor, identity, and the strange ways creativity tends to reveal truths we didn't necessarily plan on sharing. And honestly, it's a little terrifying being on this side of the microphone. Support yourself. Something warm, settle in and let's flip those cards over.

00;01;35;12 - 00;01;42;14
James
Thanks to our friends at plank, they treated us really well. Everybody got coffee, everybody got goodies.

00;01;42;15 - 00;01;43;27
James
I know this is.

00;01;44;00 - 00;01;44;20
James
First off.

00;01;44;20 - 00;01;47;13
James
Thank you everyone for coming today. If you're not.

00;01;47;13 - 00;02;13;01
James
Aware, we have a podcast called lattes and Art and it's conversations with artists and I'm usually the interviewer haha. But this time we're flipping it a bit. And so I appreciate you being here and taking part in this. And if you have questions, please don't be afraid to ask. Okay? Lattes and Art is about those questions. We all have them and we hope to find out the answers.

00;02;13;01 - 00;02;22;27
James
So that's what we're doing. And today we'll McCoy, the gallery director here at Cloverdale Art, is taking the microphone.

00;02;22;29 - 00;02;28;22
James
Yeah I've been waiting for this. Well, the lovely thing is we've been having this conversation for two and a half days now.

00;02;28;23 - 00;02;29;10
James
I know.

00;02;29;10 - 00;02;36;24
Will
Right. And now we just changed location because these guys are staying with us. And I went, I don't even know what time we got to sleep last night. Like.

00;02;36;25 - 00;02;37;04
James
I know it.

00;02;37;04 - 00;02;38;14
Will
Was 30 midnight.

00;02;38;17 - 00;02;40;04
James
Past my bedtime.

00;02;40;06 - 00;03;12;17
Will
I'm old. And the elevating the conversation here in the town, here in Cloverdale, in the gallery. What do we want to be when we grow up? All of those incredible conversations are important, and I appreciate that we're recording this and all of that. But mostly I appreciate that you agreed to come and that you've joined us and that you are bringing this elevated perspective because we know within our county what the art looks like.

00;03;12;17 - 00;03;41;12
Will
We know within our region with the art, looks like you have the benefit and the honor of a much broader perspective, not only on the art scene itself, whatever the art scene is, but also exhibiting and perspectives on art and ways in which you've exhibited your art that have been poking at my brain for months now since you agreed to come.

00;03;41;12 - 00;03;54;25
Will
I'm like, how can we elevate our game before it gets here? What are we going to do to elevate our game when he is here? How are we going to do? What are the responses? What are all the pieces that we can learn? Right. So I'm looking forward to asking the questions and then closing my mouth. No pressure.

00;03;54;25 - 00;04;17;23
Will
I expect to learn today. And most importantly, I am just incredibly grateful for the opportunity to sit with you to talk about great art happens to be yours, and there's a lot there's a lot here that people who, if they were to just walk by your work or see it somewhere else, they won't, they won't get. And that hurts my heart.

00;04;17;29 - 00;04;37;18
Will
So this is the opportunity for people to really hear what's going on in our heads when we create art, and the why and the purpose and the why is it printed on metal, and why is that face looks awfully familiar. I think I've seen that on several other pieces. Or oh, holy moly, that's on every piece. Right.

00;04;37;20 - 00;04;39;21
James
You can swear I have a you can.

00;04;39;24 - 00;04;40;21
Will
You can beat me out.

00;04;40;22 - 00;04;46;12
James
Okay, well, no, I've got a button that I can click that says the top floors. Yeah.

00;04;46;15 - 00;05;10;09
Will
So so let's jump in. Okay. So for those of you that that don't have haven't had the opportunity to talk with James yet he your story I mean from four years old a gift you got through where you're headed in the next couple of months is is quite the trajectory and arc. Can you share just a little bit about that four.

00;05;10;09 - 00;05;46;29
James
Years old? We just moved to a new neighborhood. My parents bought a new house and I became friends with Debbie. Thank you. Debbie, and for coming today. I appreciate having some some close friends, but I'm four years old and I'm precocious, and my mother needed me out of her hair so she could unpack the house. And so she goes and finds her brownie camera and gives it to me and says, go out into the backyard and just get out of my hair.

00;05;47;01 - 00;06;13;23
James
And so I do. I go out into this new backyard that had all of this new adventure for this four year old to discover through a camera. That was a film camera, right? We didn't have digital back in the 60s, and so I'm photographing no clue what I'm getting, but there's this imagination that's going on in a four year old that I'm playing out in that backyard.

00;06;13;25 - 00;06;37;16
James
You know, I'm a knight in shining armor rescuing someone. I'm the damsel in distress that's going to drown in the waterfall. And I'm playing all of these roles, and I'm taking pictures of the space in that stupid little brownie camera, which I still have to today. And I actually still use it. I have to roll film specifically to be able to use it, because they don't do that size anymore.

00;06;37;16 - 00;07;03;25
James
But I can still use the camera. So from that, I don't know if discovers the right word, but I created, I played, but for me it was playing. It wasn't like anything important. It was just play. And then I got older and life gets away from you. And I stopped creating like that towards high school. I didn't have a camera that often in my hand.

00;07;03;26 - 00;07;30;11
James
And you start to go into adulthood and you're adulting and not just sucks and you're like, okay, several years on, several careers on and I'm like, I need something that I am lacking right from there. So in 2000. I reintroduced cameras into my world, and I called a photographer friend that used to photograph me way back in the day.

00;07;30;11 - 00;07;53;01
James
And I'm like, how do I do this? Where do I pick my camera? Because again, I only had that brownie, right? So I am working in a new world. I go and I buy a little Nikon camera, I get a couple of lenses and I start playing. And it was like that imagination that I had lost right was back and I was having the best time.

00;07;53;03 - 00;08;18;27
James
But then my husband and I, we are together at this point and we're traveling, and I'm getting to go to spaces in the world that I had seen before. But now I'm seeing them through my camera and I'm seeing them with that creativity, that imagination that comes through. Because the one thing that frustrates me the most about us as humans is that we miss the minute details.

00;08;18;29 - 00;08;40;20
James
We glance over you. You suggested that people will look past this and they won't get it. And that's true. That's true of any of the are. Many times people spend less than 10s looking at a piece of art before they move on to the next one. I will spend hours in front of something and looking closely. Now, granted, I'm a little weird, but that's okay.

00;08;40;23 - 00;08;52;01
James
This idea of I don't want to miss those moments. And so I was in on little pieces and that became a part of my art.

00;08;52;02 - 00;09;06;06
Will
Right? Some of your early work you were was based on that travel. Right. And so you've done kimonos and masks and talk about just kind of splashes of what those series were about.

00;09;06;07 - 00;09;29;05
James
Okay. So I don't call myself a street photographer. I don't do that. Well, there's like an instant ness to that. And I'm all about staging things like, I want a complete set done, and I want everything in its place because I'm a little bit of a perfectionist. And then I take the picture. So street art is tough for me.

00;09;29;08 - 00;10;00;18
James
But we split our time between San Jose and Palm Springs, and in San Jose we actually live in Japan town and in Japan town. We get all of the celebrations that the Japanese culture goes through, which is an amazing I candy for me. So we would go to the festival when they're dressing up in their fine kimonos with the beautiful obese and doing the folk dancing at night as the sun is setting with the lanterns over top, are you starting to see the imagination that starts to come through with this?

00;10;00;19 - 00;10;28;03
James
But I'm also shooting close because I don't want you to miss that detail, because in those instances we miss so much. I have always had an appreciation for cultures that aren't mine. I grew up in Petaluma, so, you know, near the Cloverdale. I love the community that these towns up here create, but I also enjoy getting out and finding cultures I've never experienced before.

00;10;28;06 - 00;11;00;14
James
And when I have my camera with me, it becomes a storytelling event because it's me learning and telling that story. So this one point I was wanting a little bit of a challenge. I had not started studying with quotes art in an academic sense yet, but I had the opportunity to take a masterclass with this incredible photographer that was going to take us into Venice for a week during Carnival.

00;11;00;17 - 00;11;26;01
James
So the celebration, the cultural celebration of this town and all of the pageantry and all of the costumes and all of these things, and I'm in there with my camera and I'm in there with my imagination. And this is a setting where I'm able to stage, so it's not quite so street like. So I'm able to step back from the closeness and build story to those images.,

00;11;26;05 - 00;11;36;12
Will
And that I'm going to say system of beginning to stage, then really loops up. It ramps up in your work.

00;11;36;13 - 00;11;37;09
James
Oh, completely.

00;11;37;11 - 00;11;42;25
Will
Right where you started with like get a clue.

00;11;42;27 - 00;11;47;02
Will
I mean, you can see. So so tell them about that series and.

00;11;47;04 - 00;12;08;13
James
Back up from that series. We're going to put a pin and get a clue. I want to back up a little bit. I mentioned that I hadn't started training like getting an education of being art. I was working full time. I was a CFO of a company, but it wasn't feeling challenging. I'd been doing it for a number of years and everything ran kind of smoothly.

00;12;08;13 - 00;12;39;04
James
And it's like, I really need to find what my next thing is. My husband and his family is big on education, and I never went to college. So here I am, having multiple careers, successful in all of them. But my soul is creative. Why don't I go study art? And so I did. I signed up for classes at the local community college that was on my drive home from the office, and I stopped a couple, 2 or 3 times a week on my way home and started taking classes.

00;12;39;05 - 00;13;09;00
James
Because of the degree I was going after, I had to take photography classes because I wanted a photography degree and I know photography, so how can I make this my own? So I'm taking a dark room class for shooting on film, and we have to do a narrative. And this is where it really struck home for me. Staging, telling a story, seeing a vision that's a bigger picture than just one photograph.

00;13;09;05 - 00;13;32;29
James
And so the first series I did, which you may not have seen yet, it's black and white, printed off a film, and it's called Tilting at Windmills. Don Quixote story. Now, I mentioned earlier, we split our time between here and Palm Springs. If you've ever been to Palm Springs, I love those windmills. They have been a source of subject for me time and time again.

00;13;33;00 - 00;14;02;12
James
But Jeff, being the world's greatest photographic assistant, I took him out in 65 mile an hour winds with sand blowing everywhere at 6:00 in the morning because I wanted the early morning light to go out to these windmills that you're not supposed to get near. And we're going to be photographing him in a hoodie, a black hoodie, holding a sword, which you'll see the sword sometimes in these pictures.

00;14;02;13 - 00;14;35;02
James
Right. So he's holding this sword and I'm recreating that vision, right? Of a modern day Cody fighting the windmills. And there's a whole progression through very linear. But this idea of staging those moments and building that narrative became powerful for me in that instance. So now let's jump back to the one that you mentioned to get a clue how many of you I know you did because you played it with me in my garage.

00;14;35;04 - 00;15;04;05
James
I love the board game clue, right? Murder mystery. Who did it? So my childhood plays a lot into my artwork. That imagination I had from way back then, and that joy and happiness of childhood has never left me, thank God. But I wanted to recreate this idea of the board game, but I wanted to bring into it some kitsch, some camp, some sources.

00;15;04;08 - 00;15;29;02
James
I wanted there to be these over-the-top characters that would be the the suspects from the game. You know, Mr. Green, Mrs. Peacock, all of these different ones. And I wanted those personas to be larger than life, right? Caricature almost because they represent us. And my art at this point is starting to challenge you. As you look at it.

00;15;29;04 - 00;15;44;12
James
Find yourself, find your personality, let it challenge you. Let it kind of make you uncomfortable that you might be Miss Scarlett touching up her lipstick in the mirror in the lounge with the dead body lying in the bathtub.

00;15;44;15 - 00;16;09;09
James
That's get a clue. It was also at that point that I made the decision that I would not continue printing my photographs. I am all about breaking rules. I teach, I'm an educator. I teach at a community college down the South Bay, and one of my lectures is rules are made to be broken and I live by this.

00;16;09;09 - 00;16;36;12
James
But you need to understand the rules and how to apply them before you break them. So let's learn them now. Let's really screw these up. So I did that with get a clue. Like I said, I was getting away from printed material, but how do you show your pictures? I love how a photograph looks on an LED TV monitor, and it's much bigger and it's in a different dimension than a photograph normally is.

00;16;36;12 - 00;16;57;03
James
So I had to teach myself to photograph in that dimension. But think about this for a moment. When you look at a photograph, when did that photograph happen? It's history, right? You took the picture a month ago. Sure. Okay, great. But now you're looking at a TV monitor that looks like it's live and happening in the moment, and you're in the house.

00;16;57;03 - 00;17;21;07
James
And it's this immersion that I love to do with art. I love to draw people in and get them inside of it right. The entire gallery was black. The walls, the floors, the ceiling. There was very minimal lighting that was only coming from one spotlight that shone down on the board game. And then TV monitors lined the rest of the space, and you went through and people started to play the game.

00;17;21;09 - 00;17;34;24
James
They tried to find where was the weapon. Because every image had a weapon, they would try to figure out who killed them. I work with mannequins. I love the freaky ness of mannequins and faithlessness and just that whole thing.

00;17;34;25 - 00;17;35;27
Will
They don't argue.

00;17;35;29 - 00;18;07;23
James
No. Well there's that. I don't get kickback of how pretty am I in front of that camera? But it's something that I've also discovered that allows me to give my audience something to attach themselves to. So through Get a Clue, the maid, who is not one of the game characters, is a part of the settings in every last one of the photographs, and sometimes she's speaking into rooms, see what's going on with the dead body laying on a dining room table while the hostess is waiting for her guests to arrive.

00;18;07;23 - 00;18;12;08
James
But she's a drunk and we played with this.

00;18;12;09 - 00;18;12;17
Will
Right.

00;18;12;19 - 00;18;37;01
James
I love research, if you weren't aware, clue came from Europe, and in Europe it's called Cluedo. And there's a 10th room that's the basement. And so I played that and Jeff's dad helped me out. He built me a operating trap door that we know these trap doors, right? We have basements around here. And so that trap door is open.

00;18;37;01 - 00;18;56;29
James
And when you looked in it, you saw who the murderer was. And it was the mannequin with the victim falling down the stairs. And she's dragging him out into the basement with a shovel to bury him. This is what I do. This is what causes Jeff's mother to ask. Does he sleep at night?

00;18;57;01 - 00;19;01;05
Will
Right? Is he okay?

00;19;01;07 - 00;19;37;23
Will
Well, and that's exactly for me. Almost the timing when I came in. Right. And I started seeing your work and I started learning about your work, I had a much simpler even though undergrad in art studio, all of that, I had a much simpler view of two dimensional expression. So I started, thank heavens, talking to you. Right. Because then the story, the depth, the preparation, the production, the activity behind the creation in order to achieve the image.

00;19;37;29 - 00;19;58;16
Will
It took my own work, my own thinking to a whole nother level. So thank you for that. Yay! And then we get your show. So there was the clue and he's like, oh, and there was a trapdoor and there was a you know, and he makes he minimizes this whole staging and production. And so can you talk about the next one please?

00;19;58;16 - 00;20;00;02
Will
Because it scared me okay.

00;20;00;03 - 00;20;17;28
James
So the. Next it did its job. Oh my God. I did my undergrad at San Jose State. I live in San Jose. Right. So it just seems to make sense that you go to San Jose and I will give a plug to send as a right now, because it's one of the highest regarded photo programs in the nation.

00;20;17;28 - 00;20;40;04
James
And so to have that access was unbelievable to me. And I'm like, yeah, let's go. So I transferred from that community college. I went over there, I did my undergrad, my undergrad presentation was the get a clue. Jeff and I had been looking at what the next stage is, right? We're always planning. We're thinking ahead, what's next? And this is how Palm Springs came into our life.

00;20;40;04 - 00;21;12;25
James
And as we were looking at what Palm Springs is, it's an artist community. And we're thinking, you know, maybe having something that we can apply. His marketing background, my artistic nature and do something, gosh, sounds like a gallery. So we started J Squared Italia, and that presence is about supporting art, building art. And we're looking at hopefully someday in the not too terribly far distant future, some live pieces like this that go on in a gallery.

00;21;12;25 - 00;21;34;18
James
And as I was talking to these incredible photographers who were my advisors and undergrad, they said, look, you really need to do an MFA. You need to go after a master's degree, because in art and in academic art, you will be higher regarded having that. Now, let me put a pause on this. I hate institutions, okay. I'm sorry.

00;21;34;19 - 00;22;01;02
James
My shoes are pink. I've got bingo socks on. I'm a reverent that does not fit well into institution. And what I was discovering as I was going through my art education, that there's an elite ism in art education that I find extremely offensive because they talk in a language that most of us sitting in this room go, I have no clue what the hell they are saying and why am I here?

00;22;01;02 - 00;22;34;10
James
And it creates this roadblock, a velvet rope, a something that keeps you from approaching the art. And the last thing I want is that, okay, fine. If I do this MFA thing, I'll have a bigger pool of artists to work with and talk with and do. And they weren't wrong on that. The other piece that Jeff and I had talked about was having this educational portion to it, bringing in artists that would be, you know, guest artists that would be these resident ones that would come in or something, but they would teach their practice.

00;22;34;11 - 00;23;06;18
James
They would show how to do it. Again. Having that higher educated degree gives more credibility to my education, right? What I can teach, they weren't wrong about that either. And that's also how I was able to now be one of the professors at this community college. One of the processes you have to go through, at least at San Jose State, is kind of a midway point, and you have to present what you've learned, how you've grown, and what's challenged you right now.

00;23;06;19 - 00;23;09;25
James
Will made a comment that I underplay things. Okay.

00;23;09;27 - 00;23;19;20
Will
But okay. Let me let me put some you underplay things privately and you overplay things publicly.

00;23;19;22 - 00;23;21;13
James
That neon signs up again ain't it?

00;23;21;14 - 00;23;35;23
Will
I don't I don't know why I think this way, but your subtlety in public perhaps outshines many folks. Okay.

00;23;35;25 - 00;23;36;04
James
I'll.

00;23;36;04 - 00;23;38;15
Will
Take it. I knew you would.

00;23;38;17 - 00;24;07;05
James
But when I was presenting this, I wanted that same black gallery. And so they gave me that gallery for my show. And the show was called portrait of a Teller's Fortune. And at this point we had gone into Covid. So now get a clue. I had a cast of ten that I was staging. I was used to doing this, like working with humans and telling them where to stand and turn into a mannequin and hold and let me take the picture.

00;24;07;05 - 00;24;29;23
James
I love that I loved working with people. Covid didn't allow me that. And so suddenly there had to be a shift in what I was doing. One of my biggest inspirations is Cindy Sherman. If you are not familiar with her, go check out her work. It's amazing. She's a photographer that does self-portraiture, but they are not self-portraits of her, if that makes sense.

00;24;30;01 - 00;24;34;27
Will
We're going to have to explore that more, because that one took me days to be well.

00;24;34;27 - 00;24;38;11
James
When we get to this, yeah, it'll all makes sense.

00;24;38;16 - 00;24;40;16
Will
You say so.

00;24;40;18 - 00;25;04;03
James
So so I'm building this show. I have the Black Gallery. My portrait of the Teller's Fortune is a ten minute short film. That's a horror film. And it's about the freak show at the circus. Because we're not supposed to say freak show anymore, right? We're supposed to say sideshow, but it's the freak show. Because there are freaks in society that don't know where they fit.

00;25;04;03 - 00;25;33;22
James
And I was showing all of the things that I had learned up to this point. I was screen printing five by seven foot screen prints that damaged my body, and I had to stop. I was fashioning, after Warhol's process of screen printing at that size, because he's another one of my inspirations I created in this dark gallery. Now imagine this you step in, you smell popcorn, and as you come into the gallery, the lights are dim and kind of flickering.

00;25;33;22 - 00;25;56;18
James
And in the far distance of the gallery, there's a very small sort of kind of movie screen. And before that are two movie seats from the 70s that probably still have gum underneath them that you were to go and sit in. And the short horror film played across three of those monitors from my showing of the Get a Clue.

00;25;56;23 - 00;26;37;04
James
But I wanted you enveloped and drawn in. So by having three monitors and the show is fashioned to play across all three, not just repeated three times, it brings you in. You're suddenly immersed into this dark room that you smell popcorn and you're sitting in a movie theater. But then when you start to notice the movie is about the circus, and when you start to notice what's hanging on the wall, it's those five by seven screen prints of the strongmen and the sword swallower and the tattooed lady and the bearded lady and Madame B, who is the tarot reader that gets presented in this film.

00;26;37;04 - 00;27;00;27
James
And so that was that presentation. And that's actually when Jeff's mom asked, is he afraid to sleep at night? Because it was it's nightmarish. Like, I if you watch the movie, I'm in it. I'm the only actor. I'm all the characters, except for Madame B, who was my mannequin, my favorite mannequin people. I mean, they were screaming at points.

00;27;01;00 - 00;27;18;04
James
I created an effect of me falling down a rabbit hole and did this in my studio. Right? Like I figured out how to lean on a sawhorse backwards, suspend my camera over top of me, and fall right.

00;27;18;11 - 00;27;26;27
Will
So while the rest of us during Covid were sitting on the couch, you know, binge watching whatever you were on a software.

00;27;26;28 - 00;27;54;21
James
I'm on a software. I'm playing with mannequin. Sounds right. You know, it worked in that movie. Madame be really was the start of the movie. She is the fortune teller at the circus, and she's welcoming me. She's drawing me. She's enticing me to her tent. I did this with lights because it's a mannequin. Bitch. Don't move. She just stands there.

00;27;54;23 - 00;28;16;19
James
I used all of my lighting concepts that I am familiar with, with photography and everything else, and that's what I did to bring her to life. We get into the tent. The tent is very claustrophobic. You're drawn in at this point and there's a terror read, and that tarot read is actually a live tarot read that I was given prior to all of this stuff starting.

00;28;16;19 - 00;28;39;06
James
And when I was first kind of getting thinking, I'm going to do art again. So I used that read and I used the writer way deck if you're familiar with tarot, but the three cards come to life still showing the school what I've learned animation, film making, all of this stuff. So the cards fly off the table and start flying around the room.

00;28;39;06 - 00;28;59;26
James
When this process was all done, Adam be stuck with me. This idea of Madame B, I loved this character. Somehow there was something about it. She was just kind of off and I love off. I decided that she needed to become her own specific persona, and she needed her own deck of cards.

00;29;00;05 - 00;29;24;17
Will
Funny should mention that when we talked about this deck in the show 1 or 2 days ago, it's all a bit of a beautiful conversation. It has been you talked about, and I don't know if you intentionally said this. I can't imagine you unintentionally saying anything you intentionally said, and this will be part of a lifelong series.

00;29;24;20 - 00;29;25;29
James
Yes.

00;29;26;02 - 00;29;27;05
Will
Talk about that.

00;29;27;07 - 00;29;58;20
James
The tarot deck has 78 cards before you here in the gallery right now there are 20 800. Let me back up a second. This neon sign is Madame B's neon sign for her tarot parlor. That was in the movie. This was not live in the movie. I drew it in an illustrator program. I moved it over to After Effects and I animated it to have it do the flashy kind of, you know, I got a sound effect to give the buzz the whole thing.

00;29;58;21 - 00;30;17;22
James
But in the movie it's not a real this. And everybody was blown away by that. When they found out later that it wasn't real. As I started to build out this world of Madame B, the neon sign needed to be an element of it. And so I decided that I was going to what I call Jeff Koons it.

00;30;17;23 - 00;30;40;16
James
If you're familiar with Jeff Koons famous artist, he makes none of it. They're his ideas. He designs it, he engineers it. He then gives it to this amazing team of people that are hidden somewhere in a warehouse that build it. And I'm probably going to get a nasty letter from someone over that. Oh well. So I decided that I needed to do that.

00;30;40;16 - 00;30;48;29
James
And so I found a group that worked in neon still and would ship it into California, because that's an issue. And I'm going to get a letter on that one too.

00;30;49;02 - 00;30;50;22
Will
But anyway, that's why we have editing.

00;30;50;23 - 00;30;51;03
James
Okay.

00;30;51;05 - 00;30;52;17
Will
Oh that's right. Right.

00;30;52;18 - 00;31;16;22
James
So I made the neon sign that kind of started. What was the next installation which was my final thesis. Right. I'm building these cards and they are the core that thesis. Because if we step back a minute, I talked about how I hope you find when you look at my get a clue yourself is one of those silly characters.

00;31;16;29 - 00;31;40;24
James
These images are meant to do the same thing. They are personality types. They're archetypes that we have in our society and we face every single day. And scarily, sometimes it's us. And so I started building the cards, and at my the conclusion of my thesis time, I had 21 of them done, which I was glad because 21 is a good number.

00;31;40;26 - 00;31;43;12
Will
Because you're wearing you're in this world. Numbers matter.

00;31;43;13 - 00;31;56;03
James
Numbers do matter. And so and I try to be respectful, believe it or not. But with tarot, I really wanted to be respectful. I wanted to make sure that the iconography of the history of this lives.

00;31;56;06 - 00;31;57;03
Will
Is respected.

00;31;57;04 - 00;32;23;05
James
Because I'm making fun of some things, right? I'm being campy and I'm being silly and sassy and a little satire, but I can't be rude to tarot. So I start building those 21 things, and I have my neon sign and enter my world's greatest photographic assistant again, who builds me a wall that is a storefront window that this neon sign hangs in.

00;32;23;10 - 00;32;53;22
James
So as you step in through the gallery door, you're transported because there's sidewalk benches and planter boxes, and you're walking down the sidewalk of this wall that's not in B's tarot parlor. And in the window is this, and it's clear behind. So you can see into the parlor where her table sits. I made with a print machine. We had it like an old fashioned Van Dike print machine, tarot cards that laid on the table.

00;32;53;22 - 00;33;22;17
James
They kept getting stolen through the entire show. They were people's keepsakes. You stepped into a gallery, but it wasn't just like the movie theater. It wasn't just like the get a clue. It wasn't. Because if I can get you to forget you're in a gallery, you'll engage better with the art, right? This is the first time that these 28 have shown together, like in their entirety of all that are done and are printed.

00;33;22;19 - 00;33;51;19
James
Because, remember, I don't like printing things. Some of selects of these have shown around the world, and they've shown as part of the billboard project that brings art to public spaces to get rid of that velvet rope. Having this gallery space and having to prove a theory and defend a thesis, I transported everyone into that parlor. You came around the corner with the velvet drapes hanging that you step through.

00;33;51;19 - 00;34;12;19
James
And this that part on these prints is a damask. I couldn't find one I liked, so I made one. I have illustrator, I know how to do this. I take a pencil and I make what I want. Also, Debbie and probably remember this. My color has always been pink, like a form of pink, and in the 80s it was mauve.

00;34;12;19 - 00;34;38;14
James
And I loved my mob and that's my mob. And so I built that tone, and I saved it in my program so that I can use it over and over again. This pattern I had made again, Jeff Koons did his wallpaper, and the wallpaper lined Madame B's parlor with drapes. These velvety drapes every so often tied things right.

00;34;38;15 - 00;35;03;02
James
You don't know what's behind the drape. And as you come around to her table, there sits the deck of cards. There are the ones, there are some that are up and some that are down, and they're all messy. And there's a flickering light on the table, and behind it are three, five by seven foot suspended in midair frames that have a fabric in them that I'm projecting the cards on.

00;35;03;02 - 00;35;29;02
James
So as you step up to the table, you start to get a three card read of tarot that projects onto this. And they were different. They rotated, they moved. It wasn't always the same thing, and it was that suspending reality to get people to spend more time with it, which they did. People would come and spend an hour inside the gallery to watch as many cards come by, and to look so closely at what the cards were trying to tell us.

00;35;29;03 - 00;35;32;19
James
Right. But that was where this really took off.

00;35;32;21 - 00;35;52;17
Will
There's that point in which people want to share in it in their home. They want to bring pieces home. As much as I would love to have a black gallery with that, I have to walk into and multiple screens and projections and all of those things. We are not all afforded that. No. True, right?

00;35;52;18 - 00;35;53;12
James
Darn it.

00;35;53;13 - 00;36;04;28
Will
Darn it. I'm going to talk to Corey after the show. But that being said, you have to then translate your work into something that is commercially, professionally, commercially available.

00;36;04;29 - 00;36;06;21
James
I love this question.

00;36;06;22 - 00;36;12;03
Will
Good, because I'm asking it so. So what does that look like?

00;36;12;03 - 00;36;19;22
James
Earlier in the conversation, I mentioned CFO, so finances came to me naturally. I don't know what goes up on my head, but I, you know, I was good.

00;36;19;23 - 00;36;23;05
Will
All I've heard is spending so far so well, what's the other side of that?

00;36;23;05 - 00;36;50;03
James
But there's this business sense that I feel now. This is my opinion. This is not anybody else's. But I feel sorry with artists that don't know how to do the next step. We love to create. I mean, that's our soul we want to create. But at some point in time you need to go buy new pencils. You need to get a new canvas, you need to go buy a new freaking screen or something.

00;36;50;03 - 00;37;11;27
James
And so how do you do that? Right? Because it is not free money that just shows up from somewhere. When I look at my work, Im always looking for ways for it to be monetized and not monetized in that that sort of tacky way. Right? I'm not. I'm not looking to be a millionaire. I'm not looking for my stuff to be sold at Sotheby's.

00;37;12;04 - 00;37;33;14
James
I know my space. However, I love being able to continue to do more and more and more. And so I found avenues to be able to get my weird art onto things. So if you want some of these on a t shirt, they're available at t public. I have a shop on there. They sell crazily. Sell?

00;37;33;16 - 00;37;36;02
Will
Where's your phone?

00;37;36;05 - 00;38;04;00
James
All of these are available. They're also printed, but they're not printed in a normal photographic fashion. They're not on photo paper. They're not that sort of thing. I do that because it makes them stand out. And it's also a different type of art. But finding those ways to get my name out there, market me, is an artist, not just solve something, but market me right is so vitally important.

00;38;04;00 - 00;38;12;16
James
And unfortunately, there aren't classes in that really that tell us as artists that are in communities that are even in school, how to do that.

00;38;12;18 - 00;38;31;13
Will
Before we get to these, you know, these particular images talk about material. The material on this one is critical when you talk about engaging your audience, when you talk about your purpose behind your chosen medium and the way in which you want your audience to be engaged, let's talk to us about that.

00;38;31;15 - 00;38;53;02
James
Okay. Monitors really are my favorite presentation. I can control the light. I can control the color. I can control everything. Remember control freak. So I'm good with that. When I get into a printed state, I'm having to go back to a traditional idea of what photography does. And none of these images would show Wallen photo paper. I've tested it.

00;38;53;03 - 00;39;16;25
James
It's flat. And that comment I made earlier that when we look at a photograph, it feels like it's history. These would feel like their history. They're not alive. I want the art to be alive. When I came to working with these metals, there's a lab in Santa Cruz Bay, photos that I work with, and they were coming up with this new idea and I jumped on board.

00;39;16;25 - 00;39;47;04
James
If you take a moment and actually step up to these images, they're printed on aluminum, but there is a reflective nature to them. And it's not that it's just a mirror, but there's enough reflection that is happening that you can kind of see a faint reflection of yourself, which gets back to me wanting you to find you in one of these characters, and that's that draw in.

00;39;47;05 - 00;40;09;14
James
So these were brilliant in my mind because these allowed for people to actually collect, right. Put quotes around it, but collect. Sure, you can have this in your home and you can enjoy it. You can step up to it, but then it becomes that piece that's more living because it's not a photograph and feels like a memory. And every time you look at it, the light's going to be different.

00;40;09;14 - 00;40;23;06
James
I said, this too, will a couple of times. I love how the light hits the buildings across the street as the sun is rising and going across during the day, to the point that the sun is then dropping on that side, because it does come through these windows. And I know most artists like.

00;40;23;07 - 00;40;24;24
James
I know, get it away.

00;40;24;25 - 00;40;29;21
James
I'm loving it because it is highlighting different ones at different points during the day.

00;40;29;21 - 00;40;32;00
Will
So COVID's over.

00;40;32;01 - 00;40;34;01
James
COVID's over. Thank God.

00;40;34;02 - 00;40;38;10
Will
I see a lot of your face.

00;40;38;13 - 00;40;40;14
Will
I don't see a lot of others.

00;40;40;15 - 00;41;27;05
James
Why it goes back to really do love Cindy Sherman. Like I just love this idea. And I'll go a little deeper in this. Cindy Sherman in the late 70s did a series of photographs called the Untitled Movie Stills. She was dressing and appearing as those extras that were females that were being stereotyped and like Alfred Hitchcock movies. So the pretty blond, the brunet secretary, the overworked housewife, the frightened girlfriend, and they never had a credit in the movie, but they were a pivotal character, but they were throwaways.

00;41;27;05 - 00;41;44;00
James
Put those quotes out there. Right? So she recreated those characters using herself as the mannequin. So she would dress up, she would change her facial features. She would put in teeth. She I mean, I want her wardrobe closet. Oh, my.

00;41;44;00 - 00;41;45;09
Will
God.

00;41;45;12 - 00;42;18;05
James
This is what she does. And it has been a lifelong work for her from the beginning. And her work is still mesmerizing. But they are not self-portraits of her. They are self-portraits of these characters, right? That exist, which is what I embrace with what's going on here. So with the cards, if you're not familiar with tarot, tarot dates all the way back to the Renaissance again, remember I said I like research, so it goes back to the Renaissance.

00;42;18;05 - 00;42;39;01
James
Well, who was buying art in the Renaissance? Well, it was the rich families, right? And if you go to the churches in Italy, you see the faces of the rich family because they're in the paintings that are hanging in the church, because that's how the money was made. The tarot decks in Italy. It was a parlor game. So they would commission a deck of cards so they can play their version of poker.

00;42;39;02 - 00;43;11;24
James
All the faces look the same. The mysticism in tarot came in when the tarot finally made it to France. If you look at the Writer Waite deck, which is the most recognized worldwide, all the faces are the same. There is no difference in the faces. It's just a little sketch and it's the face. The other thing too, with the writer weight deck is if you look close enough, they're non gendered, except for the ones like Emperor, like King of Wands, Queen of cups page is a little iffy that it's I didn't.

00;43;11;24 - 00;43;32;00
James
But this idea that we have terminology that we use in society for male female right exists in some of the titles. And so I tried to hold true to that, but with everything else, if you look at it again, it's probably gendered or I've messed with it like justice. I have all this history that we have the commission, the family that's commissions.

00;43;32;02 - 00;43;50;00
James
It's their face, it's right. Or wait, it's one face. I love Cindy Sherman. God, this math formula sounds really good to just run with me as these characters. Now let's go all the way back to my childhood. I had this fantasy world in my head, and I loved characters, and I had costumes that we would dress up in.

00;43;50;00 - 00;43;57;19
James
In play. This is like this total natural progression of my childhood alive in my adulthood. It makes adulting much better.

00;43;57;21 - 00;44;32;28
Will
There's a piece here with your work that has when you look at the face value, not your face, the face value of the artwork. Your face is always there. There's the obvious, but there's also, as you look further into your work, there's satire, there's camp, there's all of those pieces and incredibly intentional, yes, but to folks that are unfamiliar, seems oh my gosh, you know what?

00;44;32;28 - 00;44;52;24
Will
Can we do that? Is that okay? And is it all right to do that with that type of image. Right. Like, are you bastards? Exactly. Whatever. Yeah, right. Yeah. And so just tell what that's like as you are working through it and you're building a piece, what role does camp and satire and all of that play within your work?

00;44;52;25 - 00;45;06;02
James
Looking back, I think it has always been in my work. For those of you that haven't figured it out yet, I am in the LGBTQ plus community. I know the neon signs up here, right?

00;45;06;05 - 00;45;09;06
Will
Right up here. It's yeah, there's two.

00;45;09;06 - 00;45;40;07
James
But one of the things about camp is that it has been a protector to the gay community. It is a language that the gay community created uses, and it has been appropriated by others that are outside the community. So that's a whole nother episode. I always have known who I was, even when I was at four year old child, I knew I was different.

00;45;40;11 - 00;46;24;28
James
I didn't understand what the difference was. And so the one thing I've learned is that humor is a wonderful way to have the uncomfortable conversation in camp. From my perspective, coming from the gay world is the best tool for me to use, wield, whatever to get those conversations started, to educate them on the culture of LGBTQ right. Camp has always been important, and I look back and even on the stuff like from Italy and the stuff from the Obon, I can see that I'm using a little bit of camp in there.

00;46;25;00 - 00;46;44;17
James
It's just it's in me, right? It allows me to then when I'm doing something that tarot everybody, everybody that's into tarot knows tarot and they can be very religious about it and get their knickers in a twist. And I want to make sure I don't go down that path. Right. Because I have some really irreverent pictures up here.

00;46;44;19 - 00;47;18;00
James
Like The Hermit. The hermit is specifically all of us in Covid. We had to hermit and we sat around and drank doctor Pepper and ate Snickers bars. That's what we did. And you're all smiling because you recognize the truth behind that. But then when we talk about one like justice, where I've used Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is this highly regarded woman that was political, like, we can't ignore the fact that we may have loved her, that she was political.

00;47;18;03 - 00;47;38;13
James
My justice. I wanted to not be a male character, which is why I went completely female on that one. But she's tilting justice. Go look at that one again. The scales are tilted. That's a commentary. And that's one. It's a truth that we often don't want to admit. Right. But my humor can help us have that conversation.

00;47;38;17 - 00;48;14;06
Will
Take all of this out of your world. What would be no pain? No, I can't, I wouldn't do that. You'll kick me in the shin. What would the most genuine real self portrait of you beyond all this, or including all of this, your idea of self and the way one is perceived, and seeing yourself in reflections and seeing yourself as other people is something that just fascinates me.

00;48;14;06 - 00;48;29;24
Will
And so really, what would that look like? Who are you when you are not this? When the. When the studio is dark. When the all of those accouterments are gone. What does that self-portrait look like?

00;48;29;27 - 00;48;55;07
James
I have no idea. I have been, as a gay man, putting a mask on for the better part of my life. Right? And that is that the show that's up right now is sanctuary. And this is what Madam Bistro is a part of, is the sanctuary. I want those individuals that like me, have these masks on as protection to know that they're not the only one.

00;48;55;08 - 00;49;17;20
James
And so suddenly, when those masks start to go away, how raw am I? What am I? The thing that keeps coming to my head is I have this one caftan. I wear captains, I love caftans they float and waft around the swimming pool. I mean, they're just fabulous anyways. But but me and that because I'm comfortable, I'm at ease.

00;49;17;27 - 00;49;35;05
James
I can be male, I can be female. There's. There's no indicator I get mistaken. You don't. This is an audio podcast, so you don't see me. But I have long hair and I can't tell you how many times people think of me as being female, even when they see me from the front, right? And I'm okay with that.

00;49;35;05 - 00;49;52;05
James
I'm not offended because I know who I am, but I want all those others that may still be trying to find themselves to feel safe, right? And so I don't know that I could ever truly get all the masks off.

00;49;52;07 - 00;49;52;20
Will
Okay.

00;49;52;21 - 00;49;54;18
James
But the caftan would be one of them.

00;49;54;20 - 00;49;56;21
Will
Nice. So so you've got costume design.

00;49;56;21 - 00;50;00;13
James
So yeah, always, always.

00;50;00;14 - 00;50;02;02
Will
I wasn't really worried.

00;50;02;03 - 00;50;02;19
James
You got to pick.

00;50;02;19 - 00;50;03;03
Will
Your out.

00;50;03;06 - 00;50;05;16
James
For you to everything else. But yes.

00;50;05;19 - 00;50;08;13
Will
So I'm looking at the time we're right at the top of the hour.

00;50;08;14 - 00;50;09;14
James
Oh my god.

00;50;09;16 - 00;50;11;20
James
And that went by fast.

00;50;11;26 - 00;50;18;03
Will
Well this whole weekend buddy. Like so let's open it up. Let's see if there's any questions.

00;50;18;03 - 00;50;19;25
James
Let's I'm calling.

00;50;20;03 - 00;50;28;00
Will
Everybody doing what a cool audience. I'm so glad that's almost empty. That was my all my soccer training there.

00;50;28;02 - 00;50;37;19
James
Do you have questions? You've all been listening. And I know some of you were here last night and didn't get a chance to poke me and ask me.

00;50;37;21 - 00;50;39;08
Laura
I have a question.

00;50;39;10 - 00;50;43;13
James
Maybe hold on, because we want it recorded. This is going on the podcast.

00;50;43;15 - 00;50;45;11
Will
You're Famous Laura Payne Carre

00;50;45;14 - 00;51;12;14
Laura
Actually, the very last question was the one that's just been percolating for me, all for the whole talk, really, because I was at our team a gazillion years ago and I was a woman in that made a big difference in my classes. And so when we take the mask off, I love how you ended up with, you know, maybe I never take the mask off.

00;51;12;16 - 00;51;26;10
Laura
And as a woman, I remember being told as a young female artist that I would never be able to make art of substance because I would have a baby and oh my God, I.

00;51;26;13 - 00;51;32;18
James
This is why I don't have a video. I was just flipping off that person, right?

00;51;32;20 - 00;51;53;20
Laura
And through my the course of my career as a mother, I ended up with seven children. And I'm like, I'm very proud of the fact that some of those kids are artists, you know, and that I have continued with my art. But still, there's that little piece in the back of Who Are You? And what are you doing?

00;51;53;22 - 00;52;09;07
Laura
And my work is very different from yours. But I love the idea that you talked about it being timeless. And I feel like behind our mask we are fine. And so there's the question in this.

00;52;09;09 - 00;52;13;03
Will
That can't count us the question.

00;52;13;06 - 00;52;18;23
Laura
But how? How do you live with that timelessness?

00;52;18;26 - 00;52;21;09
Laura
How are you.

00;52;21;11 - 00;52;47;01
Laura
Being that like the mask keeps the transparency from really showing up? How are you as being like more transparent? Because I'm looking at that and it's like, okay, I see the street outside, I want to take the moon home and the but the. Yeah. What do we do with that transparency? Because we can't really walk around that unguarded.

00;52;47;05 - 00;53;13;05
James
Well, okay. So I have some friends here, right. Like I've got plants in the audience, which I love. And these, these people have known me for the better part of my life. How different am I now from when I was in high school or in elementary school? I think the mask was protecting me more than it was protecting them, but it didn't mean I wasn't being myself.

00;53;13;05 - 00;53;17;15
James
So, you know, my husband will say I have no filter.

00;53;17;18 - 00;53;18;06
Will
Often.

00;53;18;07 - 00;53;53;25
James
But but I think to some extent that masks becomes a filter so people can accept me for what I'm really being. Maybe I can be very blunt. I can be sweet and charming. I you know, I think too, for myself, I have different masks that go on different times and learning to read an audience. If you haven't noticed, I love being in front, but it means I've learned how to work with an audience and how to feel comfortable in front of an audience.

00;53;53;26 - 00;54;03;27
James
But it also means I need to be able to respond back to that. And so that creativity that's going on in my head is helping me figure out which masks to put on.

00;54;04;04 - 00;54;05;16
Laura
Yeah, fluid.

00;54;05;18 - 00;54;07;05
James
I like fluid.

00;54;07;07 - 00;54;07;21
James
I.

00;54;07;27 - 00;54;08;11
James
Like.

00;54;08;12 - 00;54;09;00
James
Fluid.

00;54;09;07 - 00;54;48;29
James
I want to say something that is a thank you. Dan is here from the Cloverdale Arts Alliance board. I appreciate the board's openness to trying something different, because if you look at the art, the art is different. It is not a painting. It's not a sculpture that it is. So the willingness to be able to do that, and I can't tell you how thrilled I was when I was honored, when I was asked, because the show is up through the middle of July and that crosses over Pride Month.

00;54;49;00 - 00;55;17;19
James
The Cloverdale Arts Alliance is aligning with some of the activities that are happening. And I mean, I get teary when I think about the celebration of this community of LGBTQ and this work being here, because that will be an audience that will look at this. In other language instantaneously, and they will feel it home. And that thrills me beyond anything else about being asked.

00;55;17;20 - 00;55;39;05
Will
We are so glad you're here. Like, let's just be honest, I, I, I remember Dan saying, you know, do you know of anybody that might be able to, you know, and I don't even think the words had stopped and I was like, James, James, James, we got to get you. And and you were kind enough to respond almost immediately.

00;55;39;11 - 00;55;42;22
Will
You know, you did the kind of let me think about it like, and then I know.

00;55;42;22 - 00;55;43;12
James
You've been.

00;55;43;15 - 00;56;02;26
Will
And then I knew that you were doing your research. Right, because you said you're a researcher. And then you got back to me and I just went, this is going to be the best. And I'm grateful for the entire process because not only have you helped elevate the show, but you've helped elevate the conversation in our community, and I appreciate it.

00;56;02;27 - 00;56;17;25
James
I feel privileged to have had that chance. I also want to say thank you to plank. I discovered when I came up to visit the gallery before we hung the show. And I'm sorry if I'm not drinking bourbon, I'm drinking coffee. And so I went across.

00;56;17;28 - 00;56;19;05
Will
The lake, so we don't know.

00;56;19;05 - 00;56;39;10
James
And and it was just the most amazing experience stepping into plank. So when we were talking about doing this episode here live and just kind of having an artist talk, and Will comes back and says, plank is going to do the coffee, I said, oh, thank God. So, you know, for those that are listening, absolutely. Come up to Cloverdale.

00;56;39;10 - 00;56;53;09
James
This town is is charming as you could hope for welcoming as you would want. The food is amazing, the people are delightful. And don't miss Blanc coffee. I think that for their generosity. This was awesome.

00;56;53;10 - 00;56;56;25
Will
Yes. And the gallery, right? Yes. Yeah.

00;56;56;28 - 00;56;57;23
James
That goes without.

00;56;57;23 - 00;57;04;13
James
Saying, because it went without saying. There we go.

00;57;04;15 - 00;57;10;27
Will
That was pretty smooth. That was pretty good. James or Jeff, did you have any additional questions you wanted to add?

00;57;10;27 - 00;57;11;16
James
Are we.

00;57;11;19 - 00;57;20;11
Jeff
Just one final question? Do you have any upcoming shows where when you're not working on Monteiro, what else do you have in the works?

00;57;20;12 - 00;57;22;11
James
Okay, so.

00;57;22;14 - 00;57;48;18
James
The tarot is still moving around. There is a three card reading that will be appearing in Madrid this summer for the latter. Half of June. I think after that I will be continuing to work to finish because there's 78 cards and right now I only have 28. This gets back to your comment about the life project. I can't finish this in three weeks.

00;57;48;19 - 00;57;49;00
James
No.

00;57;49;01 - 00;58;10;05
James
There is a lot that goes into the production of just taking my self portrait before I even get into the compositing, and pulling all of the other assets that create one of the cards. I was trying to find some old photographs, like from our childhood and when we were out playing in the yard and things like this, because even the little children that are in these cards are me.

00;58;10;06 - 00;58;20;17
James
They are me. For I was three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Death is my senior portrait.

00;58;20;20 - 00;58;24;18
Will
A whole nother show again.

00;58;24;21 - 00;58;47;26
James
High school. Yeah. So. But but I went back into my archive. Right. And when before the horror movie came to me, I was working with some imagery that one of my favorite movies was Something Wicked This Way Comes. And I loved the whole idea of the sideshow, the circus, the carnival, that. Right. So now you see how that movie came about.

00;58;47;27 - 00;59;11;08
James
But I was building sets and scenes on paper and in my mind, and I went back and found those images. And so as I continue this project simultaneously, I will be building the next short film, which will be something like it revisited. Going back to the prequel to how Madame B and all of the other characters come to be.

00;59;11;09 - 00;59;12;07
Will
Thanks everyone.

00;59;12;08 - 00;59;18;22
James
Thank you.

00;59;18;25 - 00;59;45;05
James
And that wraps up this latte in this very strange and honestly a lot of fun episode of Lattes & Art. A huge thank you to Will McCoy, the Cloverdale Arts Alliance and its board of directors for not only welcoming Madame B's tarot Readings into their show Sanctuary, but for creating space for conversations like this to happen in the first place.

00;59;45;05 - 01;00;11;17
James
It's a funny thing as an artist, you spend so much time building this work and getting all wrapped up in it, and then suddenly somebody asks you to actually talk about yourself. It kind of rude. I'm not really, but I'm grateful for it because sometimes the best conversations happen when we stop performing certainty and just let the creative mess speak for itself.

01;00;11;18 - 01;00;39;12
James
Thanks for listening to lattes and Art, presented by J-Squared Atelier And if you happen to find yourself near Cloverdale, California. Be sure to check out Sanctuary and Experience Madame B in person. There is an amazing gathering of artists sharing what sanctuary means to them. The show runs through July 12th. An extra special things to Plank Coffee for supplying the wonderful caffeine.

01;00;39;12 - 01;00;53;14
James
And incredible treats for this special episode. Until next time, keep making, keep questioning and keep finding the strange little sparks that pull us towards creating in the first place.