Whimsy and Wonder: Discover the Art of John Schieffer

0:02 Hello and welcome to no Wrong Choices, the podcast that explores the career journeys of accomplished and fascinating people to shine a light on the many different ways we can achieve success. I'm Larry Samuel, soon to be joined by Tushar Saxena and Larry Shen. Please support our show by following no Wrong Choices on your favorite podcasting platform, connecting with us on LinkedIn, instagram, youtube, facebook X and Threads, or by visiting our website at norongchoicescom. This episode features the contemporary still-life painter, john Schieffer, whose work in some cases is literally larger than life, as we had the opportunity to see firsthand. Larry Shea is the person who introduced us to John.

0:45 Why don't you set up this conversation for us? Yeah, sure, I think the best way to set it up is for everybody out there, first and foremost, to Google John Schieffer, because what you're going to see when you do that is all of his work pop up and it's mind blowing and it's tough to gauge the size of these things. As you said, it was larger than life, but these things are huge. When we went to the gallery we were literally overwhelmed by the size of some of these pieces. What I'm hoping John touches on is you know the mysterious aspect of the art world. You know like most people are only appreciated after they're dead and gone, unfortunately, as artists. And here we have John, who's a contemporary artist, and he's selling and working and this is like a money-making job for him and a career, and I've never met anybody who was appreciated while they were doing art.

1:39 And that makes John, in my eyes, unique and I'm floored by his talent and the detail and the meticulousness. So take a look at some of his work while you're listening to this episode. I think it's going to really lend itself to something. I gotta tell you I was really, really happy when I looked at his art and and, like I said, when we say it's larger than life, think of like pan, like he doesn't. He doesn't paint on, he doesn't paint on canvas, right, he paints on wood paneling, um, and they're usually, like you know, 12 foot by 10 foot pieces here. So these are big, big things, right huge um, and what he, what he paints, is fascinating to me because, you know, my first observation was, you know, I think I saw one of his which was essentially candy we would eat as a kid, like you know gumballs and and gummy bears and things of that nature.

2:27 So there's a real like whimsical quality to it and, at the same time, obviously a very adult quality to it as well. You know, he's painting. He's painting things like jacks and dice, um, you know just, and, and one of them had had a real feel of like having a background of like your mother's couch when you were growing up or your grandmother's couch when you were growing up. So I was really fascinated by that. And he started out as a restoration artist. So there's a real kind of mixing there of science and art and meaning. So, look, there's obviously two different things. So restoration is a lot of taking pigments and matching it to old paintings and it doesn't really mean it doesn't really, let's say, bring into much of his modern work, but there is an element of that science to it, right?

3:13 So the resins that you use, that you're using in your modern painting, or even the way he's able to kind of capture that still life and then put it onto the wood paneling because I would say canvas, but it's not the case but just that ability to maybe transfer that science aspect of where he started to that creative aspect of where he is now. That's fascinating to me. Absolutely. Again, the work was truly incredible For me. I was captivated by the gigantic martini glass. That got me all excited and, I guess, in terms of the story, I'm very eager to learn about the business of art and how people can earn a living and how they view reproductions of things, prints and things of that nature.

4:00 So there's a lot to unpack in this conversation and I'm very eager to learn more about something that I personally am not all that familiar with. So here is John Schieffer. John, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. So, john, we really like to start out with having you tell our audience who you are, what you do, what your day-to-day life is like now, and I think that's a good way to start is telling a little bit about yourself, your current status, as it were. I work full-time as an artist. I work from home, in the studio, in the home, and I do my paintings here and I sell them through the gallery I'm in Bonner David Galleries in Scottsdale and also their sister gallery in New York.

4:53 So, john, we're going to go back to the beginning a little bit because, you know, after we had the opportunity to go to Bonner David in the city, you know, the one thing that really struck me was and even the painting that you have behind you is a lot of it just seems to be stuff I would see as a kid, as a young man or as a young child. So there's a great deal of whimsy in the pieces that you do. Was this always what you wanted to do as a kid? Was that, you know, you would just see life a little bit differently than everybody else. I, uh, you know I I never really played with marbles, but uh, you know, and and wind up toys are amusing for about 30 seconds, even to a child, um, but uh, you know all the little shiny objects that, uh, we've had, we had when we were kids.

5:44 I mean all the little shiny objects that we've had we had when we were kids. I mean you could probably stare at a glass marble. That was fascinating for you know, quite a long time. You know you see so much more in it, the way it magnifies light and all. And my love for art just sort of takes that thing that is something that's very three-dimensional and and flattens it and then makes it three-dimensional again. And, uh, I love the process and I love the way that representing these sort of childhood toys and trinkets make me feel and make people feel I don't actually think of myself as a realistic painter anymore.

6:33 I feel almost more like an abstract painter, because all of these little objects they're not realistic representations of anything in themselves. And when I do such a large piece like the one behind me, it's just wonderful colors and dynamic shapes and you know it sort of takes you out of your location and it brings you into the work. For those people who are listening to the audio cast versus watching the video cast. What John is describing behind him is a big canvas and I think he works on wood.

7:18 We'll get to all that stuff later on? How big is the piece behind you? Eight feet by eight feet, so a massive piece sitting behind him. How big is the piece behind you? Eight feet by eight feet, big piece, so a massive piece sitting behind him that is filled with what appear to be really different types of marbles, and they almost look like Super Bowls in there too, potentially, but it's a beautiful work and that's what we're looking at. Yeah, and to pick up on that just quickly, tiny, shiny things is an expression that I kind of heard.

8:00 Hmm, when I'm painting something small and shiny and reflective, being able to sort of push all the values in the background down so I can make the image like really pop off of the canvas. And you know it's got a lot to do with color and value and keeping your brightest white and your darkest dark and not, you know, just sort of wasting those dynamics. You know making sure that you know the whitest white in the painting is like right out of the tube white and it's sort of like you know extremes.

8:50 You know you go from the brightest thing to the darkest thing in almost every painting that I do and it's really just everything in between is a balancing act. Amazing and we encourage everybody, of course, to Google John Schieffer and go see some of his amazing work and we'll show you where to find all that. We'll tell you where to find all of that as the interview goes on. But let's go back to the beginning. Let's go back to where you grew up. I got to know you simply because we grew up in Connecticut, in town over from each other, and we have mutual friends which we didn't know about.

9:30 But I always like to tell the story of when I'm telling people I'm doing this interview, that on social media a bunch of people started saying you know, come to find out. The kid that sat behind me in homeroom was an amazing, brilliant artist, and that's kind of the way I feel about you. So I reached out, we set this up and started to get into your work and it's it is remarkable. So we do encourage everybody to go and check it out. But talk to me about when you were a child. Were you always a painter? Did you take painting lessons? What was your youth like? I, I've, I always liked drawing. I think a lot of kids love drawing. But just like a few compliments of my drawings early on I mean going back to like first grade, I don't know it just really encouraged me and my mother encouraged me and I just loved cartoons and cartooning and I thought I was going to be a cartoonist.

10:27 But the more you practice with drawing and your art, you just have to be a good cartoonist. You have to be a good realism artist, you know. You have to know how to draw well, otherwise you know to be successful successful you'd have to be a good writer and I was not, yeah, and I didn't really have an interest in in that. So much um, but uh, I would say that just as time went on, I really enjoyed the realism aspect of art a lot more and cartoonists for the most part just sort of disappeared.

11:13 That whole newspaper media disappeared and the cartoonists were some of the first to go. Who were your favorite cartoonists? Who were your favorite strips that you looked at, or or even cartoons, or even cartoons themselves, because I'm a big cartoon guy myself I loved uh bloom county one of my favorites, one of my absolute favorites snoopy and garfield and you know all that. I grew up on bugs, bunny and looney tunes and, uh, you know I loved it all. I still do. I still love Bloom County. If I ever get a chance I try and see he's still doing some new ones every now and then You're the Calvin and Hobbes guy.

11:55 Oh yeah, I love Calvin and Hobbes Love it. That guy is a genius and you know the amount of writing and insightful human nature diatribes he went on were just astounding. So when does your formal training begin? Did you take classes right away? Private lessons when did that start? I did not. I did not have much extra curricular art training, um, and after high school I went to para college of art. Uh, I didn't really apply to any other college and, um, I just went right into there not really knowing what to expect.

12:41 Um, I I think I part of went from I don't know if I'll be able to manage cartoonists, but maybe illustration, graphic design, something along that. And Pear was a great classically oriented school. It really taught people how to draw and paint and realism, and that's what I liked about it. The first thing I realized was like, as an illustrator or graphic designer, you essentially are drawing and doing other people's ideas, and that never really appealed to me too much.

13:23 The classes for illustration were pretty much identical to fine art, aside from printmaking and a few more studio figure painting classes, which I ended up taking anyways because I love you know, figure painting, portrait painting, because I love, you know, figure painting, portrait painting. So, yeah, the more time I spent in that college, the more I just, yeah, I just wanted to do what I wanted to do and you know, it was hard for me to, you know, see myself doing other people's ideas or work, and I was kind of moving towards sort of like sci-fi illustrator, like someone that would do book covers, you know, magazine illustrations for science fiction and science fiction book covers, and that was that, was that, movie posters, whatever might have, whatever jobs might have come my way.

14:23 And after graduation I was just, like you know, seeing more and more sort of computer generated stuff taking over, um, you know I graduated in 95 and we already had the jurassic parks, amazing moving dinosaurs, and I'm smearing colored goo on canvas. I'm like they're doing in in in, like moving pictures that would take me like months to do in one image. And I, I, I love computer graphics and I actually had a great interest in that.

15:04 But me sitting down at a computer for more than a couple of hours is not in my soul. So how did that influence some of the choices you made coming out of school? I mean, if you've worked so hard to create this talent and to create this incredible, rare skill and you now start to see all this computer generated stuff coming on the scene like, how do you differentiate yourself in that environment and in that moment? well, it was actually after college. It was a very difficult time for me um. I still liked computers, but you know, in 1995, 96, the home computer was still expensive and still crashed quite a lot, especially the high level of art that you know might, if you wanted to have like a drawing tablet which was a little more natural for your, um, your artwork, those were.

16:08 Those were also an expensive, you know item that that would add to the system and might crash it. Um, but uh, I ended up, just uh, getting a job right after college in Mercer Mayer Productions. It was a publication, it was the Mercer Mayer children's books and I was there for about three months. But again it was like me doing somebody else's work. I had friends from college that got jobs there and stayed there and have gone on to other successful careers. But I went from that place to going back to my father's construction company and working outside and then a couple of art-related jobs.

16:59 I worked at a plate design company and in 1999, I got a job doing art restoration and I did art restoration for six and a half, almost seven years. And what I didn't learn in college? I learned a lot in art restoration working on antique paintings and you know seeing how time can really devastate some good intentions. You know I always try and keep an eye towards how my work will stand the test of time. You know I don't try and get a little, you know funny with the mixing of the medias or you know doing anything a little too far gone, so the paint just doesn't crack and fall off years later.

17:47 So, John, when you talk about restoration for those people listening to the show who may not be art aficionados, and things of that nature, can you just define what restoration is? well, um, it's taking an old painting with maybe some damages from time or accident, um, and fixing it in a way so that nobody can see that there was ever any damage, and what I would do as a restorer would fill in and repaint the areas that were missing. So if you had, like, a chunk of paint that was missing off of canvas, you could see the bare canvas.

18:31 I would fill that area in and then paint it and make it look like I didn't do anything at all. So it's, you know, like the CIA. You know the best work they do nobody knows anything about. Yeah, all right. So when we went to the gallery here in the city last week, we were told that you have done both restoration and conservation. I can't really say that I know the difference between them. Well, that was going to be my question, so let me just kind of play on that.

19:14 So, as a restorer and obviously you're dealing with paintings that are, you know, two, three hundred years old in many cases, obviously you can't use paint from today on paint from yesterday. So no, it was. It was a totally different set of uh uh paints and and, and the studio I worked for actually was called uh uh, conservation, I think. Um and so, um, what paint we we use? The stuff that we'd fill in would be removable, and the paint that we used on top of that was conservation paint. That is like it's it's.

19:55 It's a pigment suspended in resin, Right? So the the work that I did could easily be removed and undone, so I guess that's more of like a conservative sort of idea. So you're conserving the pain, you're not interfering with the actual work yeah. I find this part of your career journey fascinating.

20:38 We're working, yeah yeah, on the same floor. Where the recording studio was was Yost Restoration, and we would cross paths in the hallways, are you? sure you didn't bump into each other at this point we did, but mainly it would be Christmas parties, right, like they would throw a Christmas party and invite all the Steely Dan folks, and we would throw a Christmas party and invite all the Yost folks, but we would go in there and see these incredible works of art that they were either conserving or restoring. So I want you to talk about that work, though, because you need the skill to paint, you need to know about the chemistry of the paints and what you know, the canvas and all of it.

21:21 Yeah, talk about it. How did you audition for this job? They're like, eh, just give them the job. I mean, not anybody could do this kind of stuff. Well, uh, my friend helped me, uh, get an interview there, uh, and he was uh, uh, he was some guy used to rake lawns with, so there was not like a a big hierarchy of you know, a big hierarchy of you know levels of attainment before you can get in. And you know, I had a, I had my portfolio from college and that immediately impressed them and and they pretty much have to train everyone because it's it's it's kind of a niche where people can't just go to a lot of colleges and learn this sort of stuff and even if they do, they have to maybe unlearn some things and relearn other things.

22:13 Museum restorers do things a little different than the private sector, I believe, but we've restored some things for museums and there's different aspects too, like if a painting needs a sort of a new canvas behind it or you know a tear that needs repairs with a patch. You know those things are handled differently than from what I focused on in the work and you know, for me it was pretty much learning how to use the resin paint, which would be it was like watercolor, but you're using chemicals, um, and uh, oil paintings after after 50 years, uh, most oil paintings are sort of uh, impervious to the chemicals that you would use to clean Even the work that I do.

23:10 I can put a varnish on a painting and then strip it off with turpentine. Just you know, a couple of months after I painted, it, the varnish you're talking about. you strip the varnish off Varnish off. Yeah, months after I painted it, the varnish you're talking about. You strip the varnish off, varnish off. Yeah, so, like varnish, a clear protective coating on a painting and, um, uh, if there's a problem with the varnish or whatever, you can use, uh, mineral spirits and just wipe it right off, and if you scrub too hard, you can take the paint off that's what I'm thinking. Right, if you clean it too much, you're gonna take everything. I'm not gonna do. Um, yeah, I'm not touching that. But I mean and that's where I'm going with this question is like talk to me about like holding like a masterpiece and not wanting to screw things up.

23:53 I mean we, we had pressure, really expensive works in there and uh, you know I I worked on Edward Hopper, renoir, norman Rockwell, and yeah, it gets a little intimidating. Sometimes they just come through and I just have to put a little dot or something on them. Big name art is usually handled fairly well. You know well, you know um, but uh, the environment in the studio, the uh, the boss, the owner, was, uh, very um.

24:34 He really made you feel at ease with the work and I was never intimidated by it. He's just like here I'll show you what to do. This is what you do and you know, and you, we're careful going up and down the stairs with it. You know, you know you you. You got to, you got to really be at ease and, and you know, enjoy the process of restoring the paintings and as much as you can. When some of the paintings were just so horrible I don't know they're old. If some things are 100 years old, they're gonna have some value, no matter what right. And some of these paintings were just horrible.

25:16 They were horrible 100 years ago, geez but now they're masterpieces. But they're masterpieces now. Somebody loves it. It's like that ugly dog at the shelter, you know. Oh, my goodness. You know somebody adopts that one. But you know the primitive paintings of the children that were done by untrained artists in the 1700s and things like that. Seeing some of those and working on it was like a little bit difficult, because I wanted to do my own work and I'm, you know, do art all day long in the restoration studio and it's pretty much just a lot of color matching and then to come home at night and do my own of my own art it was.

26:07 It was kind of exhausting, like you work that part of your brain all day and right and you're like I'm done, and so one of the things I would do is I would just set up a little still life of one or two marbles, one or two marbles. So I do a very small like painting, like um, two, three inches big, you know really tiny, and uh, you know I could complete a whole painting in a very, you know, in an evening and feel good about myself. And you know I actually put together a whole little show like that of just these small works, uh, from things that I I would have done after work, um, and that's kind of how I got into the, the art gallery I'm in now that's really interesting.

26:55 You know, I'm curious that the restoration work did that in any way make you a better painter. Were you practicing learning new skills? Was it helpful in any way? I learned a lot about color matching. I mean, I was pretty good from my training in college. I'm pretty good with color. But it was funny because I learned how to use those paints so well that when I try and do the same thing with oil paint which at the time I was like this would be so much easier to do with oil when I try and do that with the same thing with oil paint, it just doesn't work.

27:39 Exactly the same same but uh, it was years of of being in that headspace, being in that sort of artistic mindset, all right. So I think we've all heard the phrase starving artist and probably early on in your career you were. You weren't starving all that much. You were able to get a decent job and especially at a, at a restoration firm, where you were there for seven years so when you finally come. So when you finally come to that point in your career and say you know what, it's time for me to strike out on my own, do you then fear the notion of being the quote unquote starving artist. Well, luckily I had my wife to sort of be a backup to my income.

28:23 She was fully employed. When I sort of be a backup to my income, she was always. She was fully employed. When I sort of tried to make the leap and leave restoration for going on my own, yeah, restoration paid pretty well, yeah, it was great, and going on your own is more difficult. Um, the the beginning of my career I was I was doing a sort of smaller size paintings, like one a week, and I was doing like 10, 12 hour days and it was difficult and uh, became like I can't do this in a week, I need two weeks or three weeks.

29:05 And it became a month and the paintings started getting larger and I was in two galleries here in Arizona and Santa Fe, new Mexico and Santa Fe. New. Mexico. I was immediately selling works and I was trying to keep up Right. So you know it was smaller works and you know you do it, you send it out, sells almost immediately. I sold a couple in the gap in my studio from the studio I was still painting it and they sell.

29:45 Wow, yeah, what a great problem to have Right. And then that stopped. And we did have that sort of downturn in 2008. Which didn't really hit me until 2010, 2011. Um, I had a couple thin years, um, but uh, it, it's picked up well after that and uh, you know, I I'm back to making you know know I I'm back to making, you know, good, good income at what I do.

30:30 I'm uh, that's terrific, and I want to get an idea of the time frame that we're talking about. So when did you officially leave yost and I'm assuming that that's that's where, that's where you struck out on your own after yost yeah, um, so I was with their uh connecticut studio and, you know, still living, you know, just a couple of houses up from the place where I grew up, renting a house there, and we were looking to my wife and I were looking to buy a house in town or in the area and the prices were ridiculous for what you would get. And we just took a vacation to see my cousins and in Arizona and uh, trying to, you know, keep my wife from going to you know, making us take a trip across the world just one time.

31:21 And um, the real estate prices in Arizona were were ridiculous. For what I would pay for a 50-year-old shack in Connecticut, you get a big house, two three-car garage, three or four bedrooms, double the size and it's brand new. Positively ridiculous. Yeah, absolutely Nothing but space, nothing but space and nothing but sun and sun. Yeah, a lot of sun. You don't have to shovel sunshine and we were sick of the snow and so we bought a house, but still lived in Connecticut, so we were paying mortgage and a rent. The rent of our house in Connecticut was less than our mortgage.

32:03 The rent of our house in Connecticut was less than our mortgage, and we did that for about a year before we actually moved. She got a job and moved out first, and then I followed, so it was sort of a long-term plan, and that was in 2006. We moved out. Okay. So obviously you said your wife's career helped to bolster some of the time when you were making your way. Yeah, what's that conversation like when you tell your wife, hey look, this is the career path that I have to go down? I understand my previous career paid well.

32:44 It gave us a great deal of security. Now I need to take this leap and say we're going to. We might have. We might have a tough time. And was there a? Was there a plan B? Was there a plan B? So she had. She had just sort of graduated from her schooling, she, she went for a graduate's degree and, uh, um, so she had gotten, she had two or three part-time jobs Well, I think, fully in part-time, uh, but not in the career she was looking for. So she was able to get that in Arizona but not in Connecticut. Get that in Arizona but not in Connecticut.

33:28 So she was making a career choice that was good for her. And the thing about art restoration is it can be tedious, mind-numbing work. So I was also ready for a change. Yeah, I guess the thing about the art restoration was about the art restoration was. You know, when you're matching colors on like a bunch of missing specs, like a hundred missing little color specs, and each one's a different color, and it's just all day long just coloring specs After a while. You kind of want to blow your brains out. I get you. You know your toast landed butter side down on the cutting board.

34:08 You know, and that's you know, as jobs go. There's other opportunities in life. You want to. You know, live life and show everyone what you can do. And I was like, I think, early thirties, and I was thinking to myself, if I don't make this move now, it's going to be so much harder later on, right? It's great information. I mean, how many people you know have to have those tough conversations like, hey, I need to chase down a dream here? So that's part of what we talk about here is the support and the help of the people around you to get where you need to go in life.

34:50 Once you, once you. I love how you went through. Like you know, it would be an evening and then the next one would take me a week and then two weeks and a month. So your, your paintings are getting larger and larger, but you're discovering who you are as an artist and I'm just curious, like how you make the leap from doing these things in your studio, where it's basically like you and your wife or the neighbor who sees it, and getting into a gallery and having them say we'd like to represent you, we need to display your works. We're gonna push your like how is, what is that transition? Is it a negotiation? Do you send them photos of it?

35:31 Do you bring an 8x8 down and be like hey, check this out, tell me what that process is you strap that to the hood of the car? shipped to me so I was still doing some art restoring in arizona, okay, um, but uh, as quickly as I could, I I did like three good size paintings, you know, and uh, yeah, I I took. At the time they had digital cameras and I got my color printer take photos, print them out, walk down to the gallery district and I just walked into a place and they said I'm not really sure that this is the right fit for us, try the gallery across the street.

36:18 So I did and I've been with them ever since. Wow. Yeah, what was funny was I dropped off the paintings like the following week and went for a cross-country trip back to Connecticut to you know, see family and stuff, and and then on the way back we went through Santa Fe and um, I was walking around with my wife and dog and uh they another gallery said, oh, come on in. And I wasn't really in that sort of work mindset. I just joined the gallery and and they were making conversation with me about my dog and I said, well, you know, he doesn't really bother my, my painting when I'm in the studio, it doesn't bother the paintings.

37:03 You know, because I was in this gallery, I didn't want to try and put him at ease and they're like, oh, you're an artist. I'm like, oh yeah yeah, and I just joined the collar gallery and Scott's tale, bonner David, and they're like the. I was actually talking to the owner and the manager and the owner had just been to Bonner David galleries and had almost bought one of my paintings so he brought me into their gallery. He wanted to have all of them sent to their gallery immediately because it was on season for them. I got all stressed out about that because I just joined their gallery. It all worked out really well.

37:44 They were selling really well for me. Yeah, he was. They were selling really well for me and it was it was. It was amazing to me that it's going to be something that somebody else wants. Just create something beautiful and everything else will fall into place.

38:27 It's like a shiny red button that everybody wants to push. Yeah, love that. So how does the pricing work? I mean, do they set the price of the piece? Do you say, hey, I'd like to get X for the piece, and is the percentage that they take a fixed amount, or is that negotiable as well? I'm sure it's negotiable. I haven't negotiated it. You know it's the industry standard, pretty standard. Yeah, it's a percentage. And you know, if I say, hey, you know what I want a higher percentage, well, you know they're also going to maybe not work so hard to sell a lot more than me trying to sell them out of the trunk of my car.

39:08 Sure, a lot more than me trying to sell them out of the trunk of my car. Sure, but starting out, that was sort of a difficult point for me trying to figure out all right, I'm putting X number of hours in and I need this much return and they're going to take this percentage, and oh yeah, I also have to pay the framer. Um, you know, and there's, there's a lot to put into that, but in the end, like, if I say, all right, I spend a week on this painting and that's all the amount of time I can do on that, but you get to the end of that week and you're like this needs more time, you can rush it, or you can spend more time, and when you spend more time, you can rush it, or you can spend more time, and when you spend more time, you're not.

39:57 Time is money and you're not making as much on each piece. But it's better to do a good job and have work that is, you know, worthy of having your name on it and something that will sell for sure, because somebody else just falls in love with it. Um, then, you know, just trying to push it through really quick and you know, I, I made more money because I spent you know a small amount of time on it. You know you gotta to do the. You got to do the job right For sure. Yeah, you know, you set me up nicely for my next question when you said your name on it.

40:40 One of the things I'm wondering is about the story of the artist and the story of the painter Meaning. Every time that I have gone into a gallery and I have looked at something, I've been told the story of the artist, and last Friday, when the three of us went in to see your work, the experience was the same. We learned about you, we learned about where you are and I'm kind of wondering, beyond the image, beyond what people see, how important is the story of the artist to the work that's put forward?

41:22 I don't. I'm not sure that my story is important. I rarely get to meet the collectors of my work. I rarely get to meet the collectors of my work and I often think that the work needs to stand on its own. When I see a painting and a place with a little plaque next to it describing the work, trying to tell the viewer exactly what the artist was trying to do, for me that's journalism. That's not art Got it.

42:03 Right or not painting actually, actually but I know that some of my collectors have seen things in my art that are totally different from what you know. My intentions were, you know. But that's okay. They still love it and still enjoy it. And you know the work is complicated, but for me, the thing that I'm almost always trying to get across is a sense of joy in the work. Some of my paintings have a bit of a sense of humor, some are a little more salacious or you know, edgy, you know.

42:50 Or you know edgy, you know, and. But the overriding theme is joy and fun, and you know inspiration and happiness. you know, john, what would you say, and since you've done, since you've been out in Arizona and New Mexico and here on the East Coast, what would you say are the biggest differences in the feel, of the vibe of the art scene in both places? The art scene in Santa Fe and Scottsdale. I mean, there's a lot of art galleries. They're just a much larger art community and I think that really it's sort of a system that drives itself.

43:36 People go to Santa Fe for the art it's a destination for, and Scottsdale too, they have the, the old town, scottsdale area that has the galleries and all the little fun things that people enjoy and it's it's something that's needed for a good art community. People don't always just go to one art gallery, they want to go to a bunch, especially the collectors and the artists that enjoy them. They, they, you know, they make a time of it, walk around, and I think it's wonderful.

44:18 It's something that's difficult to just create. You know you can't say all right, we want to group a bunch of different business owners that don't know each other together and make them all buy the same area of real estate and divide it up, and it's something that's difficult to create or recreate. So would you say that, let's say, in that part of the country, the Southwest, you're seeing more of an idea of art for art's sake, rather than, let's say, here in the East, where it might be more art for profit? Well, I mean art needs to have profit you know There'll be no more art.

45:04 Obviously it needs to sell, right that's obviously it needs to sell. I mean there's plenty of people out there that do it from their soul and everything like that, and you know if that's what you want to do, you know it's admirable because I know lots of artists that don't choose to sell their work. But I would say that it's not different. But the sort of the buyer end is different. So people out here they buy a lot more art. They've got big houses and big dreams and fill it with big art and I think that you know back east there's not as much um of that.

45:57 Now I do sell in New York and New Jersey and in places in the East coast and stuff like that, but the gallery scene, um, on the smaller scale is just a little less. I want to get into your process a little bit, but but before I we go there, I do want to ask the question, because you're touching on it Did you ever paint something with the full intent to sell it and said and this one's for me, I'm keeping this one. I'm not getting going to give that one, no, but I've? done the opposite, Okay Well you know okay uh, I have, I have a lot of paintings that I've done, like, uh, my, my wife or my daughter, you know, little portraits and things like that.

46:41 I did a painting of my dog, uh, uh, he used to eat bees and bugs and painting of him with a big bumblebee over his head and, uh, you, you know those are special to me, but you know it's funny because you know, I do this like a full-time job, you know, and when I come into the studio, I'm doing my work, you know, and when, when the day is over, I don't always have a lot of those side artistic projects. I've done them, I, I have a, I have plenty of them, but if somebody's ever interested in them, they're, they're all you know.

47:27 Talk to me it's available one of my uh, one of my sort of departures was a painting I did of myself coming out of the pool, like just a portrait of me coming out of the water. Like a Fast Times at Ridgemont High thing yeah. My Bo Derek moment, your Phoebe Cates moment, for the most part, when you're painting marbles and toys, you don't have to pay model fees and when you paint yourself you don't either. But you know that painting I was just in a different place in my head and my life and I was just like I just want to try and do this and I did it, four feet by five and a half feet, and I did it in one month and the gallery actually was interested in it, which is, you know, I always tell artists you know, be careful, what you're known for.

48:22 You might have to do that forever. Right. But they were totally fine with me doing something very different. And they almost sold it, but but the people didn't didn't buy it and then it's no. I entered it into a um water in the desert uh show at the phoenix sky harbor airport and it got in. So it was in the airport for a six month stay. And I had all my friends and even strangers going up and taking pictures of themselves with it. With your face. That's great.

49:04 Now it's in my living room, some sort of egomaniacal guy or anything like that, but we're just storing it there. You should make an 8x8 of it. Yeah. I'm not sure this mug really sells the work. But yeah, I do enjoy, you know, when I get the chance to do different works and I've done some other figure studies and portraits I love, I love painting people. I love, I love painting eyes, um to, because they're kind of like marbles, you know, shiny, glossy sort of things that you can make them look, you know, wonderful and and and real.

49:47 It's uh it's, it's, it's great for me. John, I have a quick question about the business while we're still in this realm, before we dig into your process a little bit. I've always wondered about the selling of prints, meaning you have an original work, you sell the original work. It has value as an original work. Value as an original work, um, and I'm kind of curious does creating a print of an original work, does that devalue something, or does it help create demand for the original work by generating awareness of the original work?

50:27 Yes to both. Okay, um, I I'm not sure that it devalues the work that much. I've had other artists, friends, and some stayed away from it for a long time and then got into it. Some have been doing it right along and just love it. Very often they'll sell a print to a collector and then that collector eventually comes back and buys an original. So that's wonderful. But, um, as for me, um, the, the investment and the prints and the process and the time I'm and I'm not, I don't like the sales and marketing part of my career as much.

51:12 I also had to say to myself that's not really fun for me. But on top of that it becomes a little redundant where I'm taking pictures of things to do a painting of the thing and then taking a picture of the painting and then taking that print right to make it look exactly like the painting, which is supposed to look, exactly like the photograph, exactly like the object it's. It gets it's a little. It departs from the intent of the work. I think that some prints, I think that most all prints, lack something that the vibrant, original oil paint has.

52:02 The pigment itself has a luster and luminosity that can't be easily recreated with the printing process. It's gotten better over the years, but nobody ever looked at a photograph and thought that was reality, but very often a well-done painting. People might go and try and pick some object off of a painting because it was a trompe l'oeil and it made them. You know. Take a second guess. Or a beautifully painted person that just looks like you could reach right in and touch.

52:42 You don't get that from the printing process. I guess part of what I'm wondering from a revenue standpoint and I'm the business guy here, so I can't help but think this way. I'm thinking in terms of volume. If you have an original that you can sell once, versus creating a thousand prints of that original, from a business standpoint is there an argument to be made that prints are worthwhile? I'm not the one to make that argument. Okay, fair enough. I would say that for me, it's easier to find one buyer than a thousand buyers. Okay, you know, I would certainly like a little extra revenue, but I also respect the maybe desire of the collector to own something exclusive.

53:37 That is only what there's only one of. And one of the things that I learned in college from my art teacher was people will always have this love of things made by hand. Yep, absolutely that's a good point. yeah, the paintings that people have of mine are, you know, painted by me by hand. So far I haven't gotten a robot yet. No, ai yet Not yet, no AI, no AI, yet Not yet no AI. I find it very intriguing, but you still see the AIs generating people with three arms by accident.

54:22 Nice. Let's talk about your process. Let's dig in here a little bit. Your painting has been described as meticulous. So I'm curious if you're meticulous in every aspect of your life, or does that only go to your painting and talk about also your materials. We know you paint on wood as opposed to canvas and I've been told that that's less forgiving. So just talk about your meticulousness and your materials and how you go about it. You kind of alluded Do you take a photo of the item and then try to paint the photo. How does that work? And if it's private, you don't need to tell us. By the way, Some people are private about their process, you know.

55:05 Yeah, so I do take a photo of the things that I paint and work from that for a couple of reasons, of the things that I paint and work from that for a couple of reasons, because very often my subject matter was marbles. They tend to roll around quite a bit. You know, just a slight bump of the table or setup or whatever can you know, sort of destroy that, um, and they're very sensitive to light. So, you know, as the sun goes through the the room, um, you know, as you can see, that, uh, you know, the light will change throughout the day and it changes the object. And I, I, I have, uh, I have some friends that do a setup, they paint from the setup, they look at that and they control all the lighting and everything like that.

55:54 But, yeah, for me, taking a photograph of it doesn't diminish the work and very often I'll still have this set up to refer to the marbles, the objects I can hold in my hand. Also, when I do take photography of the work, I can zoom into details that you know you can't do in real life. You know the eyes, as you get older, they need a little help. They do. So I kind of want to get into the notion of taking pictures of the work that you're doing.

56:35 So I'm going to say, obviously you take multiple pictures of stuff so that you can kind of maybe find the one that you really like. Has there ever been an instance where you took pictures of whether it be jacks or marbles, or actually the one I like to refer to as the one I think I saw with cellophane-wrapped mint candies and the Lifesavers? Three gummies, yeah, and the gummies which? was really cool Gummies are very difficult to photograph. surprisingly, I'm not surprised. Actually, has there ever been an instance where, let's say, you did bump a table, took a picture and said you know what? I think the way I just screwed things up actually is the better painting? what I think the way I just screw things up actually is, the better is the better painting, um, there is very often a level of randomness and and the work but the choosing of which random image is the best.

57:24 Design is where the art lies, and then taking that and translating that into a different image with different colors and values and things that you know. That's the process seeing what is best and what works. And yeah, I've taken hundreds and hundreds of photographs of a setup or still life and just scrapped them all and chose something else. Or, even worse, I've started some and then didn't like it and wiped the paint off the canvas and the board and started over with something totally different.

58:06 And you know, you try and just make the best decision at the time and go with it. I know early on, um, I had spent when I was spending about a week on a painting. I spent three weeks trying to just decide on a painting. Wow and it's just like I could have done. I should have just gone with the, the idea, let's just do it, and so that have done. I should have just gone with the idea, let's just do it. And so that's what I do now. You just go with the idea If you, if you, if you don't like it, you can wipe it off. If you want to do something else, well, that's your next one.

58:47 And you know it's, and it's sort of I often think of, like Mark Rothko. He did those large color field paintings, just a big sort of orange and red square, you know, all the way, just big color, and people would be so moved by the work when they stand in front of it. And I don't think that you know what I do as a realistic artist is that different? And subjects matter. You know people look oh, it's marbles, and they have a certain remembrance and attachment to marbles or not. But the color and design that you find in the photos and images that you take really dictate the mood and emotion that you get from the work.

59:39 And to go back to what Larry had asked earlier was I'm painting on panel board. It's a smoother surface than canvas and that's the primary reason Canvas does have a bit of a sort of give to it. When you put a brush on it it sort of bends a little. That's not necessarily discouraging from me doing the work, but I like the board that doesn't move and uh, yeah, I think it's very forgiving. It's very durable.

1:00:20 Um, the varnish issue is different because, uh, very often it's it doesn't spread the same way. Um, I I I sort of liken it between spreading butter on toast or no butter on pancakes. Compared to waffles. When you have a canvas it's like a waffle. Butter goes in each little but the pancake it just, you know it sort of slides off one side. So you got to have like a really level table and everything's really nice. Um and and, with these larger pieces that are so big, I I use a varnish uh spray uh system where it's a high velocity, low pressure sprayer, sort of like a car sprayer, because you just don't have the arm reach to get across eight feet.

1:01:13 And so those are my material choices and I'm sticking with it. I assume that's been an evolution right, Just trial and error. Continuing evolution. The early work I did I'd cut my own boards and then have them framed. The early work I did I'd cut my own boards and then have them framed. And then I was making the. As the canvases got larger, I'd have to put bracing on the back and so they wouldn't warp or bend. And then I went and had them. I tried to make it. So it was a gallery sort of display where it would be okay if it wasn't framed.

1:01:56 And that's where I am now. I have them done by a wood crafter. He makes the panels now and, yeah, they're awesome. They're like two inches deep on the side. You saw them in the New York gallery, some of them. And yeah, it's just an ongoing thing. And then I'm doing larger and larger works, which is also very exciting for me, you know, because I love the imposing image. It sort of takes up all your space and overwhelms the viewer in a way. Um, it really sort of makes you there.

1:02:37 Um and uh, I just ordered a panel that's, uh, six feet tall by 12 feet wide, wow, wow amazing fun. Um, how fortunate do you, do you feel, to be a selling artist? I mean most artists. You know that I thought of in my life. You know you're usually not appreciated until after you've gone, unfortunately, how fortunate, do you feel? Well, you know it's, it's. It's funny. Uh, a lot of people don't know contemporary artists. Um, you know they'll. They can name the top 10 favorite musicians and bands, but they can't name, like like one famous painter, that that's still alive, that everybody knows, you know john sheifer.

1:03:26 I know that now I know too, you know it's funny, like early on, when you're young, you think all you need to do is be famous and the money just comes in somehow. But I don't think that's necessarily the case, and now I think fame is something that can make life more difficult and you want to just have the nice career, that where you do what you do to to get the work done and and have good sales and and and good outreach. Um, I feel very fortunate on that.

1:04:07 No, not everybody can have this opportunity. Um, I still think that there's more work to do for my own career to make it better, but it's a great place to be in my life career-wise. I hope that there is some. You know you do all the work and you hope that there is some sort of acknowledgement of the. You know the vast quantity of your paintings hanging in homes around the country, you know, and the world.

1:04:47 It blows my work and it's remarkable, it's amazing to me. A couple of quickies for me. One in an average year. What would you say is the amount of work that you put out in an average year? Oh, wow, that is different from year to year. During the early 2020 season, I was going to do nothing but a series of small paintings and I started in and when the lockdown happened, I was like, okay, well, we'll just keep doing what we're doing, right?

1:05:38 And then I got a large commission, a very large commission, and, um, I would you know, I went right to work on that and I never got back to the small paintings. Um, but, like the one behind me, uh can take uh, between like three to four months. Wow, wow, four months is about the most that I spend on a work. Um, are you working on anything else while you're working on that, or just that? Just that Okay. Um, there there are some things that like, uh, like the painting I had before, I had to go and, you know, let the background dry.

1:06:19 So while I was working on that I went and did switch on a couple of days, but for the most part it's primarily one at a time and you know it's rare when I'm working on two or three simultaneously and you know you never have. When I'm working on two or three at the simultaneously and they're the, you know you never have the same amount of focus when when that happens. And then my other question. My other question is going to be obviously, um, you know, there are probably artists out there who admire your work. Who are the artists that you admire? Contemporary? I won't say like the Renoirs or the Picassos, I I mean, I think it's kind of obvious. So, like, who are the modern artists that you look at and say, you know what I would, I'll jump to whatever gallery he's in to check out his work um, well, uh, I still admire the, the professors that that taught me in college, uh, robert zappalardi and tim o'brien.

1:07:10 Um, uh, tim O'Brien, he did the, the uh, many covers of time magazine and and and amazing work, the. Uh, what is it? The hunger games posters? Um, and uh, you know, uh, in the gallery that I'm at, uh, there there's amazing artists that I love. Michael Carson does amazing figure work, diana Hessen does some amazing floral botanical paintings. And I don't, as an artist, I don't take a lot of art in like, if I go to a, a new city or whatever, I don't seek out the art galleries as much as I should, but I know, in museums I love the.

1:08:04 You know, I love looking at the old masters and you know the. My favorite period of time was probably the, the romantic, seeing all the figure work of like John Singer, sargent and stuff like that. You know, one of the things that I think is probably a huge benefit to you is how much time you get to spend with your family in this career path that you've chosen right. I would think you're home, you're with them, you are and and you're creating a legacy, right. I mean, it really is that important, and you have your work displayed on Museum Mile. I mean, this is pretty big stuff. I guess. My question is does your family know how cool you are?

1:08:51 No they don't my daughter. She loves going to the gallery with me. She loves it and she's like my dad is cool and I was very blessed to be able to be here and raise our daughter when, you know, my wife was still having to go off and do the do the job day job where you know, most people. they don't get to work from home, you know, and very often the kid goes right into daycare and then both parents go right back to work. So I was very blessed in that, you know. And if the art career ends and I got to go and get a job somewhere else, well, you know, I know that I have this wonderful experience that not everybody has, where they're there with their kid for their whole young life, and it's something that I wouldn't trade for anything.

1:09:44 But when they go to school, it's just me and the dogs all day long and it's isolating. I mean very's really isolating. I mean very, very isolating. I know artists that have stopped because of the isolation. It's just them all day long. I know that all of us artists that work from the studio on their own, they listen to podcasts all day, or audiobooks or music or TVs on, just to keep some sort of you know background noise to be in the world, you know Wow.

1:10:27 So, john, you know, with that said, and you know, after having heard your story and having and you know, after having heard your story and having, you know, experienced your journey, you clearly have a lot of wisdom to impart for young artists who are listening to this podcast right now. What advice do you have for them in terms of mental preparation, learning your craft, breaking into the business? You know what? What are some some general guidelines you might recommend to somebody? Well, I was pretty fortunate getting into the galleries that I did, um, and I know there's a lot of uh artists out there that are starting off worried about AI and computers taking over their business, and I would just say do the artwork that you love and make sure it's the best work you can do and be ready to sell it.

1:11:28 You know, bring the best examples of that to the place, the gallery, the institution, the location where you think it would fit, where you think your work would do well, where you might want to get a job, and don't be afraid to bring it. If they say no to you, it's all right. They're not going to remember when you reapply. Nice. And you know, I had actually sent a portfolio of abstract work to the gallery I'm in now while I was in Connecticut, and they said, no, wow, the gallery I'm in now while I was in Connecticut, and they said, no, wow, they didn't.

1:12:16 They didn't remember that when I walked in the door and showed them the stuff that I had brought, which was so very different, um, and there's, there's hundreds and hundreds of galleries, maybe thousands, throughout the, the country that you know, it's just like there's. There's opportunities. Um, you can, you can paint anywhere and sell anywhere else. Um, but I think it goes for whatever media you use. Um, you know, throw your resume out there to, you know, pixar, disney, wherever you're inspired to be. We asked this question with the gallery about.

1:12:58 You know, is there ever a point where you say that your painting is perfect, you're not going to touch it anymore? Have you ever had that experience, or are? your paintings always in process. I could probably paint on most of my paintings for months more, just trying to make them perfect. So it's never perfect. Right, but I get to this point where I was like I just don't want to work on it anymore. in science, you know, when you're with a painting, uh, for for months, um, you know it's, uh, you don't, you don't get sick of it, you don't get tired of it.

1:13:44 But there is a certain sense of completion and and a desire to move on to, to create something else, and, and very often with my work I paint sort of top to bottom, left to right, just so I don't run my hand through the paint, oh wow. But I do the work in a way that I don't know for me. I see the color and value at the top and you know it's going to match the bottom. I don't worry about sort of developing the whole piece at once.

1:14:26 So as I sort of pull the blind of the window down on the painting, it's you know. I get down to the bottom and it's done, you know. You know, very often I'll go and I'll, I'll paint the whole thing again, especially with the larger pieces that need a second pass. So it's sort of like I paint the painting twice, which is what went on with what happened right behind you. Well, as far as we're concerned, everything was perfect. We so greatly enjoyed seeing your work. I'm reading the business card right now to make sure I get it right the Bonner David Galleries in New York and also in Scottsdale, Arizona, if you want to see your work in person.

1:15:17 There you go. So yeah, and I post a lot of my work in process and Instagram and TikTok, sometimes YouTube shorts, and that's under my name, john Schieffer. Right. Well, john, you know this has been a remarkable conversation. You've taught me a tremendous amount over the course of the past hour or so and I'm incredibly grateful for that. And you know, thank you so much for giving us this lesson and spending time with us today. Oh, thank you very much again for having me. It's been wonderful. Well, larry Shea, first and foremost, thank you so much for bringing John to us.

1:15:58 That was a super fascinating guy, a subject that we haven't explored before and, as I mentioned going into this conversation, it's not my wheelhouse, so I just learned so much over the course of the past hour. Plus, tushar, what are your key? takeaways. You know we had a great conversation with him, but the real show happened after this show, when he took us on a literal tour of his house. He picked up his computer and walked us around the house and said, hey, check out this painting that I have in my house and check out this painting that I have in my house. I have in my house and check out this painting that I have in my house. You know, when we were talking with him and I probably should have brought it up during the interview itself was, you know, he strikes me as a big comic book guy because he started out as an animator.

1:16:41 Right, he was big and he was a big animator. Um, so I just made mention to him that, hey, you know, your art reminds me a great deal of one of my favorite comic book artists, a guy named Alex Ross, who does what I like to call a lot of like real life animation or, like you know, think about how Captain America would look in real life. These are the kind of paintings that he does. He doesn't really do drawings. His are more like real life paintings, which is very similar to what John does. So, you know, we actually got to vibe on that sense, which was really really cool. But the other thing I took away from that conversation was the notion of perfection, and john is a perfectionist in his art, but you know, perfection is something that's kind of unattainable most of the time.

1:17:25 So I actually enjoyed the fact where he talks about. You know what I have to just kind of get to a point with my painting where I have to say it's really really really close, at this point I just have to stop, or else he could be painting one picture forever and never get to that point where he stops. So I mean there's a lot, so much to take away from this conversation. Even being, like you know, just the idea of just being a, an artist who has to make a living off of what he does and having a family and you know, you know, essentially like just living in a community. What does that mean? Like you know it's. There was a lot to take away from this conversation. So so much. And honestly, we had a great time with the show, after the show, so to speak. So I mean, look, I hope we get to speak to John again in the future.

1:18:08 Yeah, it was great. I love how he said sometimes you just have to sign it and be done with it. Yeah, pretty much right. I took so much out of this. I mean the commitment that it takes to do this work. He talked about the isolation, a lot, that you're really just there for hours and hours and days and months, even on end, alone with your thoughts, and a lot of artists have even walked away because it's so isolating. I think he makes the joke that it's just me and the dogs man, you know, like hanging out, like that's tough, but yeah, there's so much to take from this. I mean he talks a lot about he knew that he just needed to make something wonderful, create something wonderful, and the rest will fall into place.

1:18:54 Going to the art gallery, sending stuff to the art gallery, being rejected, and then years later walking in and they had forgotten, they rejected him and all lo and behold, he's in the art gallery. You know there's just so much to take away from this. But he rarely meets the collectors of his work. He makes every painting basically to sell it, because this is what he does for a living. It's like going to your nine to five job. I mean I would think artists always have this personal thing like, oh, this one's for me. Basically, you know like, oh, I love that one too much to sell, like he doesn't have that favorite child. He's like talk to me, they're all available. Basically, you know, like I found that fascinating and then I'll just leave with this. You know he talks about bringing it.

1:19:34 Don't be afraid to dream big, submit to Disney, submit to Pixar, whatever it is that you think you can go after and conquer in the world. Go after it. Special kind of person that, just just listening to this interview, I'm fully inspired and we really appreciate him for his work and for who he is as a person too, because he really taught us all quite a bit. Look, if you're going to be an artist in this day and age, I don't know what it is. We've spoken to a lot of guys on this show and they all want to go into comic books. Maybe start out reading some comic books, or or or look at some of the artists and be inspired that way. This is another guy who was inspired by comic book art in many senses.

1:20:18 So I mean, look, it has to start somewhere, for for him it started out with animation and whatnot. And you know, we've obviously, look, we've had guys on the show who are, who have been inspired by comic books. I obviously am inspired by comic books. It maybe is a nice starting point absolutely that. there's our inspired by comic books. It maybe is a nice starting point. Absolutely, there's our pitch for comic books for those out there who are in love with the genre or need to be exposed. My final comment will be about the support of his family. We've talked to a lot of people who are connected to the entertainment industry in one way or another and it feels like for anyone to really make it or be successful I'm generalizing, but it's so common you have to have somebody behind you who's got your back, who's willing to prop you up a little bit, to give you the space you need to pursue your passion and pursue your love.

1:21:09 And fortunately for John, he was in a position and he had the help of his wife that enabled him to push through and to really make it and start to create some amazing stuff that I absolutely loved and we all did. And for everybody out there who might be curious, go to BonnerDavidcom to see John's work. See John's work. It's again remarkable. And if you're curious and you want to make a small investment, I think perhaps that's a way that you can uh, you can make that happen for yourself. And Google his name, because there's so much out there that isn't in Bono David that he's done. There's videos, there's all sorts of Instagram things of that nature. So just Google John Schieffer and like, you'll see a whole world of art pop up.

1:21:52 And make sure you have the wall space for it too. It's not small. Exactly, or get a huge. Manhattan apartment, I had to limit what I was looking at. So with that, john Schieffer, thank you so much for joining this episode of no Wrong Choices. We also thank you for joining us. If this episode made you think of an inspiring person in your life who could be a great guest, please send us a note via the contact page of our website at norongchoicescom. We also encourage you to connect with us on LinkedIn, instagram, YouTube, facebook X and Threads On behalf of Tushar Saxena, larry Shea and me, larry Samuels. Thank you again and always remember there are no wrong choices on the road to success, only opportunities, because we learn from every experience.