400: Born Cancelled with Sabin Howard
01:27:40 Share

Hello, friends. It's The Way I Heard It, and I'm Mike Rowe. And Chuck Klausmeier is once again with me right now, just a

A wash or a glow in the patina of that last conversation? I think that's a very good choice of words. A glow, I would say, in the patina. We were talking to someone who deals in bronze, and that can patina, can't it? See what I did? Yes, very good. Look what you did picking up on it. Yeah. I'm fascinated by the art world in all of its complexity, all of its nuance, all of its

weird commerce and all of the newness and the oldness and the tradition of it and the starving artists that are out there. It's just always been interesting to me, and I've always wanted to talk to a truly great artist, and I think I just did. I think that this guy, Saban Howard, who you're about to meet, has been described by lots of people as America's Michelangelo, and I think he is, man.

There's a lot of evidence to support that claim, I would say. Yeah. I mean, we won't know it probably for centuries hence, because that's kind of the way great art is. But I think in some cases you can just leap ahead and make the assumption. What this guy has done, Saban Howard...

is create what is probably going to be embraced as one of the most impressive bronze monuments in the world. It is going to appear in mid-September on the National Mall. It's a commemoration of the First World War. It's called "A Soldier's Journey."

And to say it's ambitious is to wildly understate the facts. 38 separate sculptures, I believe, that are all next to one another, spanning 60 feet. I think it's slightly larger than life size, if I recall. And in this episode, you mentioned his thumbs, or he brings up his thumbs. Both of his thumbs at the first joint are...

are the size of like... It ain't where it's supposed to be. It's just a giant knuckle on both of his thumbs from sculpting, and it's pretty impressive. He's a storyteller, too. Yes, he is, and he's, you know, I kind of called him a filmmaker at one point because he said something that made me think

of the way he approaches art in a very similar way to the way a filmmaker would come at a project. And he interrupted me to say, you're exactly right. I made a film in bronze. Which, by the way, is the honorable mention to the title of this episode. There were a couple of good ones I also love, In the Trenches. His wife Tracy came along with him, and we gotta have her back, man. She's super interesting. Well, she's making a movie, a documentary about...

the creation of this piece of work of art. And yeah, we'll have her back to talk about that when we can. It's been like nine years in the works and it's been a global endeavor. He's been all over the place. The forge is over in the UK. And of course the final resting place for the monument is going to be right in front of the Willard Hotel, about 150 yards or so from the White House. Yeah.

It's just amazing. And because it's a World War I monument, we were also going to call this one In the Trenches, because that's where Saban and his wife have been for the better part of the last decade. But toward the end of our conversation, he said to me, Mike, I was born canceled. And you'll see why. This guy, like any great artist, he's got no governor. His only allegiance is to the truth.

He sees the world in a very specific way. He won the right to do this work in a competition that went on for years and was one of over 300 teams competing for this. He won it.

And now he put the ball through the hoop. Yeah. And now it's time to start paying attention because what he's done is extraordinary. You're going to love him. Saban Howard is his name. Bronze is his medium. Art is his game. And lest there be any ambiguity whatsoever, know this. He was born canceled. And he'll prove it right after this. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do

There's an easy way to cut your wireless bill in half every single month, and that way is this. Switch to Pure Talk today. Aside from paying just $25 a month for unlimited talk, unlimited text, and mobile hotspots, you don't have to sign a stupid contract with Pure Talk or pay for a bunch of data that you'll never use. Here's the thing. Verizon and AT&T and T-Mobile, they all want you to believe that you need unlimited data, but do you?

I mean, does anybody? Of course not. And yet millions of people are paying for it. Don't be like those people. With Pure Talk, you get five gigs of data. That's enough to browse the internet for 135 hours or stream over a thousand songs or watch 10 hours of video. And the best part about not needing a contract is knowing that Pure Talk is so confident in their service that they don't need you to make a long-term commitment.

They're happy to earn your business every single month. And they will, because Pure Talk gives you everything you need and nothing you don't. That means unlimited talk on the most reliable 5G coverage available at puretalk.com slash row. No contract.

No activation fee. You can even keep your current phone and your current number. Save 50% off your first month when you go to puretalk.com slash row and switch to Pure Talk today. That's 50% off your first month when you go to puretalk.com slash row. So let's start with, what's the acronym? The American Cultural Renaissance. Yes. What is it and why do you give a damn?

I grew up in Italy as a kid, and so I was really hit by the visual splendor. And then I was also in the U.S., in New York City during the Vietnam War. And that's my hard drive. That's my mental hard drive. Think outside the box, don't believe the man, and make something really beautiful with your hands. So skepticism and beauty combined. Yes, yes.

Is that the artist's way? And is this a sensible place to start this conversation? The condition of art in America? It's global. We have a shit show on our hands right now that you have art that has been usurped by governments and politics. And it's no place for that kind of stuff. This is my opinion. I believe art is sacred and it goes all the way back to prehistoric times and

You look at the Lascaux cave paintings. Those people hunted and painted animals on those caves to survive. It was part about seeing the light of the next day. And okay, we don't have to do that today. We don't have to go hunt for our food, but we do have to have a reason for being. So there's a practicality in art. Yes. What about...

And sorry to just dive in so deep right away, but this is a topic that is really important to me because art with a capital A tends, in my mind anyway, to be the stuff we see on walls, in museums, very deliberate, intentional things. But the artist's way and artistry, whether it exists in a metal shop or a wood shop,

That's really why I wanted to talk to you. Our passion at MicroWorks is kind of a combination of work ethic and craftsmanship. Yeah. And as a sculptor, it seems to me that you occupy something really adjacent to those things. Yes. I believe it's critical to make art with your hands, your head, and your heart. And I believe that most people who do not have an invested interest in art are...

very knowledgeable about what art is. If you ask a regular person on the street, is that a piece of art or is that not a piece of art? They know right away if it is. And they might say, I don't know, because we've been kind of brainwashed into thinking that you have to read a book to understand what's in front of you. It's not true. We know instinctively as human beings what art is. And by extension, what it's not. Exactly. But...

Is that the reason you're talking about the need for a renaissance? Yes. Is the line getting crooked or blurry? Have we been misled? Are we just confused? And has the universal...

There's got to be something, I hesitate to say divine, but there has to be something universally shared, it would seem, for the masses to come together and agree, yeah, the Mona Lisa is different from that caricature guy on the side of the street. You make a really important point. We were just in Rome last week, and I waited in St. Peter's Square to get into the Basilica for an hour in the afternoon.

That tells me a lot. General populace is going to wait in line to go look at stuff that is historically proven to be art. And that is what my mission is. I am in lineage to that stuff and I'm going to play it forward. And I'm going to take all those values about how that was crafted, the aesthetics, the form, the philosophy, and I'm going to play it forward. Not archaeologically, but in a way that is contemporary.

Are you familiar with a guy came out of the Cobra movement? Would have been in the 20s or 30s, I guess. Appel. Carl Appel? Yeah. So I met him maybe 15 years ago, and he was in his 90s then. I knew his assistant in New York. He took me into the lobby of the IBM building of all places where one of his sculptures had been commissioned.

And that was the first time, Saban, it really struck me that you could take something. And by the way, it was art. I knew it at a glance and I'm a dilettante. But I could see it. It was magnificent. And there it was, not in a museum, but in this lobby. Yeah. And people were standing around and looking at it. Yeah. And they all had that same kind of slack-jawed look. They weren't quite sure what they were seeing. Yeah.

But it was undeniably beautiful. And the fact that it was not in the Louvre. Yes. Right? Yes. That to me is like this weird sort of real estate that art needs to occupy again somehow. Absolutely. I made a project that's 60 feet long.

weighs 25 tons and it's got 38 figures and any eighth grader from any place in the world, if they see it, will get the story. If they look at it and they walk along and that's exactly what you're saying. It's like instinctively, it's in our DNA to know what is sacred, what is art. And I think it has been usurped probably really ironically

At the moment that World War I

happens, 22 million people get decimated, why the hell would you think that a divine order is there? And you lose that. You lose that sense of unity, of connectivity in the universe, and all of a sudden, we're thrown into this modern era. And the modern era begins with pieces of art like the urinal by Duchamp. But we're 104 years later,

And it's like, okay, enough is enough. It's redundant. You guys are getting boring. Get out of the way. The next wave, the next tsunami is going to hit the beach. And it's all about beauty and about humanity. And we need that right now. We really need that because we're in a global battle between the elites, the government,

The people it's not about parties political parties It's about we the people versus the elites and that's what I stand for I stand for an art that is for the people not for other issues What role do you think art might have in reuniting a fractured country? It's not a fool's errand This is not a fool's errand at all. I

Art, culturally, let's go back historically. Let's go look at places like Florence in the Renaissance, 1550. The David, the David was made by Michelangelo. It is still revered as one of the best pieces of figurative art today, 550 years later. And that piece was made to represent the citizens of Florence. They were fighting against the other city-state Pisa. And this sculpture was made

significant piece to represent who they were and so you make art to show people what can be because it's not real it's an abstraction from reality it's made from the real world but it's in the art realm and the art realm can be something that will drive and dictate what is possible

How you can rise to the occasion. That's my statement for today. Rising to the occasion. That's what my mission is in my dharma as an artist. I can't make crap because nobody will give a crap. And that's what's happened to the art world. Well, speaking of crap, go back real quick to the urinal, Duchamp. Yeah. What is that? How did it happen? Why did it happen? Duchamp was this French guy. Okay, so let's look at it historically. Not to be didactic here, but you got all these philosophers that come up.

Camus and Sartre. They're nihilists. They say there is no more God. There's no higher force. There's no higher power that is driving us. Our existence as human beings is on our shoulders. Each and every one of us individually is responsible for where we are going to go in our life.

So he says, as an artist, I'm going to say what is art. And because I'm an artist, this statement makes it art. So I'm going to, and here's the irony. How convenient. He's making fun of you. He's making fun of his audience. And there's an irony here. And that urinal which says R Mutt on it, it's like in black letters, that's his statement that this urinal is art.

Okay, so we've been doing that for 104 years and I'm saying enough is enough. So do you think that it was the First World War that ushered in this postmodern age of irony, that kind of self-awareness? In my world, I think of sitcoms. Yes. I think of a time when sitcoms

always had a lesson. There were little morality plays, right, where the kid would maybe learn as a result of a series of hysterical encounters that it was wrong, you know, to watch people undress or, you know, steal a bike or something. And then...

which I enjoyed immensely and many, many other shows, it all became self-referential and ironic. And I wonder if there's some weird link between that and say Duchamp, but also Serrano, the inverted crucifix in the Beaker of Urine. So all of a sudden, to go back to where we started, is it any wonder people are confused? What you're talking about, I think, is art becomes insular so that it's art about art.

Art for art's sake. Yeah. I'm saying no. Art is for, I'm going to say it again, we the people because it's supposed to help people come together under an umbrella. And the other umbrella that people have historically is history. History and art are the unifying factor for nations and groups of people. And if you do not have

a way of playing forward history and tradition, both culturally and societally, then you do not have a unifying element that keeps things together. And it is a way to destroy a country or an artistic movement if you wipe out the past. If you throw out, like what the modernists are saying, the baby with the bathwater, you just chuck it. You chuck it all out and you say, "We're starting fresh because it's all irrelevant, it's all archaeological."

then you can rewrite that history. What does that sound like to me? That's what we're doing. Is this why it was so appalling when Hitler plundered so much of the art from all over the world, really? Yeah.

I don't know if people know this, that Hitler actually raided all of Europe. Now, he was an evil dictator bastard, that's no doubt. But the guy was smart because he went after the gold of each of those countries. It was their treasure trove. It was their treasure. That was what he went after. He went after their treasure. It was their cultural identity of those countries. I get goosebumps thinking about this because those pieces...

Like, did you know there's a giant sculpture? I think it's 12 feet high, the Nike at the Louvre. So I read this book about how at night they had to take that down the stairs and the wings are like shaking and that thing could have broken apart. Sorry. That stuff is really valuable to me. Sure. That is what I live for. That's my God is the art.

that preceded me. And that's what I'm tied to. What does it make you feel like to be called the American Michelangelo?

That's an odd one because he's kind of my hero. Exactly. So it's like... I mean, no pressure, dude. No. But we're all counting on you to save the country. I'm like not... I'm pretty humble because everything I make, I don't feel like I hit my mark. I always come in short of where I see it. I'm never hitting my ceiling. I give it my all, but I never hit my mark. I want to get back in process because...

okay i screwed that one up let's go on the next one so i can do better it's like i'm always trying to grow to the next level there's no way i'm michelangelo it's like but it is worth saying at the risk of being terribly clever that michelangelo did hit his ceiling thank you thank you everyone you know what and since you brought that up i just want to interject because i just heard this that he's reaching to david is that right uh and that god adam adam sorry he's reaching to adam and

God's finger is stretched as far as it possibly can be, but Adam's finger is kind of bent. It's like Adam needs to... Go a little further. Go a little further to come to God. I just saw this and I was like, wow, I was blown away by that. It's also phone home, E.T. Where do you think that came from? Yeah.

It's connect with God. Right. That's where he got it from. I know he did. It's like the references. See what the references are. They're so huge. You don't want to throw that out. It's our history. I wrote a book a few years ago. It's not very good. It was well-intended. It's called Profoundly Disconnected. It's my take on how I became disconnected.

from a great many things that I care a lot about. And as a kid, grew up right in front of me, where my food came from, where my energy comes from, an appreciation for our shared history and so forth. We got older, and society kind of wrings that out of us, right? And pretty soon we flip the switch and the lights come on and who cares? And we flush the toilet and shit goes away, big deal, right? And so we just become well disconnected from all of that. And so...

Yeah, that's the other reason I wanted to talk to you. It's huge. Well, art and history, to your point, occupy a lot of the same Venn diagrams to the point where they're often hyphenated now. And so before we really get into this monument that you've created around the First World War, because that's really where we're headed with this. I got so many questions about all of it. But when, Sabin, did you know? Or did you know you were an artist before you believed in...

You could become one. It's a really funny story. I was a lit major. Yeah, exactly. With respect. Yeah, exactly. And then I drop out and I go to Philly and I get a job in Camden at a furniture restoration place, get dropped out after six weeks. It was a Jimmy Carter recession. And then I got a job in South Philly.

And it's like, show up Monday, I'm getting paid $2.45 an hour. And I'm putting wood into a 50-gallon oil drum to keep the room warm. And I'm going through the grades of the sandpaper to take down and make the wood sparkle. And by Thursday, I'm like, holy shit, I can't keep doing this. I got a brain. This is nowheresville. And bear in mind, both my parents are PhDs.

I had rebelled, but now it was like, okay, this is reality. And I would go to my boss and I say, listen, I can't do this. I'm sorry. Thank you for hiring me. He says, how are you going to be a cabinet maker? And I said, it's just not for me. I was like, I'm sorry, I can't do this. And he goes, well, I'm not going to pay you. And I said, F you. And I walked out the door. And that was the moment. It was four o'clock on October 22nd, 1982. I made two phone calls. I called my dad on a pay phone. I called him collect because I had one quarter in my pocket. Okay.

And I said, Dad, I'm going to go to art school. That was the moment. And he goes, how long is this going to last? And then I make another phone call. It gets better. I make the next phone call to Philadelphia College of Art. And I ask for the admissions department. And they patch me through. And this lady comes on the phone. And she says, how can I help you, sir? And I was like, well, I'd like to go to art school. And she says, well, do you have a portfolio? And I said, what is a portfolio? Yeah.

I'm starting at zero. I go over there and she talks to me and she told me to get a book called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. And I went and got it. I got a construction job working, I think it was six to three or four. I get home by five, I'm drawing and I draw from five till eight. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. It was like a cripple trying to walk. And I started there. And then

I started buying books about Leonardo, looking at, I want to make art like this, because I thought there were three artists. I thought it was Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo. I didn't know there was this modern art crap. It's crap. It's total crap. It's Emperor's New Clothes. Oh, I love that. I got this book, and I started doing the exercise. I go back in 90 days. I had 90 drawings.

I'm a stubborn son of a bitch. And I was like, here are my drawings. And she goes, she starts going through them and she pulls out 10. She goes, you're going to get in. I said, how do you know I'm going to get in? And she goes, I'm the admissions director. That was the moment. But it was like, I started at the very beginning. I was like, I want to make it like what I saw when I was a kid. And I got dragged around to all the like cultural sites in Europe. And so that was my reference. Yeah.

So was she the admissions director? Was that the first affirmative encouragement? Yes, because my dad would never get me art lessons. He was like, no, I'm not paying for that. What was his PhD in? He was Latin American history. Yeah, that's a real good one. Let's not go down that road, please. You said you were born in Italy? I was born in New York City, and then at three months, we went back to Italy.

And my mother still has a green card. And my dad stayed there with her teaching English in Milan. And my grandparents raised me. They did not speak English.

And my grandfather was an engineer in Torino, and he was in World War II. It's a fascinating story of how he was a POW. So that, from my earliest recollections as a kid, he used to tell me stories about war. Yeah. I was really fascinated by that. I mean, that's a whole other podcast in itself. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-dum!

A few hours ago on my morning ruck, I sweated through my favorite hoodie and threw it into the washing machine for maybe the 500th time in its long and extraordinary life. And I'm not exaggerating. I've had my American Giant hoodie for over 14 years. I've worn it multiple times every month ever since, and I can't wreck the thing. It is literally indestructible, I think. And

And believe me, I've put it through its paces. From sewers, septic tanks, and coal mines, and crematoriums. This American giant hoodie, the hoodie recognized broadly as the greatest hoodie ever made, has endured dozens of dirty jobs in all 50 states, and today,

I'm telling you, it's as comfortable as it is indestructible. And the reason is simple. American Giant doesn't skimp on quality. And they don't take shortcuts. What they do is grow their own cotton here in the United States. They hire their own people. And they personally handle every link in their own supply chain themselves.

That matters, because when you buy American Giant, you not only get great quality, you create jobs for people in factory towns all over the country. No pressure, folks, but if you give a damn about the business of making things in America, you've got to support the companies who are doing it right.

Get 20% off when you use promo code Mike at American-Giant.com slash Mike. Get yourself an indestructible sweatshirt or some t-shirts or blue jeans and all the normal stuff at American-Giant.com slash Mike. Save 20% with promo code Mike. American Giant, American made. American Giant, American made. You're right, and that's the risk of a conversation like this.

It's so big. Yes. And it's so consequential. Yes. And I guess maybe it's a little ironic in the sense that when the ideas become so large, I mean, we're talking about the history of a country. Yes. We're talking about the direction of a species. You've already alluded to some of the earliest bits of art

cave dwellings. Yeah. You know, that attempt to capture the world that you're in at the time. Yeah. So maybe somewhere down the road, somebody can look at this thing and go, oh, that was happening. Isn't that really what you're doing now on steroids? Yeah. With this 60-foot...

Just I mean, it's so big. Is there anything out there that's comparable? There is nothing like what I have done and I'm to interject another element into this. What is our subject matter? It's soldiers. So this is a whole nother veterans, a whole nother shit show to discuss. I use veterans as models.

And so, I mean, if you have an umbrella over this conversation today, my conversation with you is about what does it mean to be human?

Yeah, it is ironic at this moment because we are being like assaulted on a daily basis by technology. And we are being told that technology will make your life better. Honestly, I do not believe that anymore. I believe that you want to have the physical struggle of your humanness, which is your physicality. And as an artist, making something this big

I mean, if you look at my thumb, I mean, do you know? Yeah. Yeah. It's like, this is from being out there doing this billions of times and using, like I said in the beginning, my, my mind is educated in how to perceive reality because I got an incredible education that is not available to kids anymore. The education came from a man who,

Out of Germany. He was a Jew whose whole family had been decimated by the Nazis. And he's the only one who made it to our shores. He was the darling of the Whitney. His name is Walter Ehrlbacher. He's now dead. He died of lung cancer because he smoked too much. And he...

was working as an artist in Brooklyn, teaching at Pratt, and he's making art, and it's going in the Whitney Museum. Now, this guy goes one day, "I really like this figurative stuff. I'm going to go do the figurative stuff." As soon as he started doing that, the Whitney dropped him like a hot potato.

didn't fit the art narrative. And then he starts looking at Polaiolo, who's like an anatomy person just before Leonardo. And he looks at Leonardo's notebooks and all these other books that have anatomical constructions of how to break the body down into masses. So you're looking at the skeleton through a mass system.

how they're tilted in all how it's in relation to each other It's one unit to figure and then there's an armature that is proportional to the skeleton and articulated like a skeleton That's what he came up with and he's teaching this stuff. Is this related in some way to Da Vinci's Vitruvian? Yeah, very much. That's what he's looking at. It's like seven and a half heads if you stack seven and a half heads and

from the ground up, that is the proportions of a human being. Everything then is measured in a head measurement. So like a rib cage, the width, the depth, and the length is all head measurements, so you have masses. And then you tilt these things in space,

And you're looking at the model. And so he taught me how to look at the life model and then deduce what I'm looking at on scientific terms and translate that into like geometric solids. Now, is it possible that your dad's engineering background. My grandfather. Your grandfather was an engineer. Yeah. That's somehow in the DNA. 100%.

That's 100% there in the DNA. How to build things. How to put them together. So what I'm telling you is art is not only about concept, it's also about making something with your hands.

I'm going back to what you said, this piece, is there anything else like it? And I'm saying, no, there's not anything else like that because what's happened is, yes, they do make really big sculptures, but most of the tools to make them are digital and computer photography, things that are technology-driven and database. So when you look at your world, your reality, you're using technology to translate it into artistic terms. I'm saying no.

Wrong turn. You went down the wrong alley. You got to look at your reality. Your perception of reality is driven by your education. And that education that I got from that guy, Walter Obacher, is the way that I translate things into the sculpture. And it's got my fingerprint. It's got the human fingerprint because it's using my...

Mind to do it. It's not a machine doing the translation. You can actually see your fingerprints in the weight of sacrifice Yeah, well, that's we changed the title to a soldier's journey. Why I came into the project with Joe Joe is a pretty cool kid He's 25 years old. I won the projects the blind competition with the white Weishardt Joseph Weishardt out of Arkansas architect in training doesn't even have a license and

We won it for two reasons. This is a national memorial project. It's a global competition, 360 teams enter, and then we win in January of 2016. Big day. Holy shit. Oh, my God. I mean, big day. Yeah. I'm sitting in a car with Tracy, and she's like, whoo, you won. And I'm like, Tracy's my wife. And she's here, by the way. Hi, Tracy. Hi, Tracy.

She's over on the sofa watching right now. And I did this. I did... Holy shit. What have I done? That's what I did that moment. When you won. When I won. Because I knew what I was going to get into. I knew how bad it was going to be. It was like, you wanted to see what your potential is. Now you're going to see what your potential is. Do you think...

Forgive me, because there's no way you can know, but was there a moment in the agony and the ecstasy? Did Michelangelo's sphincter slam shut when he accepted the commission to paint the Sistine Chapel? Like, did... Oh, yeah. Right? 100%. And is that an artistic...

He's standing right here and laughing. He's right here and he's laughing. And he's five foot two. And he's like, that guy gets me. You just said exactly the way he felt. He didn't know how to do it. He didn't know how to paint frescoes. So he got all these guys to come help him. And then one day he decides they're screwing it up. I'm going to go by myself. He locked them out and they kept knocking on the door. He wouldn't let them in to the Sistine Chapel. He was five two? Yeah. Yeah.

So he wasn't Charlton Heston? No. Unbelievable. No. This changes everything. Yeah. It's like the guy, but it's not how big you are. It's like his energy was eight feet. Explain to people, and again, sorry for the digressions, but I think it's important since you made the point that the physicality in what you do is

is top of mind. What was really required of Michelangelo to do what he did from a physical standpoint in the Sistine Chapel? So let's look at this first of like, because it's not the physical act so much. If you are

You know David Goggins, right? He says, what goes first? Goggins, by the way, didn't he break every record for endurance? Running is insane. So he says that the mind is the first thing that fails.

It's not your body, it's your mind. And if your mind is going, your body will follow. You can beat the hell out of your body. It's your mind that... And so that's the challenge on a project like that he had. He had to design it. He had to draw out all those figures. And the creativity is off the charts. It's incomprehensible. It's not human. And so it's not the physical act of painting that is so challenging. That is part of it. But if you know where you're going...

then you have a chance if you don't know where you're going and that's the way I think he felt when he began he was like I just did this flood painting in the beginning and it sucks that's what I think he was thinking and because the preceding paintings as you go along that

ceiling are completely different the figures get larger more dynamic more kinetic energy they're visceral whereas the beginning is more like what the people that were his peers were doing in florence so he kind of like busts a giant move on that wall after his sphincter had relaxed and all of a sudden it's like he was able to shine because the fear fell away

How accurate is it to say that most artists who begin their work, whether it's on a canvas or a giant wall or in clay and bronze ultimately, know exactly what it's going to look like before they begin? A project of this scale...

Sistine Chapel. I'm not comparing myself to him with the World War I Memorial Soldier's Journey, but a project of this magnitude, an epic scale, requires a lot of planning. And I was very, very lucky to

I was given nine months. I did 25 iterations, took 12,000 images of different poses, and I built that through that nine-month period. Okay, 12,000 images of different poses, so you hire all these veterans. Some were veterans, but they came more at the end of the sculpting process. These were college kids out of Brooklyn. They were actors.

So that was very different models in the beginning than at the end when I used the veterans. Okay. Just so I can anchor this in the listener's mind a little more, please describe what these 38 figures are doing and how the soldier's journey evolves. Because honestly, the more I listen to you talk, the more I wonder if maybe I introduced you all wrong. I mean, you sound like a filmmaker who's working in bronze. I am. That's exactly what I did.

I made a movie in bronze because when I got the mission, I won the project, I got the mission, I was asked to make something that will make people excited about what World War I was and want to know more about it. So what is the most important art of our times? To me, it's not the film of today because that's garbage. It's the film like Terminator, Titanic,

Or, you know, Russell Crowe's movie. What is it? Gladiator. Gladiator. That's what I think. And then you have a whole history prior to that. His film was art once.

And people are absorbed by story because it's a sense of connection. Catharsis, you get to connect with the people on screen, those characters. And so you're transported to a different place and it drives your mind. That's what art does. And that's why that is the most important art of our times. That's my value judgment.

I said, "Okay, I'm going to make a thing that shows the story of World War I in a way that everybody can get it, no matter where they're from, or how old they are, or how much education they have. It doesn't matter. It's for everybody. It's a universal story." So I'm doing this iteration stuff, taking pictures, and then blending them on Photoshop into a tableau. And the tableaus in the beginning were so confused. It's on-the-job training for me. I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

I've never done this before. There's no book to go by, you know, dummies, memorial making. Yeah, memorial making for dummies. Yeah, it doesn't exist. So I'm going back to history. I'm going back to my predecessors to look at them to see what they did. And I'm going to know, okay, I see what Michelangelo did. I'm going to do that. But he wasn't as good at that. Raphael was better at it. And then Ghiberti, bronze doors in Florence. I'm looking at history.

So I pull these actors together and I'm shooting all with my cell phone and all of a sudden I'm realizing, no, you can't do what you did. You got to make it more active. So I have them act it out. I tell the guys on my plinth, which is the modeling stand, elevate it a little bit with lighting above so it looks very dramatic in 3D. Okay, this is what you're doing. I'm going to take an example. The middle figure in the whole composition is this guy leading a charge.

"You are now leading this charge and you're calling your men forward." So he would act out the whole thing in slow motion and I'd push the burst thing on my cell phone and I'd capture 12 shots and then I would find the one shot that would tell the story of where he was,

where he had been, where he was, and where he was going. So it's already activated because you're capturing a moment in a physical movement. It's so kinetic. Yeah, but that's the thing that makes this so modern. I had to learn how to do that because the guy who hired me, Edwin Fountain from Centennial Commission, said, your stuff is boring. And I was like, damn, he's right. You got to make it more movement-oriented. It's good because he told me

What was wrong with my work? I hated it. You know, I'm going back and forth to Washington from New York, getting slammed at every meeting by a group of lawyers. And they're all coming at you and telling you what to do. And then I went home one day and I look in my bathroom and there's the last judgment by Michelangelo. And it's like, yeah, do what you know. That's what he did. Advancing and receding figures, all pretzeled together in space. Sorry, but the last judgment is in your bathroom? Yeah, the poster of it. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Not the original. No, not the original. I wish. Yeah. Maybe another place besides the bathroom. Oh, yeah. That was some heavy reading. Yeah. But that was like the thing. And so I made this thing. It's 38 figures. And it's the hero's journey. Tracy was like, you're doing a hero's journey. I was like, oh, what's that? And then she informed me. She's a novelist. So she told me, you're doing storytelling.

And the story that you're telling is something that is culturally relevant to all places on the planet through all of history. And there's not one person on the planet that would not actually understand it. It is our story. The hero's journey is the story of us. Very quick, person leaves home, enters into a conflict, is transformed, returns home, passes that information back to society.

the people at home. That is what a soldier's journey is. So I took that and told that story through a father and a dad, ultimately an allegory for the United States. And that guy passes through this voyage, which is World War I. How is it possible that we don't have a monument like this already on our National Mall to this war, which was...

what they call it, the war to end all wars. The Great War was the first one, yeah. I know the Korean War is the forgotten war, but we remember that one. Yeah. There's a monument there. This is long overdue, is my point. Yeah. Yeah. The United States loses only 116,516 men and women. Europe loses between 20 and 22 million. So for us, it's a punch on the nose. Yeah. And then Korea

What happens in the US, Great Depression, the Serps World War I and World War II, the Serps World War I. We are involved in World War II in a way that's huge. All in. Yeah. Both fronts. Yes. Fully involved. Right. But here's the big but. World War I is the marker. If you have to make a marker in the sand that changed the planet...

It transformed the whole planet to a different way of being. And it has a lot to do with how we see ourselves as human beings. We are on the doorstep of World War III right now. You could say we are in World War III right now. You could argue it. You could say both ways. But if we continue, we will make another war that is very similar to the two previous wars. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-

When I'm feeling cheap and working in Los Angeles, I'll sometimes stay at Chuck's place instead of a hotel. I used to crash there all the time, but I stopped for a while because Chuck's guest bedroom didn't have any blinds, and the sun came beaming in every morning at 6 a.m., and I got sick of it. But then, shortly after three-day blinds became a sponsor of this podcast, Chuck took advantage of their buy one, get 50% off deal, and now...

His guest bedroom is like a cool, subterranean lair where a man can sleep uninterrupted for hours on end, long after sunrise.

I've been bragging about three-day blinds ever since, and I'm about to do so again because three-day blinds has everything from motorized blinds to home automation to simple room darkening solutions or child safety innovations. With three-day blinds, you can choose from literally thousands of options that fit any budget or any style with actual samples that...

won't leave you guessing about what your blinds might look like after you get them installed. In other words, these guys are the real deal. 3-Day Blinds has been in business for over 45 years. They're the highest rated blinds.

on Trustpilot with 4.7 out of 5 stars. And right now you can get 3-Day Blinds. Buy one, get one 50% off deal. Custom blinds, shades, shutters, and drapes for a free, no charge, no obligation consultation. Just go to Chuck's Pad and spend the night. No, don't do that. But do what Chuck did. Go to 3dayblinds.com slash row.

where you can buy one and get one 50% off. One last time, that's the number three, dayblinds.com slash row. Three-day blinds, shades and drapes, shutters too, custom made. I told you once and I told you twice, you buy when you get one for half the price. You've never seen such a deal in your life as Three-Day Blinds.

It must be a very strange duality for you, though. You've just spent the last seven years, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you kind of have to live in the past to create the totality of what you've just done. And so it must be strange to come out of that, to be bringing these figures together

to life and to be completely immersed in the history of it all and then pick up today's paper and look at today's headlines. And when you do that as an artist, are you looking for parallels and juxtapositions or are they just so self-evident you can not see them? I think they're so self-evident that you cannot avoid but start to pay attention.

Everyone I speak to is in this, like, I can't believe this is the way our world has changed. When I made the sculpture, I was isolated, completely extracted from society and culture. I would go bike to work, do my work all day, bike home, see Tracy, nobody else. On weekends, we would go to my house in the woods. Nothing to do with society, completely taken out from society.

And then now I finished the sculpture in January, sculpting it. And it's like I was in this car going 90 miles an hour and the car stopped and my head slammed against the windshield. So I sat down and I wrote a book of 750 pages about what it meant to be an artist today and making this memorial. And now... What's that book called?

I don't know yet. I have to give it a title. Do you know any novelists in your life? In the Trenches. Are we calling it that? Not bad. The point is, I'm here with you today and I'm talking to the public. I'm talking to you. I have been in hiding while I was sculpting and now I'm out. I'm out and I'm talking about

this sculpture because it needs to be presented to the world and I need to make another one you know it's like we got to keep rolling forward even if something catastrophic happens you can't stop and just disappear and die you have to fight who said that who was like fight fight fight it's like that guy's got the right attitude it's like let's go it's like what brings people together is

And if this tragedy strikes, it'll make the world change in a positive way. That's my prediction. I had no idea we were going to have this conversation. Sorry. No, it's good. I'm an educated artist. I like this guy. This guy's good. Well, you know, I mean, it's David Farragut, famous writer.

Naval commander said, I think the great quote was, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. Yes, that's right. Right? Right. I thought of that when I heard Fight, Fight, Fight. Yeah. A couple weeks ago. Right. But I didn't immediately think of any artistry. I should have, perhaps, because I was just at the National Mall filming this project that we were up to our neck in, looking, and this is a terrible story because I can't tell you what it was called, but...

Somewhere near I think there's a statue of Grant. There's this unbelievable Horse a series of horses the nurse ready. Yes Shrady the best sculptor in the country. That's the best sculpture on the planet. I hear in America It's the single best sculpture I've ever seen America. Well, yeah, and my world is pretty much limited to this country artistically Yeah, you know, but I'm in the middle of just left the Jefferson Memorial I think and we were going back

Capitol, in front of the Capitol. It's the Grant Memorial. It's the Grant Memorial, and we're so busy, and we're moving on to the next thing, and I just stood there. Taylor, do you remember this? Yeah. Do you have it on the... Are you doing a second screen thing here? Yeah. This thing, man... Chuck, I don't know if you've seen it. It's the closest I can think of to the movement and the physicality and the kinetic nature of your work. I stood there for five minutes waiting for this thing to...

to ride off into the sun because it really looked like it could yeah it's thank you for bringing it up because i was told by edwin fountain commissioner centennial commission that's the man who selected our team the guy who thought you were boring yes

Interesting audition. No, his work. His work was boring. But this is right. He was right because he said, I want you to go look at the Grant Memorial and I want that, what you just described. Are you shitting me? No, I'm not. Because I swear. That's what he told me. And I went and looked at it and I was like, that's what I got to do. And that's why I started doing the kinetic movements with the models so that they were in dynamic advancing from left to right.

And he was, that's like the kind of the structure that I designed my soldier's journey within. Well, that's the gold standard. I mean, if you've done something to rival that. I have. You're in some pretty. I have done that. Pretty tall. Yeah. But in going back to damn the torpedoes, it's like the message is go forward, find your purpose,

Not your happiness, your purpose. Wow. And find your purpose and then you will be okay because you will have something to do every day when you awake and you will be grateful for the light of day and what you're going to do that day because then you are making something and that is the reason that we are put on the planet. We're not meant to be happy, we're meant to suffer and we're meant to go forward and do something with the God-given energy that we received. It's a gift.

Use it wisely. That's the deal. Tracy, is it fun living with this guy? Yes. It's inspiring. He's actually inspiring. Well, look, you guys strike me as a team. We are. We are. And I don't want to overstep, but I'm super curious about that moment when you accepted the commission, you won the contest, you're overcome by this...

Yeah. Is it dread? Is it worry? Is it the weight of the work? Weight. And Joe had called the piece the weight of sacrifice. And it is the weight of having to make a national memorial. Okay. So let's look at this from understanding of like, okay, you were awarded this project.

And you have an idea already about where it goes. So I had been traveling around the mall for the last two months looking at the Lincoln Memorial, looking at the Vietnam Memorial, looking at the Washington Memorial. These are heavy-hitting objects for our country. And the mall is meant to be sacred space for

It is the history of our country. It is not revered enough. It is guarded by the Parks Department. It's bullshit. Come on, you got guys on motorcycles and ATVs ripping up the grass? Come on, people. You know, if you did this in Italy, they'd shoot you. You bet they would. Because Italy reveres their history. And

We got a shit show in this country because a lot of politicians don't give a damn about our history because they're trying to rewrite history. And I'm saying, no, you're going to do that. You're going to have to roll me over. You got to drive right over me because I'm not putting up with it. I'm fighting. I am going damn the torpedoes. I'm going. We're making another one of these pieces. I'm not sitting back.

good find yes sorry good book good book yeah so i want to say with regard to your wife when did you guys decide to document the business of everything you just described and how long did that process take is it done and is it a film this is a personal story i won the project

Tracy was a novelist. She was a very well-known, very brilliant novelist, and she gave up being a novelist to help me. She came on board to document this piece, and she's really good at telling stories, and she knows her subject really well. She's the one that knows what an asshole I can be, and she picks up my socks on a regular basis.

So she will tell this story in Heroic. Heroic is the movie that she's going to release in the spring. And that is a really important element because if you don't know how this was made, we can show you because that camera, I mean, it's like I had a mic on all the time.

And there's a lot of stuff that happened that is very, very human. What are those shows that you see that people love, like the Chopper show? American Chopper. Yeah, this is what my shop is like. I fire people left and right. I mean, I fired how many? Six people? And they're violent firings. They're not like... I didn't beat anybody up, but it's like a lot of F-words and a lot of like... Intense. I'm going to kill you kind of stuff. And it's like...

It's not like... It's not violent. No, it's not violent, but it's real guys in a shop. But there's murder in the air. Yeah. What do guys do? They put up with things and then it's like... And they don't. And then they don't. And when you don't, then it's like, that's exit. See that red sign? Do what that red sign says. Are you difficult to work with? No.

Your wife is nodding her head so hard over on the sofa that I fear she's dislocated a vertebrae. Sorry to interrupt. His nickname in the studio is Il Duce. Oh, wow. Il Duce is his nickname. Some sort of dictator overtone. Here's the thing. It's like I expect everybody to be on the same mission that I am to be all in. And this is not a paycheck.

We are on a mission and you are only as good as your weakest link. And so if I got a weak link in my shop, I'm going to work on that weak link to bring them up. And I'm going to give everything to that person.

I'm really excited to see the work, to see the finished product, but also to see the documentary. I'll tell you a little, I don't know if you knew it or not, but that show, American Chopper, I narrated that show. Oh, really? Yeah. Wow. That came out of another show called Monster Garage, which Jesse James. So that was one of the earliest forays into a thing that became known as reality TV. And back then, say what you want about it,

it was a warts and all look at the business of fabrication. Right. Yeah. And we learned real quick that the reason those shows struck a chord is that they had entered into a kind of vacuum, a preexisting vacuum in the country where that level of craftsmanship, artistry, passion and enthusiasm were not being celebrated.

And we didn't even have to do a particularly good job of crafting a piece of television. All we really had to do was lock the cameras down and be flies on the wall and watch a motorcycle appear where one had not been. It's amazing. It's incredible. So if she's done that for you. She did. And compressed a six-year period. How many gigabytes do you have?

Half a petabyte. Half a what? Petabyte. What the hell's a petabyte? 500 terabytes. 1,000 terabytes. How long is this movie? A year and a half? I'm cutting. It's going to be 110 minutes.

A tight 110. She's really good. But she's really good because she was a novelist, so she knows how to tell a story. So it's not just like pretty pictures. And then you've got all the foundry stuff too. So the foundries, I did the sculpting. But the foundry in the UK did the casting and translation from clay into metal. Why'd you have to go to the UK to do this? This is very sad. I did a three-month stint...

in the US looking... I'm sorry guys, I'm gonna say something you're not gonna like. I traveled the US and looked at a lot of foundries and we did not have the aesthetics or the craftsmanship and I want to be very clear. You guys listen to this, you guys will get better at it. These foundries

would say, well, we cast everything in one-foot panels, and then we weld it all together. So I look at one piece, it's like this 35-foot whale hanging from the ceiling. I'm like, you got one-foot panels, and they're all cast and then welded together. So you got a seam line on every single 12-inch to put all these squares together. I'm like, why'd you do that? Why don't you cast bigger sections? He says, well, our team is really good at this, so this is

the way we did it. And I was like, oh man. But that was the problem. That's what I got. Everybody had a system and they didn't want to be creative and go outside the system. And I was very upset because I'd only found one foundry in Berkeley, an Italian guy. I liked him, but then we had a problem with, I can't say why. And then I'm looking online and I'm on Instagram and I'm looking at one night, I got three,

Next week I got a deliver to the Centennial Commission to report where, how much, and the deal on this piece. And I see this bear. It's a 15-foot grizzly bear. And I look, Nick Bibby, a UK sculptor. So I sent him an email. Hey, Nick, I'm Sabin.

I'd like to talk to you about where you cast this. And he comes back instantly. Ten minutes later, I get an email back. Hey, I know your work. It's great. Thanks, bro. Let's get together on the phone tomorrow. And I talked to him for an hour and a half, and he tells me about this foundry in the UK in Stroud, the Cotswolds. And he said, those guys will do anything to get your piece cast correctly. I've been working with them for 35 years. Wow. And I called then Steve Moll, who's the foundry manager at Pangolin, and

That same day, speak to him for an hour and a half. And 10 days later, I'm on a plane to the UK. So just so I understand, after you win this contest, no mean feat, it falls to you to figure out... Yes.

Right from the very, very beginning, which is, I mean, this is foundry work. The whole thing. The whole thing. You're the general contract. From the beginning. But that's picking it up halfway through the story because I had to come up with the story as well. I had to create the story.

I had to translate the story. I had to go to New Zealand. I went to New Zealand. I got $500,000 together from a foundation and went to New Zealand. What foundation? It's somebody that I know. Okay. And they gave me permission, the Centennial Commission, because they were going under.

they had no money the project was going to die this is a national memorial it's not going anywhere because nobody's giving money we'd have nothing to present except a drawing and we're screwed and i'm like no i'm not i'm not going down now damn the torpedoes again speed ahead yeah and this is very sad i have to leave tracy i got to be away for like nine months it makes a mess of my marriage which is we got it together as you can see but this is what the toll of this project has been and we go i make this thing in new zealand at what a workshop

with this guy who does Lord of the Rings stuff. And I have to immerse myself in a completely different world, different culture, and work there. And then we ship it back in February of the next year. And so this is only part of the story. And then it's like, I have to make this...

model into a monument and I'm leading Centennial Commission through this whole process. They're like, I would tell them how to do it and they're like, no, we don't want to do it that way. And I said, well, then how do you want to do it? And then we have an argument and then I keep pushing a ball forward, pushing it up the field.

And so every step of the way, that's why the project's really good because it wasn't corporate run. It was run by an artistic vision. It wasn't run by a bunch of pencil neck people in a boardroom. You got somebody who's passionate about what's got to be there for we the people. And I got like a vision of making art that's like going to celebrate our country. And that's not what's going on in boardrooms. I'm not trying to make thousands of dollars here. I'm trying to make art.

- You'll do che. - Yeah, yes. - Well, I think what you've just described in my world, it's sort of the curse of the focus group. - Yeah. - You want a horse or you want a camel? - Yeah. - You get a group, you get a committee,

You get a Congress, you get a camel. Yeah. You know, they won that argument and now it's got a hump and now... But you knew what you wanted. And I also kind of said F you to people at boardrooms. I stood up at a meeting and said... Is she there with the cameras when this is happening? No, that didn't get filmed. That's a shame. But I stood up at one moment...

with the Centennial Commission and said, I don't give an F if this is a national memorial. I'm doing this because it's the art of the project. And they were like quiet. And I know they wanted to fire me, but they couldn't. Okay. Good God. This is amazing. Brass tacks don't answer anything if it's sensitive, but what's the whole thing cost? I can. Totally. Great. Very happy to tell you guys because it's actually a bargain for what was made. The sculpture, out the door price, $1,000.

$12 million. Unbelievable. That's not a lot of money for a national monument. 60 feet long with 38 figures. And I gave them numbers that were very, very fair. And even the commission said they fought with Tracy very badly. The commission, that's what they do. They're bureaucrats. You know they might be listening to this. I don't give a shit. Okay, good. Love you guys. Good. All right. And then we got that through.

But here's the thing. I got wise because I have a very wise wife. It's like she said, let's, I'll do your work in the back room. I'll do all your, like, I'll run the business. This is, again, she gave up her writing to work for me. That's not fun. She sacrificed something very dear to her heart to come on board. And then she got somebody else, Kim Larson, who's a lawyer, who's

Guess what now you won't walk on me because I got a lawyer and I Got the copyright on this project and this is very important for the oh, yeah, I own the copy you hold the copyright Yes, I soldiers journey. Yes. Yes. I own a copyright because I don't think Michelangelo had that in the no they just back then it was like but he died as wealthy as Trump and

Well, he didn't have a Tracy either. Yeah. Documenting. No, but that guy was one wizard with money. He died and there was enough money underneath his bed to buy like Trump Towers. Really? Yeah, literally. I'm not kidding you. It was like the equivalent of PT Palace in Florence. That's how much money he had under his bed in gold coins. Jesus. In ducats. That's a...

We're going off topic. Not really, because if you harken back to Appel's sculpture in the lobby of the IBM building, there is a nexus between commerce and art, and it's a good nexus. It's not the sellout version of this. It's the patron version. Yes. Right? You need that. Who's the patron in this deal? The patron is America. It is not the taxpayer. Right.

We got very little money from the taxpayer. We were building an airplane flying through the night. That's what we did. We did not have the money. The total project is around $50 million. Now, the park cost around $18 million. But then you have a lot of add-ons because it's federal land. And so the government's got their fingers in the pie. So they've got like a maintenance contract. And this is like a whole other conversation today.

But that's a pretty damn good price when you look at other memorials like the Eisenhower, which was made by Frank Gehry. It's a piece of crap with the golf link fence. I mean, it's literally a piece of crap. $160 million. It's garbage. Because he has no understanding of history, tradition, monuments. I mean, I worked for him. He flew me out here. That's how the bug got in my ear. He flew me. He was like, I get an email. I'm with Tracy at the beach in Cape Cod. And...

I get this email from Geary Partners and it's like, Mr. Howard, we would like to speak with you about the Eisenhower Memorial. Call us immediately. So I'm like, honey, who's this Geary guy? Kind of a big deal. I didn't know who it was. And so that was what started it. And I went over there and talked to him for five hours. And he was really fascinated because he doesn't know what he's doing. I mean, he does something completely different.

But he doesn't have what I have, which is an understanding of our history and our past. And the reason is because he's a modernist. So he's scribbling on his pad in front of me. I hope you're listening, Frank.

Me too. Yeah, because this is true. You remember, Frank, you're like drawing and you're showing me we were talking about drawing. We had a great conversation. We connected. But he doesn't know how to draw. He's scribbling. And he said, the universe is chaos. It's random. And I'm like, don't say it. And I'll say, but you don't want to blow this opportunity to pay your rent this month.

And I was like thinking, no, that's not true. It's not chaos. It's not random. I'm the opposite end of the spectrum. I believe that there is a divine order to the planet in the way things are organized. And that's what my art stipulates. My philosophy is in the form and his philosophy is in his form. That's why I think that that piece is not really fair to the Eisenhower family. I don't want to deviate too much, but that was what put the bug in my ear first.

What year was this, by the way? This was 2014. His main guy has got on the phone and calls me in October. I met him in August, and he was like, they've been stringing me along for three months.

Yeah, you got the contract, got the contract, and finally it was like all five of them were on the phone. Voices are shaky, and they're like, we're not keeping you because stylistically you are not what Frank is looking for. Frank didn't want me because he wanted somebody who would do what he told him to do. I have an opinion it would have become a sculpture and then Frank stuff, and it would have been, like he said, wouldn't have been unified. I have a voice.

So we got a Russian guy who's like an eighth grade sculptor level. It's like crappy art. You can call me too, if you like. But don't call us. Don't call us. But I'm fine with this because if you don't say the truth, it doesn't change anything. And I'm willing to live with the consequences of it. I demand excellence in art.

And if I don't say, this is what is excellent, and this is why that's not so excellent, then how are you going to establish a criteria? Do you build a motorcycle so it's kind of okay, so it kind of like drifts off to the curb? No. Do you go pay...

for a professional basketball game to watch Michael Jordan like throw the ball over the backboard? No, you look for excellence. Why should art demand the same criteria of excellence? So that's why I'm like vociferous about my explanation. I couldn't agree more. It's just that a room full of objective observers can all agree when the ball goes through the hoop and when it sails over the backboard.

But back to our earliest point, there is confusion, especially in the authentication market, in a world where we're desperate for referees. And I would consider you to be one, but not in the same way an art authenticator is. And so I get confused when I look at like Neumann's, I think it was called One Mint or something. It's a large blue rectangle with a yellow line. I mean, honestly, couldn't anybody have made that?

This is the extent of my hubris. I live in hotels, a lot of them. And when I'm walking through a hotel and I see something hanging on the wall, my question's fundamental. It's not even do I like it or don't I like it, it's could I do that?

If I could do that, it's not art. You're right. For me, it's that simple. But you're right, though, because it's in your hard drive. You know what is art and what is not art. Everybody's been fooled by this Emperor's New Clothes thing because, oh, I'm sorry, I'm not educated enough. I guess I don't get it. But if you don't get it, there's nothing to get.

That's the problem. And that conversation is awesome. And then it becomes almost surreal when we learn that that blue rectangle with that yellow vertical line slightly off center sold for $52 million. Yes.

And so now... Wrong. Wrong. Well, it feels cosmically wrong, but it's undeniably financially true that it happened. And so now we're left with this very strange collision of commerce slash value and

artistry slash enthusiasm or just the crass commercialism of an opportunist who wakes up one day and says, look, I got some blue paint and some yellow paint and there's a canvas. Wasn't there this guy, Hunter Biden, who did paintings? I mean, look at that. I mean, maybe he didn't even make them.

That's just one example. It's like Jeff Koons, who makes his stuff. A bunch of New York Academy of Arts students being paid $18 an hour. Or Damien Hirst goes to Pangolin and gets his stuff made by a foundry. I'm saying no, and I'm radical, and I'm being honest, and it's like I want to clean up the art world, and I'm not everybody's friend when it comes to what art should be.

But artists don't say this because no, they don't I'm gonna get canceled. I was born when I was born canceled Think about it. You're an artist you're living outside the box. You're not operating within society It's like who cares cancel me, please put me on a list at least then it's Tracy It's gonna be tough to be out of the trenches or in the trenches, but born canceled is not bad

If you're still workshopping titles, might wind up being the title of this conversation. Think about it, though. It's like when you become an artist, you're saying, I'm going to make my own structure. I'm going to speak my truth. I am going to make art that is my experience as a human being.

I'm saying though, okay, yes, but it's got to be universal. So it's for everyone else too. So what did I learn in this project? That is the biggest thing that I, my takeaway from making the national world war one memorial is I am in service of something bigger than myself. I'll buy that. But I'm also digging the dam, the torpedoes full speed ahead, which is just another way of telling the commission to get a nice run and start and take a flying F at the moon, which apparently you've done. You had to.

I had to and I helped them out because Tracy act as my Luca Brascio and said you guys cannot come to the studio and she took a lot of flack for it but she helped them out because it allowed me to make the project so ultimately they should say thank you to Tracy she helped them get the project yeah

Now, that's a sentence I haven't heard a general contractor say in the last 20 years. Or a filmmaker. But I will do it. Okay. September 13th? Yes. What time of day? 7.19 p.m. sunset. That's when people will first be able to lay eyes collectively on

on this work, a soldier's journey in the National Mall. That's right. Where exactly in the mall is it going to be positioned? It's 150 yards from the White House. So it's at the end of Pennsylvania Avenue between 14th and 15th Street. I believe it's the Sherman Memorial. And it sits right outside of the Willard Hotel. So that's a very hot location because you come out of the White House, the visitor center, and then there's your memorial right there.

I mean, this is an incredible change. What an honor, man. What a kick this is going to be for you and so many generations to come. And the models themselves, who you chose to be in this, will they be there in September? Some of them will be. That's a whole other story. Some of the veterans will show up. I used Rangers, Marines, Navy SEALs. Their faces are on that wall, as well as some of the other models themselves.

I just want to just say one thing here. I stuck with it. I started in 82 and it was a very, very long bumpy road till I got this project. I made Renaissance bronzes for 35 years. And so I supported a family. I made over a hundred K a year and lived in New York city. But I want to go back to this. Like I was always on the outside, but I had an interface with my clients who were like

in Wall Street, in high-paying jobs, and my work would go in their living rooms, some of it out here in LA too. And so there's this whole business thing that I lived.

How do you hustle? How do you bring in the paycheck? How do you pay the rent? How do I get my kids' tuition paid? How do you pay for health care? It's outrageous when you have to go to the doctor and then you've got to pay all this extra money for the deductible. These are the real facts about being an artist. So this is what I don't understand. Why would I want to suck up now when I was cancelled before

and struggling so hard. I wasn't like seen as like someone to be like celebrated. I was tolerated as an artist. And it's like, now, do you think I'm going to shut up? You got something coming. It's like, I'm not happy with the way things are going and I'm going to go damn the torpedoes. Let's go guys.

I made a sculpture for everyone. I go on Steve Bannon's War Room. I was on that before Steve got put in a slammer. And Steve gave me an opportunity to speak about what the art stood for. And he really liked it because it was for your everyman. It was for the guys that will come back without a leg in a wheelchair or with their head jacked up. It's like, that's who it's for. It's for veterans. What do you love most about this country?

The ability to create your own destiny. You see how fast I can say that to you? Yep. That is what I love. I can be what I wanted to be. I don't have to be what my parents were. I can be what I wanted to be, but I have to do the work. I had to be self-responsible to create my own destiny. You're a challenge to sum up, and I think that's great. And I don't know if there's a pile of gold under your bed or if there ever will be.

But I'm getting the sense that maybe you don't give a damn. I don't give a damn. I didn't even have socks for a bunch of years. Tracy's like, excuse me, I give a little bit of a damn, a minor damn. Yeah, we're going to do all right. I'm going to do another big project like this. And it's like the next one, I really want to bring my country together around it. Amen. Yeah. What is that next one? Can you talk about it? Can you talk about it yet or no?

I can. It's just, I'm hustling it together. I'm putting it together with my team. It's, you know, I got Rebecca and Tracy as my team and a bunch of other people coming together. It's American Exceptionalism Arch, and it is the real history of our country, not just a rewrite. And it's led by Lady Liberty passing through a bronze arch.

and behind her is the history of our country. At the beginning, it would be the Native Americans with not necessarily the pilgrims, but the people that came from Europe and landed here. And then the next scene, I would jump. It's like you're not going to do everything. I would do the everyman. I would not do historical figures. And I would move to the Constitution. And so you might have the Boston Tea Party organizing

of the Minutemen, again very kinetic moving forward and then jump ahead again now to the Civil War, giant battle scene in the middle, Union Army versus Confederates in a charge towards each other with bayonets drawn. Huge casualties, 660,000 people died after that emancipation of slavery, very important moment for our country.

Then you follow that with World War I, World War II, and then I would jump to 9-11, people being pulled out of the ashes. And then again, Lady Liberty at the head of this with the flag ahead of her would be the next generation. It would be a young girl, which is what America will become. We do not know what that is. That's the X factor. But what I want to do is do something that is an umbrella for

for the country culturally. And this would be supported, and I can tell you, it's supported by regular people, people that work in shops and offices with their hands. This is not an elite-driven project, just like the World War I Memorial is not an elite-driven project. Think about, since you mentioned Lady Liberty, you know, the cost of that, when you think about, you know, Eiffel's role. Yeah. And you think about

what Pulitzer did to raise the money for the pedestal. I mean, I love that story so much because it basically crowdfunded our future and our past. And it let common people step in and get maybe just a little bit of their thumb onto the bronze.

I think that's amazing. Would you consider that sort of approach to funding? I haven't gone that route because my funding route is more towards the elephant hunting. Well, they're out there. Yeah, they're actually the ones...

Texas is a very strong place to bring this project forward. I would not want to put it in Washington, D.C. I would want to put it in Texas. I see the change in our country. It's a very sad thing. I see the creativity and the finance

And the idea of manifesting destiny more in Texas, not in the Northeast anymore, I think, we have created a very dangerous thing in our country where cities like New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. are not being taken care of. And this is very dangerous. And I know I have talked a lot today in this podcast about the politics of the matter. And this is very strange maybe for a lot of people out there that an artist would be so

Inclined to in so why didn't you talk about art more because art is about history and culture and I belong to this country I'm here. I am not like in the desert I'm not out on a fishing vessel like, you know fishing I'm here interfacing with the public and people I'm like one of you guys I'm like a regular Joe in a big way. Yeah, but the fruits of your labor are

Are going to be there long after we're all gone. Yes. It's going to be Grant's, the thing we were talking about before. The Shrady Memorial. He died. Shrady died two weeks before that memorial was installed because the stress was too great. I'm not freaking dying. Are you kidding me? No. 20 years to make that sculpture. And they were penny pinching him and they wouldn't pay. It was too stressful for him and he couldn't take it. And he died two weeks before the unveiling.

He didn't have a Tracy. No, he didn't or a lawyer This is a bad last question, but I wanted to ask it earlier and just for my own edification What is it about bronze? Oh so cool question Thank You Mike Bronze is age old Bronze Age. I don't know. I'm sorry. I don't know but I know it's thousands of years and

When you make a cast of something, you pour a vessel, which is the mold, with liquid bronze. It's an alchemical thing almost, where you're pouring liquid metal into the mold, which is then the actual sculpture when that bronze solidifies. Bronze beats mortality. It outlives us all. And I'm not saying this from an arrogant perspective.

but my energy is within that sculpture. So as long as that sculpture is on the planet, my energy will be on the planet. That's a very cool thing. That's a very cool thing. And it makes me wonder why in the world at the end of the Olympic Games...

The first prize medal isn't the bronze medal. Gold and silver can... They're also pretty cool things. What a pleasure to meet you. Thank you, Mike. I will do everything in my power to be there on the 13th of September. I grew up in Baltimore. Thank you. And if there's a way we can get back there to see it, we will. If we can't, we'll see you before the end of the year. That's for sure. I love that.

Well, I'm honored to be on your show. It's the first real show that I've been on. You realize some of the people on the other shows might be listening as well. And that's one more thing. One more thing. Are there any bridges he hasn't burned that you would like him to blow up before we say goodbye? I think you've done a phenomenal job. Thank you, Mike. Thank you. And get that thumb looked at, would you? Both of them. I was noticing. Yeah. Thanks, everybody. The one and only Saban Howard. Thank you. Thanks, Mike.

This episode is over now. I hope it was worthwhile. Sorry it went on so long, but if it made you smile, then share your satisfaction in the way that people do. Take some time to go online and leave us a review.

I hate to ask, I hate to beg, I hate to be a nudge. But in this world, the advertisers really like to judge. You don't need to write a bunch, just a line or two. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. Not four. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. And not three. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. Definitely not two. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. We need five. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. Even if you hate it. Especially if you hate it.

Thank you!