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Tyler Lansing | Episode 635
Tyler Lansing am an artist. Tyler’s journey is not to conquer the mountain and reach the summit. That aspiration is a tremendous amount of effort for an evanescent sensation of accomplishment. Tyler finds his inspiration in every step of the journey. Embracing his connection with the earth as a Diné. Tyler is the remnant of an enduring and resilient people. His journey is to share his story and creations with you.
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What do you see as an artist your role in society in general?
For art every thing is stolen. Nothing is original. So if you were to take different beliefs, different mediums, different things that you see from your and experience to blend them together, you know, the more you blend you steal from other artists, copy, the more it becomes I guess original. I guess to you or to the artist. So I guess for me it would be to bring understanding that it doesn’t have to be perfect and if you combine things or mix things, what kind of kills it in the beginning is if you want perfect and you want things to be original and that kind of kills the creativity. If you can take things that have been done before and mix them all together that kind of makes it somewhat original.
Do you feel like your work needs to connect with people’s emotions?
I feel like, emotions, yes. But I think what I appreciate most is having work that people can pick up and they can feel the work and they can see the work. With emotions you can not tell who feels what unless they express it. So I guess for me I know that the more senses that you have or the least senses that you have you can evoke a lot more emotion if you eliminate some senses.
Do an artist help us to connect with truth? Does it try to unearth truth and make us find truth more easily?
truth would be in the art, so if you were to begin something to truest form of art would be when you started out like as a kid you would dance, you would sing, these are all art forms. You would draw, there are artists that are known for their work that looks like it is done by a toddler. That in its purist form would be the truth because they had no criticism, they had no perfection. I have been taught that perfection is the lowest standard you could have. It’s impossible to have anything perfect. I guess the truth in your adolescence just enjoying life and not taking it seriously. They say, You don’t stop playing because you got old, you got old because you stopped playing.
Can art become an anchor for society?
Well, if you think about art or any sort of design, it comes from nature. If you look at how they developed airplanes wings, they looked at the wings of a bird and see that it has an air foil. If you look at art it is most of the time just an interpretation of the perfect design. Which is nature. The perfect design has already been created. So I guess art is a lot of depictions of nature, of what actually happens, the movement.
Does your work help to preserve traditions?
Yes. It preserves because it tells a story. It keeps a story going. The designs and the etchings and the carvings they all have meanings to them. Like the feather designs are connected to the Divine. So what that means is you see Native Americans that are adorned with feathers, and they have eagle feathers, what that does is in the ceremony they sing the songs and the prayers and you have the people that you love with you in that ceremony, if you were to have those eagle feathers that would be your connection. Because eagle feathers fly so high up to the heavens so if you had those eagles feathers and the fans that are made of eagle feathers, they could take those blessings and send it upward to you, for you. That is why you see a lot of Native Americans with feathers. It is a very sacred symbol for us.
Does that mean that your work then helps to depict hope?
Yeah, it does depict hope and I think first glance most people wouldn’t think that, but it is not until you meet the artist and you are able to take the story that they share with you about the designs and that is when they feel like, Oh well, this piece means so much more and I want to tell other people about hat story. Pieces that we have, they are for somebody else. If we had a loved one pass away, and when they passed away I saw a lot more hummingbirds, they would visit me and come close to me, I think that does give people hope.
You were raised in a very artistic world. How valuable is that to you today?
Being surrounded by it I definitely took it for granted. But it is something I always noticed. Being, as you say artistic, is just seeing it differently, see things differently. Seeing things more beautiful. And I guess seeing outside of the rules instead of putting limitations and boundaries it kind of just lets you think outside the box. Typically you would see something,but someone who you would consider an artist would maybe see it a little bit differently. If you can put that in your art and convey it and bring that connection to somebody to where they can feel it too. I think that is pretty valuable. It does have you seeing things differently, a little more beautiful.
Book
The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer
Contact
Instagram: @tylerlansingcreator