Unveiling Synesthesia: Heather Eck's Artistic Journey | Video

[00:00:00] Jay: Welcome to the Tragedy Academy, a show created to bridge societal divides in a judgment-free zone using candor and humor. My name is Jay, and today, we are joined by a multimedia artist.
[00:00:11] Jay: Heather Eck. How are you doing today, Heather?
[00:00:13] Heather Eck: I'm great. Thanks so much for having me today. I appreciate it. That's
[00:00:16] Jay: I appreciate you being here. You're such an interesting and fascinating
[00:00:20] Jay: person.
[00:00:21] Heather Eck: so nice of you to say. Thank you.
[00:00:25] Jay: I say fascinating because that word is not given the respect it deserves. Sometimes, it's made for just fantasy or something like that, whereas I find it more based on reality because reality is both parts. For me, the fact that you have that capability melds both of those two worlds, and I genuinely appreciate that.
[00:00:53] Heather Eck: I love that. Yeah. It melds both worlds, like the unseen and the scene, and trying to find a way where they [00:01:00] connect is interesting to me.
[00:01:02] Jay: It's interesting, fascinating, and beautiful. So I'm excited to have you explain what you have come across throughout your life and the gift you discovered that you have, or however it came to be. And I'm excited to hear about it. So why don't you introduce yourself, tell everybody where you're from, and what you do?
[00:01:22] Heather Eck: Sure. again, thanks for having me. My name's Heather Eck, and I am based in Raleigh, North Carolina. I was born in Germany. My dad was in the army, so I'm an army brat. We moved around a lot when I we're about in Germany
[00:01:36] Heather Eck: Landstuhl, Germany.
[00:01:38] Jay: I was born in Bitberg.
[00:01:39] Heather Eck: No kidding.
[00:01:41] Jay: Yes, I was. My father was in the Air Force.
[00:01:45] Heather Eck: Oh, that's so funny. So, was that something that you talked about a lot when you were a kid because you were born in such a different place
[00:01:54] Jay: I tried to wedge it in because I wanted people to like me for a little while. But then, after that, it didn't matter. [00:02:00] It's the most honest answer I can give as a kid. Yeah. It was a tool I tried to use for about 10 minutes on a hill, a hillbilly town where they just looked at me like, why would you even care to tell us about this? I was like, all right, never mind.
[00:02:12] Heather Eck: It's one of those I always thought was cool.
[00:02:15] Heather Eck: Yeah. Yeah. Me too. It's one of those things like when people ask. Oh, where are you from? You're like, Oh, I was born in Germany. They go. Oh, that's interesting. I don't. And they're like, do you speak German? I'm like, absolutely not. Not even a little bit. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought it.
[00:02:30] Jay: this up.
[00:02:31] Heather Eck: Same. I'm
[00:02:34] Jay: the
[00:02:36] Jay: fascination is just on my birth certificate, chief.
[00:02:40] Heather Eck: It's as far as it goes.
[00:02:43] Jay: Exactly. I usually bail at that point. I'm like, crap, this didn't go over the way I wanted it to.
[00:02:49] Heather Eck: Walk it back. Walk it back.
[00:02:52] Jay: Anyway, I'm sorry for interrupting you. I just found it coincidental.
[00:02:57] Heather Eck: I love that. Now, [00:03:00] Yeah, I was just a creative kid. I was one of those kids who was super into art. I loved music. I probably told my parents I wanted to be a rock star a dozen times, and they said, okay, that's cool, but you won't make any money doing that.
[00:03:18] Heather Eck: I set about on a different path. And so I did. Art has always been a part of my world in many different ways. I tried a bunch of little Etsy businesses and stuff. And then I think I felt, I think I was 39. I was working at a great corporate job that paid well, but I was just exhausted.
[00:03:37] Heather Eck: And it wasn't the kind of thing where a vacation would fix it. Getting another job wasn't going to fix it. It just, It was like unfixable. It was like my spirit was tired. and I worked with a spiritual teacher, and she said, what were you like as a kid? And what did you like? And she said, you loved art, and I thought, Oh yeah, I forgot about that.[00:04:00]
[00:04:00] Heather Eck: I loved art.
[00:04:01] Jay: Isn't that sad, dude? It's like a flame just down to that moment just before it goes out, and it just stays there, almost like one of those crappy funny birthday candles. It can relight, which is amazing but goes down to that level. You watch it smolder, and that's what that passion is in childhood that you Miss, that you suppress, that are given layers of societal pains that you must endure that keep you from expressing yourself in the natural ways you're compelled.
[00:04:39] Heather Eck: Yeah. Totally. Totally. I think that's one of the things that's so hard about looking at people today, and a lot of the people that I end up encountering, like working with, are the ones that are at the same point where I was, where they're like, I just got to do something different. This isn't the way I want to live my life. And it's because they extinguished this. [00:05:00] creative passion or this aspect of themselves that They had when they were young that, just like you said, started to burn out.
[00:05:08] Jay: fear it. It
[00:05:10] Jay: wasn't
[00:05:10] Heather Eck: yeah, very much.
[00:05:12] Jay: It wasn't acceptable to be that human because you weren't gonna make it, and what would other people think of you?
[00:05:19] Heather Eck: Bingo.
[00:05:21] Jay: It's so sad. It breaks my heart, and I'm glad we're now at a place in society where we're recognizing the arts again. We're recognizing those flames, those creative passions that people have throughout, the endeavors on the internet, our ability to communicate now, virtual reality, 3D, this, that, and the other.
[00:05:46] Jay: I'm not the guy to speak on this, but it's amazing how everything has connected itself, which I don't think is by accident. I think we've been building a connection for a long time. It's just firing it up. [00:06:00] We're communicating with each other's minds with hangers and tinfoil.
[00:06:07] Jay: The better we get at this, I like it. That's what the internet is right now. And the faster and better we get at it, the more it will look like a vascular system. Electrode, it's going to electrode. I don't know what the fuck that means. Where'd that word come from?
[00:06:25] Jay: So if you guys are going to come at me, I already beat myself down, right? But it's going to have that pattern that pulses with our understandings because we're not going to have that socioeconomic divide that keeps you from having the same capabilities as others. That's gatekeep by college universities, things like that.
[00:06:46] Jay: A simple piece of paper will separate two individuals, but they were socioeconomically divided already before that. It's just a way to oppress. But now knowledge is free. Creativity can be shared, [00:07:00] right? And a lot of people are going to face the stark reality that the repetitive things that they've been doing as hamsters all these years are very replaceable.
[00:07:11] Heather Eck: Yeah.
[00:07:13] Jay: The human spirit is the only thing that's not.
[00:07:16] Heather Eck: That's right. And it's so interesting. I saw this video the other day. It was about a beaver that had been rescued. Stay with me on it.
[00:07:27] Jay: I watched a donkey named Waffles in a video the other day, so I'm with you.
[00:07:34] Heather Eck: I have
[00:07:36] Jay: There's no shame here. I was amazed the entire time.
[00:07:42] Heather Eck: know. Yeah. No, it's awesome. I think we are born to be creative creatures. I think we're born to create, there's this innate, knowing within us. And so this video was of this beaver that had been rescued. So, it had never been in a lake or a stream. It had [00:08:00] never built a dam before, and it started bringing things from within the house, like a Christmas tree, it brought like a broom, it was finding and bringing all these
[00:08:11] Heather Eck: things, it's also very it's a huge clue.
[00:08:17] Heather Eck: right?
[00:08:18] Jay: It's a massive clue
[00:08:20] Heather Eck: Yeah, I was
[00:08:22] Jay: shit. Please continue. I know you know what I'm saying
[00:08:27] Heather Eck: It was so interesting to me because I was watching it, and my spiritual teacher sent it to us, and she was like, look at how innately this beaver knew its purpose. Its purpose was to build dams. And I think when we're little, we come into the world.
[00:08:45] Heather Eck: With this natural curiosity, but we also, I think, our spirits gravitate towards the things that we're good at or that we want to be doing in this life. And then something happens where we lose sight of it, and we go [00:09:00] about on a different path, and we leave behind these things that we intuitively know are what we could be doing, what we could contribute to the world, how we can help each other, and we squash it, and we go, what, will people think? How will I pay my bills? And how do I make it in this world? And it's fascinating to me to think about that.
[00:09:23] Jay: I believe that it's a method of creating characters who defend you in judgment. I think that we make masks. I think that our mask, we'll create one for each individual interaction that we have over time. Now we can group them. We can have an interview mask; we can have a friendship mask; we can have an I wouldn't say I like your mask; we can have a victim mask and all sorts of things.
[00:09:58] Jay: We have victim voices. We [00:10:00] have angry voices. We have voices for interviews, voices for your mom, all these things. There are so many different things that we create that we lose who we are immediately because we begin a self-defense mechanism of creating what is impossible to maintain for long periods of time, but we stack it.
[00:10:19] Jay: We go for it. I like to imagine being inside one of those jungle gyms they had as a kid, but it was like a dome. And in those, it was like triangle shapes around it with the poles, And I imagine a child being able to look through the entire dome without restriction. But as time goes on, they have to run out and create a glass pane To protect them from whatever yelled at them through one of those holes Or causes pain, and they will create a piece of stained glass.
[00:10:58] Jay: It won't let you see what it [00:11:00] was that they hurt, and that can be something offensive. It could be something sad. It can be whatever it is. You keep putting this stained glass in different colors all around you, and then you have to run to each one when you need to use it. If you need to be sad, you have to remember where it's at.
[00:11:22] Jay: You have to remember how to get there and where you left off the last time you used it.
[00:11:28] Heather Eck: Oh my gosh.
[00:11:30] Jay: You're going to break. You're going to fall apart.
[00:11:33] Heather Eck: yeah.
[00:11:35] Jay: I go on tangents, I'm sorry.
[00:11:38] Heather Eck: No, I thought that's such an incredible analogy for our experience. And I think what you're describing, like I would put It as like our ego, right? Like our It is 100%. I don't use words like that often because people tend to dismiss them nowadays because they're attached to things like psilocybin and plant medicine, which is amazing. But [00:12:00] also, people have put Birkenstocks in the category.
[00:12:05] Heather Eck: know. I know. I understand that.
[00:12:07] Jay: do it as much as I love my Birkenstock brethren, but at the same time, sometimes people get annoyed with them. So you don't say the words ego and things like that. So I try to pick and choose my vocabulary, but you are 100 percent dead on. That is the ego. If it were a mask, you'd be painting your stripes all over it, and you could keep it all as one, would be the true you. But instead, you take each of those; you could say they're masks in a bag over your shoulder that you have to reach in and pull out each time and put back.
[00:12:44] Jay: And after you create a new character, you get another one, and eventually what happens, you're just hobbled over. You've got Carrying your shoulder, and all you had to do the entire time was just let it go. You crippled [00:13:00] yourself. You held onto something that was never, ever, needed. You were already perfect.
[00:13:08] Jay: You were carrying a sack of masks to protect yourself and nothing more. When none of them were needed, you had the original mask.
[00:13:19] Jay: The original mask was good the way all the others were painted.
[00:13:23] Heather Eck: Yeah. I think there's I think it's Glennon Doyle who wrote a book called, I think it was, Love Warrior, and she talked about sending your representative out, like you never, you didn't show up as yourself, you showed up as your representative, and it takes so long. Isn't that good? That's good. I like that. Oh man, people are like split personalities, multiple personalities. I checked your voice on the phone after three different calls. You idiot.
[00:13:52] Heather Eck: It's so true. That's
[00:13:54] Heather Eck: right. to customer service and then your mom and see if you treated them with the same decency. [00:14:00] You were two different people.
[00:14:02] Heather Eck: Different representatives from the call
[00:14:04] Jay: Different reps, man. I have a counter in there. They check in and out, hopefully. You don't want two representatives at the same time at the table.
[00:14:14] Heather Eck: think that's so true. I think we spend a lot.
[00:14:17] Jay: Bob, you're done, man. Go
[00:14:19] Jay: back.
[00:14:19] Heather Eck: You're done. Beat it.
[00:14:22] Jay: Too funny. Synesthesia. I want to know what this is. I have done some reading on it, but it's super fascinating. Again, that word, but it is because there's a small fraction of the world that experiences this and nobody else.
[00:14:40] Heather Eck: Yeah, it's really interesting. And honestly, I didn't have the vocabulary for it until recently. Because I think I just took for that, yeah, that what I was experiencing, oh, everybody experienced, I would, so synesthesia is where you, your [00:15:00] senses get crossed in your brain.
[00:15:01] Heather Eck: If you smell something, your brain smells it, you like, you'll smell it, but you also might process it as a color or a sound or a shape or something. So there are, I think, only 4 percent of the population with this, and there are, I think, close to 80-something forms of it, and it's interesting. A lot of artists have synesthesia.
[00:15:26] Heather Eck: It's one of those things where it's how our brains take information and then how we contextualize it or process it and then create it. Yeah. With it. so
[00:15:37] Jay: you're cluing me into some things about myself as you say things like it's cool. the way that when I was reading through this, I didn't start creating music until I was probably 42. I'm 47 now. And I have no musical background, um, but I produce all my own [00:16:00] tracks, and their soundscapes and music mixed and their emotional mixes from guests on the show.
[00:16:10] Heather Eck: Awesome.
[00:16:12] Jay: ever spoke about this too much. They're called tragedy tracks.
[00:16:17] Heather Eck: Oh my
[00:16:18] Jay: there's a whole bunch on Spotify. They're short, like a minute 15, But their stories to me Were something that I could only paint with sound, And I've never said this on the show until now. And it feels like there's something cause you can hear color.
[00:16:46] Jay: I've been fascinated about talking. You can hear color; you can smell sound. You can. I was explaining to somebody the other day that pain is, and it's a high [00:17:00] pitched, like a guitar. It's a very painful, high-pitched guitar. If it's your back,
[00:17:08] Heather Eck: I feel like you have synesthesia.
[00:17:13] Jay: I also can't eat weird shit. Like I can't put things together Like I don't like I have texture problems in my mouth Like there are all sorts of bizarreness that I hadn't been able to put the finger on that have been described through psychological diagnoses because I believe that some are right. Also, they're just describing things from a different lens.
[00:17:38] Jay: Right, the other side is spiritual, and then the other side is maybe post-traumatic. And its ability to hyper read. You know your surroundings. You know to protect yourself from some kind of danger no matter what it is. There are so many different explanations, but at the end of the day, you found a way to take those blended [00:18:00] senses and use them as art.
[00:18:03] Jay: Can you describe what it is that you do?
[00:18:06] Heather Eck: Yeah. Yeah. I would
[00:18:07] Jay: I mean to do that. I jacked the show for a
[00:18:09] Jay: second
[00:18:10] Heather Eck: I think it's
[00:18:11] Jay dawned on me in that moment. I'm like, are you? Wait a minute. Wait a minute. There are shapes and sound, I hear shapes all the effing time and
[00:18:21] Heather Eck: Yeah. Yeah. that's square,
[00:18:23] Jay: that's round, that's flat.
[00:18:25] Jay: That's this. I'm like, this is a triangle. That's a square. Yeah, you can hear it. You just know.
[00:18:34] Jay: I
[00:18:35] Jay: I thought that was something people knew as well.
[00:18:39] Heather Eck: Me too. It's so interesting, but I think you just discovered that you have a form of synesthesia, which is really beautiful and powerful. A lot of art, like Wassily Kandinsky's, is visual, and he paints music. So he would paint what he saw. And if you look at his work, it's a lot of lines and circles and [00:19:00] triangles and squares.
[00:19:01] Heather Eck: And so it would be cool for you to check it out and see,
[00:19:03] Jay: bitch, you hear that? I've never even heard of this person. I need to see this.
[00:19:07] Heather Eck: you need to see
[00:19:08] Jay: It's so fascinating. But that was something I never got to exercise growing up poor and in a very rural community. And there are these typical family struggles that come along with that. So they don't hand you a f ing saxophone.
[00:19:27] Jay: they don't give you a keyboard. And you probably got your ass beat if they gave you a recorder, wake somebody up through the hangover with that one,
[00:19:40] Heather Eck: Oh my gosh. The recorder.
[00:19:43] Jay: To tap into what you don't know, you have to go back to being a child. So, what is it that you see that allows you to put that on canvas?
[00:19:53] Heather Eck: I see, so I have a couple of different things going on that's interesting. And I feel as time [00:20:00] goes by, I learn more and more about myself and how this works. And so I'm open to unpacking it and adding more stuff as I go.
[00:20:09] Heather Eck: I have synesthesia, which means that when I smell, taste, or hear something, my brain sees it. For example, if I hear an upbeat song, my brain shows me a choreography of what the dance moves would look like in the song. And then I, and so many synesthetes, will see color with a day of the week or something.
[00:20:32] Heather Eck: I associate the colors I see with the chakra system. And so when I meet somebody, I see a color for them. I go, Oh, I see that you're purple. Purple, to me, tells you that you spend a lot of time up in your crown. And so you're probably connected or spiritual or where you want to be.
[00:20:49] Heather Eck: and so I make paintings that tell the story of either a feeling that I'm trying to convey about something that's happening in the world, or I create paintings [00:21:00] specifically for someone that tells them where they dwell in their That's In their spiritual, physical or emotional body, and then what color will be healing for them.
[00:21:10] Heather Eck: How can they use color to help themselves find balance and support? I
[00:21:16] Jay: That's beautiful. It is absolutely beautiful because it allows people to see that we all have a unique interpretation of the human experience. There's so much misunderstood or unknown about each experience and the ability to process reality. We take for granted that You may be in a larger slice of the population than, for the simple fact that you described that you had to be told it wasn't that way for everyone else.
[00:21:57] Jay: Right. So you only [00:22:00] know. When you know, right? So it's funny. I have something that's called a Fantasia. I didn't know what the hell that was. Until I came across and it's, I'm going to butcher the shit out of this. If you remember the study or jump in, you guys are out there. But. That said, I'm going to give you the long and short of it: there was an architect with a brilliant mind who could visualize all of his creations as he made them, right? He had a fantastic imagination that he could see and create these structures. Artistically, however, he did it, and he went in for a simple medical procedure and, after the medical procedure, was shocked. Because that was no [00:23:00] longer there. He no longer had a mind's eye, a visual one. He was no longer able to see, if I'd say, imagine an apple,
[00:23:13] Jay: then you would see an apple, correct? Okay, I hate you for that. I have no idea what that is. I always thought everyone was speaking. Hypothetically. I have nothing there. I know what an Apple looks like. I have no rollercoaster of the mind that I can close. My eyes it,
[00:23:36] Heather Eck: you don't see it; you don't see it in your mind's
[00:23:39] Jay: anything. How are you guys seeing? What are your eyes rolling backward? I'm so confused by this. That's how it feels to me. I didn't know they're like, Jay, visualize a beach when you're meditating. And I'm like, what now are you talking about, man? I don't get it, but I'll play like I'm at the beach. Am I supposed to sit back on my shoulders? Am I supposed to [00:24:00] pretend like I'm in the sun? Cause I don't get what you guys are doing here, but I'll play along. Let's play some beach sounds in the room. Yay. We're at the beach. I don't see shit.
[00:24:10] Heather Eck: Oh my gosh.
[00:24:12] Jay: lights out. No problem. I do, however, have terrifying dreams and nightmares.
[00:24:17] Heather Eck: So where do you, and you see those in your mind's eye when you're dreaming
[00:24:22] Jay: supposing it's there, depending on where there is in a dream or a nightmare, right?
[00:24:27] Heather Eck: Wow. Yeah. That's so interesting. I wonder, though, if you experience it differently. if somebody says, visualize an apple, does anything happen? Do you see a red square, or do you see anything? Nothing.
[00:24:41] Jay: what an apple looks like! I don't even know how else to explain it. Like, I'm not missing anything. First, I was like, it shocked the shit out of me because I was like, wait a minute. I'm, Like, this is not fair, God! You, Like, why are they having these [00:25:00] lucid dreams and trips and going on all these like Ayahuasca things, and they're seeing entities, and I'm like, the fuck are you talking about? That's amazing. Show me how to get there because I don't know where this is I have a light bright with two pegs in that bitch; nothing is going on.
[00:25:19] Heather Eck: Stop it. That's hysterical.
[00:25:21] Jay: I don't know where that came
[00:25:23] Jay: from, but
[00:25:24] Heather Eck: I remember the light break. I immediately visualized
[00:25:27] Jay: sad. It got sadder as time went on, and the pegs disappeared. And then, somehow, you found it at Goodwill with three pegs and a curse word on it.
[00:25:38] Heather Eck: You can never buy the replacement pegs either. It was so frustrating.
[00:25:42] Jay: I did, You might be the only one that tried to order replacement pegs for their light bright.
[00:25:48] Heather Eck: It would have been me if somebody did.
[00:25:51] Jay: Which I love. That makes you super fascinating. Do you want to hear more about the light bright? No, I'm kidding.
[00:25:59] Heather Eck: You take [00:26:00] me back to the eighties.
[00:26:01] Jay: I love it. There. such a simpler time.
[00:26:04] Heather Eck: It was great.
[00:26:05] Jay: shit. Sorry. This is the, remember the logo is the sock and buskin masks. It is tragedy and comedy. It is a combination of who we are. That's why we love laughing on the show and talking about things simultaneously. So I'm gonna let you continue. Tell me about this art. we went through. I wanted to talk about Clairsentience, but we went right in there, You, so it didn't matter. So what I'd like to do is allow you to discuss what it is you're trying to do now.
[00:26:43] Jay: What kind of change are you trying to affect, give back in a certain way, with your art? Maybe you can give us some of that and explain what's going on with it.
[00:26:52] Heather Eck: Yeah. I, and thank you for that. I feel like there's this aspect of healing in my work that I want to be able to [00:27:00] share with people, right? Through color, through art, I think anytime you invite beauty into your space, it offers you something through music, through art, through dance, through whatever it is.
[00:27:11] Heather Eck: And I think that, like, my work is not necessarily, I would love for it to be the kind of thing you hang on your wall above your couch, right? But I also
[00:27:21] Heather Eck: think you, I was looking through it today, and I was like, what will I choose? Like, I would put a piece of your art. You think I'm Okay, so wait a minute. You're telling me that Home Goods deserves more space over someone's couch Than your
[00:27:39] Jay: art,
[00:27:39] Jay: Whatever. Love, be well, whatever, that I drink wine to stay on time or whatever the fuck it says somewhere. or it's always wine time. Like, your art should be up there. It means something. Give yourself the credit you deserve.
[00:27:58] Heather Eck: Thank you. Thank you. You have to [00:28:00] remind me because I, I am self
[00:28:02] Jay: people do that to me all the time. I'm my worst critic.
[00:28:04] Heather Eck: I know. I know. It's definitely one of those things where people connect to art because it makes them feel a certain way. And so what I like to help people understand is that there's a reason why you're attracted to a particular color or to a piece of mine.
[00:28:23] Heather Eck: Yeah, because it's offering you something, maybe showing you something that you didn't know was there. Or, maybe you're somebody who's struggling with grief and you're attracted to the color orange because it helps you feel uplifted or more optimistic about something.
[00:28:41] Heather Eck: So, on the one side, there's this desire to educate people about color because I think we take for granted where color shows up, especially in today's world where we're stripping color out of our homes. So many people are moving to these beige, white spaces, [00:29:00] which is fine, but they're removing color from their lives, and we need color.
[00:29:04] Heather Eck: It's important. It is. Absolutely. It is one of those ways that we feel better, that we feel inspired, and that we want to do good in the world. And so that's the one thing that I really want people to understand about the work that I create.
[00:29:22] Jay: And I think that's beautiful. And I think you are affecting change through it. It doesn't have to happen on a massive scale. The first time it was introduced to the world,
[00:29:34] Heather Eck: Yeah.
[00:29:35] Jay: It's the ripples created from it, and it doesn't have to stop. or fade out, it can ignite the next set of ripples that are larger and larger. It doesn't fade away. It gains strength. And by putting that out there, you're affecting change every [00:30:00] single time. I find that a lot of people look at art for what people will see as an expression on their faces while they're consuming it. And
[00:30:12] Jay: that's not how you consume art. We care what people think we think about the art.
[00:30:20] Heather Eck: Right.
[00:30:21] Jay: Are we frowning at it? Are we smiling at it? Is everybody else smiling at it? Is everybody else applauding this? Is everybody else this, that, or the other? Until eventually, the artists themselves are looking backward over their shoulders to watch the expressions of the person that they're trying to paint on the canvas that they're not even fucking looking at
[00:30:45] Heather Eck: Yes. Yes. 100 percent to all of
[00:30:50] Jay: their approval. And what do you get then? You get a fucking painting that. It Looks like the elephant with the trunk with the paintbrush in its hand. if you're [00:31:00] painting, looking over your shoulder backward.
[00:31:02] Heather Eck: That it's so
[00:31:03] Jay: I think those are amazing. When the elephant paints the pictures with the trunk, I'm like, dude, that's so cool. A
[00:31:09] Heather Eck: it is. Awesome. See, we're great. We're all creative.
[00:31:13] Jay: Hundred, that's so true. I think the tension right for artists everywhere is Creating the work you want to create for the sake of making it and then creating the work that you hope somebody will look at and appreciate.
[00:31:30] Heather Eck: And I think that's where we get where he's the word ego again, where you get that tension between my ego wants to be accepted. I want to be accepted by everybody and have this innate desire to create. And, so that's always the tension there. I want my work to be hung above somebody's couch, but I also want my work to live in a different environment.
[00:31:53] Heather Eck: It's an echelon where it offers you something different than what you would get at home goods, if that makes sense.
[00:31:59] Jay: [00:32:00] because it will right so Music as an example, there are beautifully talented and amazing session musicians worldwide. They put out some of the most amazing music. They support some of the greatest artists that have ever existed on massive scales. They stand in the backup. They do all these jobs and roles, but they're never seen for some reason.
[00:32:33] Jay: Even though they're putting out an almost identical product to the star, who's the star?
[00:32:43] Jay: Why is the star different? Because the star isn't looking over their shoulder. The star is singing in the dark. The star is trying to make their art, and we're [00:33:00] watching silently for a reason because they're creating from a place of passion we all have. And we're mesmerized by it because of the simple fact that they have. The actual strength to do it in front of all of us.
[00:33:23] Jay: That's what we love. We love that they have the capability of being so in tune with themselves that they can stand up there and act like themselves on a big, massive scale. We're jealous, and we love it, and we want to emulate it.
[00:33:43] Jay: We want to do all those things, then we create products around it, and we market it, and we smash it into the ground, and we get albums two and three. Things suck, and they suck more, and then they start to just become like posters on the goddamn counter or on the, the coffee [00:34:00] table
[00:34:00] Jay: because it's reproduced shit. One of the things I love about your art is it's by the individual. It's by the scenario. It's by the feeling. They're fingerprints.
[00:34:16] Heather Eck: They are. That's right.
[00:34:19] Jay: What's better than that? I want to hang a fingerprint over my. Coffee or over my couch. I don't want to hang the same shit. Everybody else has that.
[00:34:34] Heather Eck: Totally. No, I get that. You're right. You're right. I think we're looking for that. It's so easy to get caught up in life, laugh, and love. I saw you'll laugh at
[00:34:51] Jay: I'm saying this, but there's some of this. Shit in my house, too
[00:34:55] Jay: Like, you know, have it.
[00:34:56] Jay: you have to have some of it. A [00:35:00] entrance fee to fucking suburban hood. You have to pay the fucking home goods tax.
[00:35:05] Heather Eck: You do. You do.
[00:35:07] Jay: have
[00:35:07] Jay: to fucking have at least three, three dumbass quotes on your wall somewhere. In your house.
[00:35:14] Heather Eck: In our kitchen, we have a sign that says party of three because it's my husband, my son, and me. So guilty, right?
[00:35:22] Jay: Ours have, ours is, it's, it says, in this, house there shall be tacos, salsa 24 7 or something like that. It's blasphemous as shit. But
[00:35:39] Jay: It's made you
[00:35:40] Jay: that. It's like in this house, there shall be tacos. Like, it's true. You take away my white American tacos. I'm gonna be pissed.
[00:35:48] Heather Eck: I'll be mad. They're not special tacos. There's nothing good about them. Are there any bad tacos, though? [00:36:00] No, out there. When you start introducing things from the sea, I start to check out. I'm like, yeah,
[00:36:10] Heather Eck: sea bass tacos.
[00:36:12] Jay: I feel like these don't go together. just getting a little, but I'm a kid that wanted a divided plate.
[00:36:18] Heather Eck: Okay. I gotcha.
[00:36:21] Jay: That’s weird
[00:36:22] Heather Eck: needed the sections. Yeah.
[00:36:23] Jay: I did need the sections, man. Get your peas out of my mashed potatoes. It's over. You might as well throw the meal away and start over.
[00:36:31] Heather Eck: That's cause you had the texture stuff, too.
[00:36:34] Jay: Oh, I do. It sucks. My wife gets mad at me because I'm like, I can't, eat that. She's like, why can't you eat it? What do you do? I'm like, I promise I can't. It's just it's not right in my mouth. Like, I wouldn't say I like it. It's weird. It's textured. I don't. Oh.
[00:36:54] Heather Eck: my gosh.
[00:36:55] Jay: tomato sauce, love tomato, everything on the planet, tomato soup. You stick a tomato [00:37:00] in my mouth, like sliced. That's the fruit God chose to blow his nose in. It's so gross. Okra fried all day long. You slice that next to me and boil it or whatever they do with it. Like, I don't want it near me. It's disgusting. I don't know. I know I'm five. Oh,
[00:37:24] Heather Eck: I am the person who mushes everything together. I know. I'm a weirdo. Like the Thanksgiving Bobby sandwich. Please give me the turkey, give me the stuffing, give it all in one.
[00:37:39] Jay: No, and I also hate cold sandwiches. Yes, we can because my wife eats everything. She's the exact opposite of me. She grew up on an Italian farm with a mother who, you know, makes everything from scratch, and they eat like escarole. Do you know what escarole is?
[00:37:55] Heather Eck: I've heard of it, but is it a vegetable?
[00:37:58] Jay: when lawnmowers used to [00:38:00] have that catch on the back of it that held the grass?
[00:38:02] Heather Eck: Yes. Yes.
[00:38:04] Jay: Imagine taking that and dumping it into a bowl after you've done like a field. Then pour some olive oil on it and some salt and pepper. And chowing down. That's a girl. It's just weeds. I don't know what else to call it, but they eat all this stuff, and I'm like, I am the toddler at the table.
[00:38:30] Jay: As her mom went out, they lived here for two or three months, and they went to, she made this beautiful meal of just shit that I could not put in my mouth. And I was very polite. Like I picked around some things and, just made my way back to the studio.
[00:38:45] Jay: I was like, I'm out. She left the house, and I was like, Oh, she's mad. I don't know what's going on. And then she came back 20 minutes later, and she had culvers. She had a burger and fries and a [00:39:00] shake for me. She goes. I know you're hungry. I was
[00:39:05] Jay: Nobody's ever done that for your life. I was like, what do you get for yourself? She said no, it's for you.
[00:39:09] Heather Eck: oh my gosh, went? Somewhere got you food And brought it to you without anything for themselves, without an occasion, none of those things. It stopped me. I was like, why don't we do this stuff for people?
[00:39:30] Heather Eck: Yeah. Oh my gosh. That's so thoughtful.
[00:39:34] Jay: Wasn't it? I'm such an asshole, not eating fish with eyes on it.
[00:39:43] Heather Eck: I get it.
[00:39:46] Heather Eck: That would freak me out, too. I won't be able to handle it.
[00:39:48] Jay: No, I'm exaggerating. She's a great cook. She does some amazing things. She makes meatballs the size of my fist, lasagna, and all those things. When I get to the lawn trimming section, I'm [00:40:00], like, out. I have to tap out. I can't feel like choking on my vegetables while swallowing them. They don't need to have this much more stem.
[00:40:14] Heather Eck: I am not a horse.
[00:40:16] Jay: a job. That's not a meal.
[00:40:20] Heather Eck: Oh my gosh. That's so funny. I think you have some synesthesia, and I think it's closer to autism, but we'll go ahead and go with your direction.
[00:40:33] Heather Eck: It is. Some forms of it are.
[00:40:36] Jay: Yes.
[00:40:37] Heather Eck: Yeah.
[00:40:38] Jay: We describe things from different directions as humans and don't realize we're all describing the same thing all day. We will describe something from 10 different directions religion is fantastic at this shit. Could you imagine if you looked at religion? it would be like 20 [00:41:00] people standing around like a Half of a globe on the ground like glass and all telling you a different story about what they see in the glass
[00:41:11] Heather Eck: yeah. So when I was little, again, I was always super interested in spirituality, even as a little kid. And I always imagined a spoke, like a wheel, and all of the spokes led into the same thing in the middle.
[00:41:28] Jay: I say pizza
[00:41:29] Heather Eck: imagined. Yeah.
[00:41:30] Jay: religion is pizza. I use this analogy on the show all the time. It's all pizza, every single bit of it, except each slice has a different topping that represents a different religion, But it's still all pizza, and guess what? It all points to the middle. And maybe that little plastic table that stops the box from slamming. Maybe that's God.
[00:41:53] Heather Eck: I lived for those tables. That little plastic table. [00:42:00] God bless you. You're doing the Lord's work. I need a t-shirt, guys. If you have the art, send it in. I need a little plastic table with it's Holding up the box or the lid, just doing the Lord's work, holding up a pizza lid, right? They needed to walk.
[00:42:25] Jay: for
[00:42:25] Heather Eck: Oh my gosh, you're bringing back so many memories. We had those growing up, and I used to collect them. I needed to have all of them.
[00:42:33] Jay: to walk on the table,
[00:42:39] Heather Eck: Yeah.
[00:42:40] Jay: I don't know what that was. Like, I think we have weird little habits. Weird little things that we have monkey things that we do. Did you see them playing with things with their hands? We did the same shit. it's exactly the same.
[00:42:56] Heather Eck: it's the same, I know, even if you grew up in a different [00:43:00] time or different place, like I've, seen articles recently of did you do this as a kid? I did. How about you? And so we all have these like little innate things that we did.
[00:43:10] Jay: I'm testing your senses. Do you remember sitting in the lunchroom as a kid? And your ears, letting the sound of the room go in and out? I don't know you.
[00:43:27] Heather Eck: But you. would hear
[00:43:29] Jay: tell me about that. We all test our shit out the same.
[00:43:35] Heather Eck: We do. 'cause we're feeling our way into what it's like to be a human
[00:43:40] Jay: Exactly. Exactly. We're absorbing the experience, but you're translating it differently, and you're allowing people to get a view into what they don't get to see but does exist, right? It's
[00:43:57] Jay: there, [00:44:00] Right. And if somebody's telling you it's there, take a moment, pause and think about that because we don't all see the same. We get a view of this with these colorblindness glasses, person would never even know they were colorblind unless we told them there were colors. You hand them those glasses; what happens to them when they put them on? They damn near collapse.
[00:44:28] Heather Eck: Yep.
[00:44:29] Jay: It's a couple of clues to how we take in our surroundings. We're also ungrateful shit. We should all be ashamed of ourselves the moment we see them crying And looking up at the sky and god and doing these and seeing, bro, it's just a tree.
[00:44:46] Heather Eck: never seen it.
[00:44:49] Jay: just a tree. Fuck, That thing's fucking giving you oxygen.
[00:44:55] Heather Eck: oxygen. I know. Do you ever marvel at nature? Like just [00:45:00] marvel at it?
[00:45:01] Jay: many studies now say it's a lot more sentient. Than we've given it credit for. Is that the correct word? I'm not
[00:45:09] Jay: sure.
[00:45:09] Heather Eck: I think so.
[00:45:10] Jay: yeah, like to a certain degree, like plants do. I know they're finding ways to Extract musical frequencies from mushrooms, fungi, and other plants, which is super cool, but there and again, it's almost like proving synesthesia is real. Because it's just two different interpretations of the same thing. Because it's not like the sound didn't already exist. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The pulse of the energy or whatever created it still existed. All it is a lens to view it through.
[00:45:49] Heather Eck: it's a different lens. I think That's so cool, though that we're, that people are now more open to viewing things through different lenses,
[00:45:58] Jay: a manufacturing box [00:46:00] anymore.
[00:46:00] Heather Eck: Yeah. Yeah. I'm hoping that got broken during the Pandemic.
[00:46:06] Jay: crumbling. I Can't put us in a room for eight hours a day and teach us how to go from block to block and learn the regimen of the world to create more of us. Right? You can't continue to do that and teach people a lot of homework.
[00:46:22] Jay: that's overtime. Congratulations. You now accept it. Go home with it. Take it with you. Your pain should not be just left here. Right? It should not be. So we'll let you get ready when you get to a real job where you can sustain this great nation. I'm not; I'm patriotic. I was in the military. All right, so screw you guys. But it doesn't mean that I'm an idiot and can't see when somebody's got strings on my fucking arms, And creating an army of people to replicate.
[00:46:58] Heather Eck: Mm
[00:46:59] Jay: the [00:47:00] fucking widget. That's it. We might as well be the fucking motto. We are the widget.
[00:47:08] Jay: Let's create more of the same, more of the same to create more shit, to create more shit; by the way, your art's gonna stay HomeGoods is gone. It's all going virtual. How long before we have glasses? When we walk into our house, it shows us the art that people like on the walls. I don't need to go live, laugh, love I can change that bitch to eat at Joe's and then, happy birthday, mom, right? That's gone.
[00:47:41] Heather Eck: Yeah. That's fascinating in some way, shape, or form. We will come up with a way to make that happen. Right? And at that point, the landfills will take a deep breath and sigh relief because of all this bric-a-brac we throw around the world. The [00:48:00] artists that will stand the test of time Are not the widget artists
[00:48:05] Heather Eck: Right.
[00:48:06] Jay: because widget art can be made by AI because there's no thought in widget art. Don't be afraid of AI. If you're a true artist, AI
[00:48:22] Jay: touch your product
[00:48:23] Heather Eck: It doesn't. No, it doesn't. Not for me
[00:48:25] Jay: that doesn't. mean the AI isn't a good thing. It gets us out of having to do the mundane crap. Now you can be original and go back to where you came from. They're doing you a favor. Kicking you out of the machine. That's the only way I can look at it with positivity. You know what
[00:48:45] Heather Eck: Yeah. I have a love-hate relationship
[00:48:48] Jay: with AI
[00:48:50] Jay: I don't think it will take over the world. It's a box of fucking letters and numbers. People don't realize it has a finite distance with which it can operate. And it's anything that we [00:49:00] drop into it. And it sits in numbers and letters. The moment it becomes infinite is the moment we should become fucking scared. But in the meantime, we're just shaking a fucking eight ball. Asking for answers. All the answers are in it. Eight ball has three or four or whatever, you know, AI has quadrillions or whatever the number is, and it multiplies, but it's still just in there. It's not you. It's not me.
[00:49:25] Jay: It doesn't have a heart.
[00:49:27] Heather Eck: Right.
[00:49:27] Jay: can take its pain and put it on canvas or somebody else's pain. And I want to wrap up on something because we're bypassing something very important with clairsentience and synesthesia in your world. I can only imagine that there has to be an overwhelming amount of filtering that you need to do. What? for those individuals that are not. In a good state [00:50:00] or not of, a good character, we'll use the word something along that line that the ego is tainted, so to speak, Right.
[00:50:11] Jay: No chakras. Maybe they look like a black cloud. What is that Due to you? Do you have to keep that from becoming your reality? Do you absorb people's feelings when you must go deep into them to find them?
[00:50:26] Heather Eck: That's a great question. Yes, sometimes I think I roll around. I just had my friend clear my energy for me. So she came around, and she's a shaman. So she cleared my chakras for me and said, you're just dirty. And I said, what does that mean? She goes, it looks like you're rolling around on your glass.
[00:50:48] Heather Eck: Yeah. She looks like you rolled around in the grass. I'm just getting the grass all off of you. I had just done an event where I did 10 portraits in a row. [00:51:00] I think I had just been rolling around in people's energy, and I didn't clear myself afterward. So I do, sometimes. It is a real thing. When you walk into a room, you can tell.
[00:51:12] Heather Eck: if there's been a fight.
[00:51:14] Jay: I did not know. I did. I thought everybody knew. Let's make that the case. I thought if you were mad, it was me, even though I believe that everybody in the room. How does everybody in the room not know this person's anger?
[00:51:33] Heather Eck: Yeah.
[00:51:36] Jay: that they don't notice that they're angry means they must be angry at whom. And if you're a kid, no matter what somebody feels, if the rest of the room isn't reacting to it, you're the cause.
[00:51:52] Heather Eck: You're the cause. Yeah. I so relate to that. I so relate to
[00:51:56] Jay: and you don't know it until,
[00:51:58] Heather Eck: Yeah. [00:52:00]
[00:52:00] Jay: you create fear-based personalities and defense mechanisms. fucking ice cream, drugs, whatever the fuck it is. Anything did not be the person that was causing the anger in the other one in the room that nobody else noticed.
[00:52:14] Heather Eck: No, I know. Isn't that's so interesting. And I'm 43. You said you're 47. I still have those feelings sometimes. Of walking into a space and going, are you mad at me? Cause I feel like the tension or what's happening, and it's really hard not to go. It must be me.
[00:52:35] Jay: I gotta bail on situations now. I have to give myself space. I have a very small circle of people. And that's not that I'm not communicating with the world. I love everybody. I, this is what I do. It's who I am, and I want to share it with everyone, but there are times when I walk away [00:53:00] from this, and I have to sleep for like in six hours. If it's a painful interaction, it could be online because people contact us. After all, they want to be a guest want to be a guest, but I know they can't be a guest. A hard one.
[00:53:18] Heather Eck: Yeah.
[00:53:19] Jay: because that person wants to be heard, but not all people can be heard. I'm only capable of so much,
[00:53:27] Heather Eck: Right.
[00:53:28] Jay: the team is only capable of so much. And so that if you're hearing this and you have applied, we love you. Continue right? It could be a timing issue. We may be focusing on a particular type of topic. So, in those times, we cannot use that particular situation. That doesn't mean that we won't come back to it. Or if that is your story, listen to others and try to [00:54:00] grow until it's your time. Right? Your story on your own. And maybe it'll come back around. Right? Maybe your story is not done. I see a lot of stories that aren't finished. I see a lot of people that want to tell their victimhood. I have a lot of people that want to sell. Their past victimhood is a way to get better, right? This whole change your life BS, I understand we must sustain ourselves in a world.
[00:54:35] Jay: where we're trying to do good. If you're fidgeting shit that people should know or that You could just give out of kindness, then you're just wasting everybody's time because you're not creating whatever it is to anything but a paycheck.
[00:54:59] Heather Eck: [00:55:00] Right.
[00:55:00] Jay: So if I'm consuming your goods, I'm consuming your greed. I'm not consuming your fucking ability to give back.
[00:55:08] Heather Eck: Yeah.
[00:55:10] Jay: good, I'm gonna
[00:55:15] Jay: put
[00:55:18] Heather Eck: that was a good soundbite. I think that's right. I think that's right. I think we're meant to reach our hands back and help people. We're meant to give back. We're meant to
[00:55:29] Jay: so much. So, I use keys as an analogy. I think it was all comprised of an infinite number of locks to enlightenment, and they are in different orders, different types, whatever they are, and that our job is to make. Our unique key continues to make it over and over again and throw it in every direction. Just drop them. Do it anywhere you can, and don't [00:56:00] look back. Looking back means that you're putting more into it than you should. You make your art, throw it out there, and they'll find that key when it's their time. And it may be the first lock, or it may be the last, or it could be 3, 782, But it's on the list of locks.
[00:56:26] Jay: So you continue to make them. That's your job. Enjoy doing it. You lucked out. Right? Whoever you are, you can sustain yourself by doing what you love more than anything. People will come to your art. They'll come to your art because it's real. We love the artist who puts his soul on the canvas or in your ears. Star. The
[00:56:54] Heather Eck: Yeah.
[00:56:55] Jay: is The one we love until we snuff it out. [00:57:00] We love to do that, but that's a whole nother
[00:57:02] Heather Eck: That's a whole other.
[00:57:04] Jay: I like to tell everybody that comes here that we believe that we can set an example through who we are, how we love ourselves, and how we utilize the time we're here by being a lighthouse. The lighthouse has one job, and that's to be a lighthouse. The lighthouse doesn't need to do anything else but always helps and affects change. In direction, in capabilities. Just continue being a lighthouse. Continue doing what you do. Keep giving people fingerprints to put over their couches, Right? Because a piece of you is in there. And it's your job to be you. To be anything different is a slap in the face of whomever or whatever made [00:58:00] you.
[00:58:00] Jay: Who are you to think you know more? Right?
[00:58:04] Heather Eck: Yep. Can I share
[00:58:06] Heather Eck: something all deserve.
[00:58:08] Heather Eck: Yes.
[00:58:09] Jay: And that's your art.
[00:58:11] Heather Eck: Thank you.
[00:58:12] Jay: I see you. I appreciate You Aww.
[00:58:15] Heather Eck: Thank you. You just made me think of something. I'm wearing my grandfather's rings today. When he came through in a reading one time, he called me a lighthouse.
[00:58:27] Jay: Stop. That's amazing.
[00:58:30] Heather Eck: Yeah. So when you said that, it gave me head-to-toe chills. So thank you for that.
[00:58:34] Jay: so we got to close on that? Yeah, I have to close on
[00:58:38] Jay: that. It's perfect.
[00:58:39] Heather Eck: it's perfect.
[00:58:40] Jay: Tell everybody where they can find you. We'll also list all of your socials, website, and anything else in our show notes. So go ahead.
[00:58:50] Heather Eck: Awesome. I'd love for you to connect with me on Instagram at Heather Eck Artist. I've got some freebies on my website at HeatherEck. com. Thank you.
[00:58:59] Jay: [00:59:00] Oh, Slash, thank you. Nobody ever has that at the end of their messages. It's always dot, give me your money.
[00:59:11] Heather Eck: got got to get back.
[00:59:16] Jay: That said, Hey, everybody, make sure you support our sponsor's Podpage; they make our website happen; go into the AM as well. That's where I get all my tees; it's my graphic t-shirt addiction, right? Pink is my color for this one here. I love hot pink. I didn't get to wear it as a kid. It's my thing. Also, if you can go to PayPal, go to our link, and you can see where you can donate.
[00:59:39] Jay: We have PayPal, buy me a coffee, all that stuff. Anything that you can give us helps us out and allows us to reach more people. And, other than that, I think class is over, man. Remember everybody to be cool and keep learning.[01:00:00]