Janet Echelman: Sculpting the Impossible

Guy Kawasaki:
Hello, I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is the Remarkable People Podcast. It is March 6th, 2024, and today, our new book, Think Remarkable: 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference, is now available.
And so before we get to our guest, the remarkable Janet Echelman, I'm going to play the introduction that I read for the audio version of the book. This is about eleven minutes long, and then we will get to Janet Echelman, a truly remarkable artist. Here comes the introduction. "I'm Guy Kawasaki, one of the authors of the book that you are listening to.
The book of course is, Think Remarkable: 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference. I'm going to be reading to you a few sections of the book. This is because, quite frankly, the professional voice actor, Perry Daniels, has a better voice, but there are some sections that are so intensely personal, I thought it would be better if I read them.
The first section that passes that test is the introduction. I begin this introduction with a quote from Anne Frank, 'What a wonderful thought it is that some of the best days of our lives haven't happened yet.' I included this quote because it speaks of grit, and determination, and grace, and growth.
Anne Frank was under terrible circumstances and yet she had this optimism. “What a wonderful thought it is that some of the best days of our lives haven't happened yet.” First section of the introduction, think different.
In 1997, I was Apple's chief evangelist, and I was in the room when Lee Clow, of Apple's advertising agency, Chiat/Day, presented the Think Different campaign to Steve Jobs. There were perhaps ten people in the meeting, and Lee's presentation took our breath away, because it's so perfectly captivated the spirit of Macintosh and Apple.
Let me read to you the text of the Think Different ad. 'Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.'
Wow. I don't know who wrote that text, but holy cow, that is great text.
Back then, Apple wasn't doing well. In fact, most of the pundits predicted that Apple would soon go bankrupt. Michael Dell, yes, that Dell, even suggested that Apple return its cash to shareholders and close up shop. Sticking with Apple in those days was an act of faith and thinking differently. To massively state the obvious, Michael Dell and the pundits were wrong.
The Think Different campaign and the iMac line of Macintosh's rekindled the flame and saved Apple. The turnaround that Steve engineered was remarkable, and Apple became the most valuable company in history. It's been a few decades since that meeting. The world has come a long way, but many problems still exist.
New challenges have arisen, and much work remains to be done. However, there are also great opportunities. Now, it's necessary to go beyond Think Different and go all the way to Think Remarkable to transform your life and the world.
The big picture. Suppose someone who is twice your age and holds a powerful political office tries to humiliate you. His reason was that you took offense to his insight on who needs abortions. Let's start with the words Congressman Matt Gaetz spoke in July 2022 at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit.
'Why is it that the women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions? Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb.' He offended many people with his statements.
Among them was Olivia Julianna. She is a, in her words, queer, plus size, Latina activist. She's in her twenties, and she fired off a tweet in response, 'It's come to my attention that Matt Gaetz, alleged pedophile, has says, 'It's always the odious five-foot two-inch, 350 pound women that nobody wants to impregnate who rally for abortion.' I'm actually five-foot eleven-inches, six-foot four-inches in heels, I wear them, so the small men like you are reminded of your place.'.
Gaetz return fire with a photo of Julianna with a tweet that said, 'Dander raised.' Olivia then turned the controversy into a fundraising effort for abortion rights that raised two and a half million dollars. She is a beacon to Gen Z and is leading the transition of power to the next generation such as Malala Yousafzai, David Hogg, Greta Thunberg, and Maxwell Frost.
The goal of this book is to help you make a difference, just like Julianna. First, let's define what being remarkable means. It does not mean amassing wealth, power, or fame. There are people who have done this, and are not remarkable, and there are people who haven't, and are.
In my book, being remarkable means that you are making a difference and making the world a better place. However, you are not competing with Olivia, Jane Goodall, or Steve Jobs, although I won't dissuade you if that's your goal. Just know that it's enough to improve one life, even your own, one organization, one habitat, or one classroom.
Being remarkable also means you are a good person. People use words such as empathetic, honest, and compassionate to describe you. If offered the chance, they would love to join your ohana, the Hawaiian word for the community of people who support and care for you. I can provide the roadmap, along with some inspirational examples, but only you can do the work.
Being remarkable is neither innate nor conferred. If it were, you wouldn't need this book. Sources. I use two sources of information and inspiration to write this book. The first source is several hundred remarkable people. Although they were not necessarily wealthy, powerful or famous, they all made the world a better place. They personify empathy, resilience, creativity, and grace.
They were guests on my podcast, Remarkable People, and include people such as Olivia, Jane Goodall, Stacey Abrams, Mark Rober, Carol Dweck, Ken Robinson, Steve Wozniak, Margaret Atwood, Julia Cameron, Temple Grandin, and Bob Cialdini, to name a few.
The second source is my firsthand experiences. I've been the chief evangelist of Apple and Canva, worked for Google and Mercedes-Benz, and started three companies. All told, I've been a son, father, husband, uncle, brother, evangelist, entrepreneur, investor, author, speaker, podcaster, mentor, ATM, and Wikipedia trustee. Structure.
Another quote, this one from Voltaire, 'twenty volume folios will never make a revolution. It's the little pocket pamphlets that are to be feared.' Non-fiction books tend to be a morass of 300 page tomes that extol one idea. I should know, I've written several of them. In this book, however, less is more, and so it is as succinct as possible.
There are three parts. Growth, which is about building your foundation. Grit, which is about implementing your aspirations. And grace, which is about uplifting and inspiring. Growth, grit, and grace are necessary to make a difference. I present them in approximate sequential order, but becoming remarkable isn't necessarily linear. Feel free to jump around the book as your needs dictate.
Each part of this book consists of three chapters. Each chapter in turn contains sections that explain methods for achieving the chapter's objective. Each section begins with an assessment of who can use the section's ideas. Remember, chapters contain sections, and sections contain ideas. I mentioned dozens of individuals in this book, it's unlikely that you'll recognize everyone. To help you identify them, there is a list of profiles at the end of this book.
In summary, utilizing a free real world examples circa 2023, Think Remarkable is the Elements of Style, not the Chicago Manual of Style, Tinder, not eHarmony, and TikTok, not TED. Let's do this. Making a difference in being remarkable are not easy, but you won't regret trying.
When you make a difference and are remarkable, you live a life that matters, reflects your best self, and inspires others to be remarkable as well. One last subtle but critical point, the remarkable people I interviewed did not decide one day to be remarkable and then dedicate their life to this goal, their motivation was outward focused and tactical, save a species, rise from poverty, invent a cool device, save democracy, and the like.
In pursuing these kinds of goals, they became remarkable, but becoming remarkable wasn't their objective. This book isn't about how to repackage, rebrand, or reposition yourself. My message is simple, if you do remarkable things and make a difference, people will call you remarkable. In fact, you couldn't stop them if you tried, so let's get started.
I wrote that in Santa Cruz, California, 2023. Now, I added a little story after that. So listen to this story. This is a good story. There's one more story inside the story of Lee Clow showing us the Think Different campaign.
At the end of the meeting, he said to Steve, 'I have two copies of these ads. I'll give one to you and one to Guy.' Steve, as only Steve would, responded, 'Don't give Guy a copy, just give me a copy.' For me, this was a man or miles moment that you don't want to look back on and think, 'Why did I wimp out?' So I didn't. Right then and there, in front of everybody, I came back with, 'Don't you trust me, Steve?'
And he came back with, 'I don't.' And I came back with, 'That's okay Steve, because I don't trust you either.' That probably cost me a few million dollars in stock options, but it was worth it."
That's the introduction to the book, Think Remarkable. Now available. If you only knew how many changes, and edits, and redrafts I made to that introduction, you would be astounded.
Now, let me tell you about our guest today. Her name is Janet Echelman. She's truly a visionary artist. She's reshaping the interaction of sculpture, architecture, urban design, and more. Her work scaling buildings and city blocks really defy categorization, it's wind, it's light, it's sculpture. Hers is truly an immersive art. When you go through SFO Terminal Two, look up right after the security area and you will see one of her sculptures.
Janet's artistic journey took a big fork after she won a Fulbright and went to India. Her painting supplies never arrived. Her painting supplies never arrived, so she had to find some kind of material to build sculptures. Luckily for us, she was in a fishing village, she noticed the nets.
Now, Janet is using materials as diverse as atomized water particles, and highly engineered fiber that is fifteen times stronger than steel. She blends ancient crafts with cutting edge technology. Her TED Talk, Taking Imagination Seriously, has been translated into thirty-five languages and has been viewed over two million times.
If her artistic accomplishments aren't enough, after you listen to this episode, I bet you will agree with me that she is a “machine.” I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is Remarkable People. And now, here's the remarkable Janet Echelman. Have you ever thought what would've happened if your paints did arrive in India?
Janet Echelman:
That's an interesting question. I suppose my life has many forking points where going left or going right would have led to an entirely different outcome. So I can't really imagine. Maybe I would've been painting. I don't really have an answer for that.
But I'm glad they didn't. I'll tell you, in retrospect, it was very painful and difficult having to realize my entire plan could not unfold and having to deal with the possibility of complete abject failure, and starting to experiment with the things that were around me, which started with bronze casting.
And then that was too limiting, so I started drilling holes in the bronzes and then tying into them. And then I saw the fishermen and looked at their nets and thought, "That's a way of creating volumetric form without heavy, solid material," and a way to express these moving gestures that I was seeking in a much larger form. And by the way, I had almost no budget for shipping. And so the fact that I could fold up giant nets into a small box and carry it with me on the train in India was a real practical necessity. Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
And did the paint ever show up, or the end of story?
Janet Echelman:
They did. The funny thing is they showed up like a week before I was leaving India, after all three exhibitions had completed. And I donated them to the art school, the National Institute of Design, where I was teaching. So I thought, "That was a kind of cosmic laugh." Man makes plans, but God laughs.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yes. Yes. So in the Steve Jobs Stanford commencement address, one of his big points was that, "You can only connect the dots looking backwards." So you would have to say the paint's not arriving is a dot, it's a fork. And then you can connect that to you being desperate, figuring out that you could use nets as an art form. But it's not like you landed in India and said, "I'm going to use nets," it was good fortune, let's say.
Janet Echelman:
It was an act of desperation. And frankly, when you think about going backwards and looking at the dots in hindsight, there are a million of these little moments of decision-making, where something fails. That's not the only time that disaster struck. My entire career is a series of disasters striking, and my trying to find the best adaptation at the moment to serve my goals.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. Now, you just opened up a really great segue. Tell us about more disasters. We like disaster stories.
Janet Echelman:
Okay. Well, I was invited to create the artwork for something called the Biennial Of The Americas in 2010, which was being held in Denver. They invited the thirty-five presidents and prime ministers from all the countries of the western hemisphere, they're all arriving, and they wanted an artist to express the interconnectedness of nations in an artwork.
And I designed an artwork, and up to that point in my work, I was using steel armatures that were like bent steel pipes, think of your roller coaster, like giant steel pipes. But when we went to explore installing this work over the street, it would be far too heavy. There was no possible way to create this, especially with wind and all of the engineering constraints. So it was dead in the water, my project.
And at that point, I was like, "What if I found a really strong fiber? Couldn't I make a grid, like an X-Y axis," and then pick up a point anywhere I needed to create the shape I wanted? And I went searching and I found an incredible fiber, ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene, that is more than fifteen times stronger than steel, pound for pound.
So it was really light. It's what they used for the Mars Rover to tether it. And suddenly, this complete disaster of not being able to build my steel armature to hold my sculptural form, became this whole door opening into a new experience, being able to bring very lightweight sculptures all over the world.
They pack up into a little bitty box, and then they unfurl, and they are tensioned into the buildings and infrastructure around the work and the space.
And one of the exciting things is that now, I can suspend artwork above streets, cars, and people, and bicycles. All of life can be moving underneath these works, and they're literally laced into the fabric of the city. And I'll add one thing, which is, it's an environmentally sustainable approach.
Because the city is already built, we've invested so much energy and carbon in all the things that we already have, so if I can create art that can just lace into the preexisting structure we have, I'm not adding or using any new carbon, I am literally using what we already have.
Guy Kawasaki:
But tell me at the completely tactical level, so you're staying in Denver and you see this problem, the steel is too heavy. Now, did you go to Home Depot and look for this magical material? How did you actually find this material?
Janet Echelman:
Oh, that's a good question. I am a big researcher. So it was clear that the project was dead in the water. And I started calling and asking experts and friends, and asking friends to recommend other friends, and talking to everyone.
It turned out this is a fiber that, I mentioned is used in space, but it's also used in climbing ropes. And turns out it's taken me years to learn how to work with it, because while it's really strong and light, it's not strong against ultraviolet rays.
So I have learned how to braid a sleeve to physically protect it, so ways of working with it over the years, but not for that first time. It's the power of people that solves the problems for me. I ask my friends and they connect me to more people, and maybe a little bit like being a reporter or something, it's like I'm investigating a question and I just go as far as I can, never giving up.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's a lesson in being remarkable in itself.
Janet Echelman:
I don't know, indefatigable, or just bullheaded, is probably what my family would say. But I really won't give up, and I do believe that if I just keep exploring, and thinking, and taking it apart, and putting it together again, that I will find an unexpected solution.
And that might come from being an artist, because the practice and the way I learned it was I would start a drawing or painting and if it wasn't good, I'd tear it apart, and put it back together, turn it upside down. There's a practice of deconstructing and reconstructing in art that I think has been helpful to me in other challenges in my work.
Going back to the prior word I was looking for, embedded energy. The approach of lacing these completely fiber soft sculptures into things we already have, the skyscrapers, and highways, that is using the embedded energy that we have already invested to create new cultural environments above our heads.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's great. Do you know who Angela Duckworth is?
Janet Echelman:
I don't. I've heard the name but I can't place it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Angela Duckworth is a MacArthur Fellow, and she won it for her work in the topic of grit. So what you just described is a pretty good definition of grit. That you encountered this problem with steel structures and you wouldn't give up, and you asked all these friends, and friends of friends, and you found the solution as opposed to packed up and went home.
Janet Echelman:
I appreciate your calling it grit. For sure, my family would call it bullheadedness or stubbornness, I just won't give up. But it is combined with a belief that I might find light at the end of the tunnel. I do typically believe that if I keep going, keep taking it apart and putting it together again, keep getting new ideas, keep asking questions, that will lead me somewhere.
And I think the key is if I can keep myself open to where it leads me, that is usually what will render a positive outcome. If I'm stuck on the way I frame a question as very linear, if I thought, "How do I make steel work as an armature? How do I find a way to have this heavy thing?" That would never have led to any surprising new solutions.
I really had to open up the whole frame of the question, and that has opened up a whole new trajectory for my work. And it's opened up places that it can go and scale in the city to go 750 feet over water, and highway, and pedestrian lanes. So that would never be possible if I were using these incredibly heavy structures.
Guy Kawasaki:
Janet, you are just a quote machine.
Janet Echelman:
You're a talented interviewer.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. Now, while we're on the topic of grit, walk us through the tactics and the real world situation of what's the process of getting approval and permits for sculptures that are the size of a building?
Surely, there must be some people who are going to say that "Your nets are going to capture birds, and kill them," there's got to be somebody who's going to say something negative about what you're doing. So how do you get past the government permit process and all the bullshit to put up your sculptures?
Janet Echelman:
First thing, people always are concerned that it will hurt the birds, and it doesn't. That's the good news. I've been building sculptures for twenty years now and we have never had a case of a bird dying as a result of falling into the net. It turns out the things that injure birds in terms of meshes are small, stiff mesh, like deer netting. That's a danger for birds.
And also, things that are transparent, like glass in a skyscraper. That's dangerous for birds because they can't see it. My sculpture is different in every way because, first of all, birds can see it. It's soft and flexible, so it's moving in the wind.
And in fact, if you're trying to keep birds away, say, the seafood restaurants in Florida, where my large sculpture is located, the way they keep birds away is they put kite tails up, and by having something move in the wind that really enables birds to see it immediately.
But we've had all kinds of protests, and PETA, and the Audubon Society, all because they think it might be a danger to birds, but they haven't in fact looked at the record. And we consulted with engineers, environmental engineers, and now we understand why the work is safe with respect to birds.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. But not just birds, but how about the permit process? You can't just go to downtown Denver and put up something like this over the street. How does that work?
Janet Echelman:
Well, there is a process. It takes patience and forethought, and a lot of collaboration. But the truth is, I also think there's some goodwill and there are always circumstances where people say no, but somehow, in my life, people have given me a chance. And once you've done it once, and you have a track record, almost every city, the first answer is no.
Often, they're concerned that people in their cars are going to look up, be distracted, and have an accident. And it turns out, people don't. But there's always a concern that having this artwork suspended above a major highway or a street is going to create pandemonium.
So I think it's hard to get your first break in every regard. My first large sculpture in a building, my first large sculpture over a major street and thoroughfare, each of these things is difficult the first time, and I don't know, maybe it's that I recognize they're not going to trust a visual artist like myself. So I bring in my fabulous colleagues, these brilliant structural engineers and aeronautical engineers.
And so I do reach out. We were just doing a piece in Germany, in Munich, in a historic place, the Odeonsplatz, and here, it was a surprising obstacle, it was the fire marshal who said no. And let me tell you, we'd all been working many months, everything was go, and suddenly, the fire marshal says, "No."
And I then went, and I found a fire specialist engineer and we worked through each question, and it turned out I had to take further laboratory tests. I already had fire lab tests on each material in my sculpture, each type of fiber.
But in Germany, they made me weave all the different ones together in the quantity and method that I use them, and then the entire apparatus had to then be tested by the laboratory. And luckily, it passed, because we were already past the deadline where we had to say, "Go."
And my life is not without anxiety. I think actually, one of the job requirements to do what I do is to be able to tolerate anxiety and risk, because I'm trying to do things that have never been done before, and it's uncomfortable.
Let me tell you, it's not comfortable for me either, but I have to find a way to calm myself through each of these difficult moments because there are lots of them. And it may look effortless when you are in a city and one of my sculptures' floating above you, "How easy, how does she do it?" But in fact, there are just a million challenges. There are hundreds of times people say no, and I have to find a way around it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. So now, you open up another line of questioning, which is, how do you calm yourself?
Janet Echelman:
You have a great smile. Our listeners can't see your smile, but it really is a pleasure to be asked questions by you guys.
Guy Kawasaki:
How do you calm yourself in the midst of all this aggravation, and the fire marshal, and all this stuff? What's your secret to calmness?
Janet Echelman:
Oh, my goodness. I'm not sure. I play Scrabble on my phone. I don't know. It's such a good question. I will go take a walk when I'm feeling really stuck. And also, my studio is right next to my house and I often will come down and start cooking. I chop a lot of vegetables. You'll see me, if I'm having a really thorny problem at work, if I'm down in the kitchen at lunch chopping onions, and celery, and carrots, making mirepoix.
Cooking is somehow calming, and maybe it's the transformation of one thing into another, seeing my chopped onions become transparent and tasty. I don't know. I'll think on that. If I can come up with something else. What do I do? Yeah, I take a deep breath, and I don't know. In the end, I just believe in my vision. I can't explain that.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's why you're an artist, right?
Janet Echelman:
Yeah. I will say, what drives me as an artist is creating something that I myself want to be underneath. It's like, I wish this existed in the world, if it did, I wouldn't have to be an artist. But I want to feel a certain way, and if I can't find that, I've got to create it. And that is what drives me. I'm trying to create the space I want to be in the world I want to see.
Guy Kawasaki:
My God, Janet, you really are a fricking quote machine. One of the things we've noticed in our podcast is that one of the richest veins for innovation and remarkable achievement is you build what you want to use. That's why Wozniak made the Apple I, he wanted to use an Apple I.
It wasn't because he was market driven. And I don't think you're consulting some McKinsey report or Goldman Sachs report about the growing need for sculptures in municipal places, you're building the sculpture you want to be under, not the one that McKinsey said there's a growing market for.
Janet Echelman:
There sure was no market for something that had never existed. That's an interesting observation. It does help if the goal is coming from inside because I don't get confused, I'm not listening to anyone else, I'm listening inside. Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
My God, Janet, we could just quote you all day. You're like one Instagram quote machine.
Janet Echelman:
After college, I went to live on my own in a small village in Bali. That was my graduate school. And I think what I needed to learn was how to hear my own voice, like how to listen to myself. And it was not something I knew how to do. Education for me had opened up many interesting avenues, but it didn't teach me how to listen internally.
And that actually took practice. I would draw every day. I'm a right-handed person, and so I would write out questions with my right hand, and I would answer them by writing with my left hand, with a very jagged, almost like a child's script. And I really was teaching myself to hear myself. Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
So with hindsight, you get rejected by all seven art schools. What's the lesson there? And here you are, famous artist.
Janet Echelman:
What's the lesson there? Everybody thinks I'm really angry with those art schools, but I'm not. Actually, they made the right decision. At that point, my art didn't really have a center, I didn't have my own voice as an artist yet. That work wasn't good.
Your potential is different from your product. As a young person applying to art school, what I had to show was really nothing of merit. It took me a long time, and it took me time to teach myself to hear myself. And frankly, I don't think you develop your own voice in a minute, it takes years. And our culture is very focused on youth.
But in fact, for an artist, it takes years and years to develop and have something to say. And that's the other thing. Your art, if it's communicating something, it takes time to figure out something worth saying.
So I recommend to young artists to study everything that interests them, all of it. Go as deeply as possible. Read, learn, talk to people on every subject possible, study science, study history, look at philosophy. I think those are the ways that an artist should be trained. It's good to have skills, but it's not really about how well you can copy in charcoal the images of things before you.
Guy Kawasaki:
So is there a place for art school in art?
Janet Echelman:
It's a beautiful practice to develop your visual skills, and your ability to paint, and draw, and sculpt from reality. Art schools do many things, and they can become a place of community, which I think is the greatest value of an art school really, is that you meet like-minded thinking people, and you stimulate questions with each other, and that becomes creatively interesting and exciting, the faculty and the students together, creating that community.
So that is what I see art school, as offering. I think an education for an artist needs to be more than that. And many art schools do include study of science, and mathematics, and history, and all of the social sciences and humanities. I think to be a human being living today, we need to know all of these things. And I am still a student. In fact, I'm taking a class right now and I love being a student.
I'll be a student my whole life informally, but in fact, I often will go back and take classes when there are new topics I want to learn about. The class I'm taking right now is taught by a comparative religion scholar, and it's called Ritual and the Life Cycle. And I'm learning so much.
Today's lecture was about time, cyclical time versus linear time. And these are things I think about as an artist. I'm very interested in time, and how humans conceptualize time, and how we live in different types of time simultaneously. I am living in a human time in my own, "What am I going to make for dinner?"
And that's like daily time. And there's the weekly cycle, and there's the annual cycle, but there's also geologic time. Where am I in relation to the history of the earth, and all of our endeavors. All of these different concepts of time are functioning simultaneously. So that's my thought.
Guy Kawasaki:
Now, I want you to put aside all your modesty and answer the next question. Okay? And this question is, so you get rejected by all these art schools, and then you go, and you continue to paint for ten years, and bada bing bada bang, you get a Fulbright. How do you go from being rejected from all art schools to getting a Fulbright? Walk me through that path.
Janet Echelman:
Oh, my goodness. I'm such a crazy person. I was rejected by all the arts schools. I decided to study and become an artist in my own way, mostly because I couldn't imagine not making art. And I do think that's important, that it's not about being an artist, it's about the day-to-day, spending your time engaged in the practice of making whatever it is.
People are always so worried, "Am I a writer, a poet, a this or that?" It's not about an identification, it's just life is in the moment. If you like doing something and you can't live without it, then do it. It's that simple. So I was just doing it, sounds like a Nike ad. But it seemed to me that my goal was to be making art, that to be an artist was to live the life of an artist. And I was living that life.
Mostly, people are worried about how they're going to get their income. So I mostly worked on living on very little, so I didn't need much money. I think that helped, because it freed me up to spend a lot of time teaching myself how to hear my own voice. How did I get from there to getting the Fulbright? One foot in front of the other.
Maybe it surprised me. I suppose you take the strengths you've got and you package them up. That's a hard one to explain. But it took ten years and that didn't happen in a minute. I was making art, I was exhibiting art, whatever I sold, that's what I would live on. That's how I figured it out. If I had a lean year, it was a lean year. And by doing it a lot, it helped my work to grow. And yeah, I don't know. Got lucky.
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, how do you even get a Fulbright? Do you apply for it or do they reach out to you?
Janet Echelman:
No, you apply for it. And this is what I will say, is that I applied for things time and time again. From the outside, it looks like, "Oh, she has achieved everything so effortless. Look, she got a Guggenheim grant," blah, blah, blah. But you don't know.
I think I applied for the Guggenheim seven times; I just didn't give up. And the other thing is I would apply to many things. I had friends who'd apply for one grant, they didn't get it, and then they'd be demoralized, and then they'd give up being an artist.
And for me, it's like if you're going fishing, it's better to have a lot of fishing poles out there, you're more likely to catch one fish, and frankly, you only need one. I applied a lot, and I would apply year after year. I'm going to look up and figure out how many times I applied for that Guggenheim, but I know it was more than seven times.
And that goes back to being able to tolerate anxiety, and also being able to tolerate rejection. If it were unbearable for me to be rejected, I could not do this. Because I get rejection even at this age, and having all this experience, I still get rejections all the time. If I didn't learn how to let it roll off my back like water, just think of it as raindrops, they come, they go, just move on. My son is an athlete, and I play tennis too.
So when you play tennis, if you're busy thinking about how you made a bad shot and it went wrong, if your brain is still thinking about that, or if you're skiing, if you're skiing and you realize your weight is too far back, and you're thinking about that, then it's all gone. It's like, just get yourself forward, think about the exact new moment. You've got to be present right now this nanosecond.
And the rejections, they come. But if I can just let them go, then I have the energy to keep moving forward, to keep trying. And I just keep reminding people that they're looking from the outside. They don't know behind the scenes how many rejections are there. That I was rejected from seven art schools, you only know that because I told you. No one would know otherwise.
Guy Kawasaki:
Did you learn this from your mother or father, or something, or is it in your DNA? How did you come to this point where it rolls off your back?
Janet Echelman:
It's interesting. Both of my parents are now gone, but they each had a different point of view when I came out to them that my goal was to be an artist. Nobody wants their kid to be an artist. That's a life of hardship and poverty.
And my dad said, "Did any of your professors think you have talent and say you should pursue this?" "No, absolutely not." No one thought I had talent. My mom, she wrote me a letter, "That's a worthy goal. Go make ninety-nine paintings." And enclosed was a check for 199 dollars to go buy paint.
So that was the seed funding of my art career, the 199 dollars to go buy paint. But what was even more important was when she told me, "Go make ninety-nine paintings," I think that gave me permission to have the first ninety-eight be junk. I wasn't expecting a masterpiece.
It wasn't about making the great artwork, the great American novel. All of the things that we aspire to have or be, it was about just do it, the practice of doing it, and do it over, and over, and over again. It wasn't, "Go make ninety-nine paintings."
And for a young person, I think that gave me permission. And it's interesting, for me, the transition from being a painter to becoming a sculptor was actually very difficult. And it was another artist who gave me permission, Mia Westerlund Roosen.
She was an accomplished senior female artist, and she said, "Oh, all of us sculptors used to be painters." And suddenly, in my mind I was like, "Oh, I guess I could be a sculptor too then." There's something about being given permission, whether we give it to ourselves or someone gives it to you. But that message, when I first declared my love of the idea of living a life as an artist, that message, "Go make ninety-nine paintings," that gave me permission to not be good.
And actually, I think having permission to not be good, to not expect the first thing. if you came to my studio today, you would see that I am on version eighty-seven of a new commission I'm creating for the Broad Institute about genomics.
This is not an old lesson, this is an everyday lesson for me, is that I keep trying, I keep looking, we pin them up, or we put them on the computer screens, we look at them together, and we critique them, and I'm not attached. I heard that Picasso, if he was painting and there was a part he loved especially, that he would paint that part out.
And there's to let something develop and grow. My work develops so much you would not recognize where it came from. And there are ninety-nine iterations of every single major work that nobody will ever see. They won't know. And if I built the first, or the second, or the third iteration, I think my work would be junk.
So I am still learning this lesson, how to not be attached, how to find what's good and let go of what isn't, how to go for what is essential and let go of everything that is inessential. That's the only way to get a clear expression of what it is, as an artist, I'm trying to communicate.
Guy Kawasaki:
Janet, do you know who Julia Cameron is?
Janet Echelman:
Oh, no, I don't.
Guy Kawasaki:
People think of her as the mother of innovation and creativity. She's written a book, I think sold twenty million copies, called The Artist's Way. You are Julia Cameron the second.
Janet Echelman:
Well, I'm just living it. I'm just living it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah. Okay. Now, this question may be like, "Guy, it's a little scary how your brain works," but I want to know your work in Portugal called S-H-E Changes, right?
Janet Echelman:
Yep.
Guy Kawasaki:
Now, I want to know why S-H-E, as opposed to maybe S-E-A, because it's in Porto, near the sea. So what is it? Are you making a statement about you, she changing, or is this like women's rights movement? Why She Changes? What's the homonym there? What's going on there?
Janet Echelman:
The first thing, I will tell you about my titles, which is I don't know how much you want to know here, but it's like I have to meet the artwork before I know its name. So it's not like I come up with an idea and then I illustrate that preexisting concept, it's like the piece grows with its own organic evolution, and then I meet it, and then I find its name.
By the way, full disclosure, when my first child was born, I wrote on the form his full name. And then I was downstairs waiting for the taxi, it was time to get in, and I said to my husband, "Pay the taxi and let him go. I've got to go up and change the name," because I realized that my son's name really had to be different.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wait, so what did it start at and what did it end at?
Janet Echelman:
I didn't have a title, and I was just racking my brain.
Guy Kawasaki:
No, no, no, your son.
Janet Echelman:
Oh, my son. His first name is Sam and he was going to be Solomon. And isn't that funny? I'm now forgetting what was going to be Jacob, Solomon Jacob. And he's Sammy, he's Sam, he's a Samuel, not a Solomon. And he's no Jacob, he's got a middle name of Amitai. But he could never be a Solomon, that just isn't him, he's Sam.
Anyway, but that's the point. We had to meet him before we could realize what his name was. The name came with him, not from us really. And with the sculpture in Portugal, I couldn't figure out what the title should be, so I wasn't able to give them.
Often, they want to make a bronze plaque and they need time, but they were so angry at me because I couldn't give them the title, so the plaque couldn't be there. I create a lot of trouble, Guy. She Changes. What I like about it, it's not that it's feminine or masculine, it's almost like a person or an entity, and it sets up the fact that I have a relationship with you.
One of my paintings is titled, You Appear Calm and Collected. There's a piece in Phoenix, Arizona called Her Secret is Patience. So I want to bring you into a relationship with the art one-on-one, like you and me.
So the pronouns in the work, they're often phrases, that's what I'm getting at. But it's not about women's rights, for sure, never. No. But it is an exploration of our relationship, you and me. And I would say, there is a nurturing aspect to the works, like you go underneath them and they are soft. They are soft and enveloping, but porous, and freeing, and liberating at the same time. If you think of that as a kind of larger feminine, maybe in a union sense, then I'll take that.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, Now, Janet, let's suppose that you go to DALL·E, or some AI image generator, and you put in a prompt that says, "I want something that's light and airy, and moves with the currents in the air, and reflects and changes because of the constant movement. And it should be very large, like the size of a building." And you put that prompt in, and out spit something that looks like you'd made. Are you morally offended that AI has ripped you off? What's your attitude when that happens?
Janet Echelman:
I don't know. I'd be open to using AI, I think that'd be great. It's, "Okay, here's my space, what are 100 ways I could approach this space?" The thing is, in the end, whatever AI generates, it's just a set of options, and then I would sculpt it and change it. And so I'm not opposed to AI. I think it's a great tool and we should all use it as much as we can, and it could just make life move faster and easier. I don't know. At least for me, as a visual artist, it's never been a problem. I don't know.
Guy Kawasaki:
There are artists and writers who are just so pissed off that AI has usurp their intellectual property or their creativity.
Janet Echelman:
As an artist, if someone wants to collect my work, they're not going to want an AI-generated copy, they're going to want an actual sculpture by Janet Echelman, I think.
Guy Kawasaki:
I hope.
Janet Echelman:
I'm not really worried about it, but I respect and appreciate that might be different with something that is more reproducible, like a written word.
Guy Kawasaki:
And can people go to galleries around the world and buy one of your sculptures? Or is everything the size of a building?
Janet Echelman:
Oh, I make smaller pieces, but they are all unique and individual. I've been actually making some smaller works in private homes now. And I never thought that would interest me, but it turns out it's been a joy to create something intimate and personal.
One is in California inside a new house, in a hillside, and it's about that couple and for them. And it was really a labor of love to create that work. I do make smaller works, but you can't buy them in a store, they're not multiples. I have done editions of prints before, and I could do that again.
I liked it because then a lot of friends could have work, and I like sharing. And I'd like to make my work more accessible, just because I can't make a million pieces myself, each one distinct and original. I could create something and make an edition.
So I'm open to that. I would need a partner. So if someone listening here wants to join in and become a partner on that goal, of being able to share my art with more people, I like the idea of that.
It's just I'm so busy thinking of new ideas. I just don't think about commercialization. It's not that I'm opposed to it, it's just there's only so many minutes in a day, and I've got other things on my mind. I made a piece for a house in Mumbai, India.
And I got to know the family, and their beliefs, and their interests, and it's part of a religious text that's important to them. It's called Without Beginning, Middle, or End, from the Bhagavad Gita, because that's their holy text.
And the piece is about rain, how it evaporates and comes back as rain and water, that cycle. I don't know, Guy, if I come to your house and I get to know you. I don't even know what the piece would be or what it would be about.
Guy Kawasaki:
Where do you live?
Janet Echelman:
You'll have to invite me. I am between Boston, Massachusetts and Florida are the two places where I've spent the most time.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you ever get to San Francisco?
Janet Echelman:
Sometimes. I would love to. Is that where you are?
Guy Kawasaki:
Yes.
Janet Echelman:
All right. I created a piece in your airport in the SFO airport.
Guy Kawasaki:
Which terminal?
Janet Echelman:
Terminal Two.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's the United, right?
Janet Echelman:
American. Virgin American, I don't know who flies there now, but I think it's the newest domestic terminal. Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. Next time I go to SFO, I'm going to look for it.
Janet Echelman:
Yes. All you have to do is look up.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah. All right.
Janet Echelman:
I'll come visit you.
Guy Kawasaki:
Is it right after security? Right next to the bookstore?
Janet Echelman:
Yes. Yes. It's right after security.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh, then I have seen it.
Janet Echelman:
Yes. In fact, when they hired me, they said, "We need an artist to create a zone of recomposure after security in the airport." And I was like, "Oh, no. Oh, my God, what am I taking on here?" And there it came. The piece is called Every Beating Second. And as you go into SFO airport into Terminal Two, you've taken off your shoes and put your bag through the conveyor belt, and then you look up, and it's meant to give you a moment to really compose yourself.
Guy Kawasaki:
Isn't there a yoga or prayer room right off the sculpture area there?
Janet Echelman:
Maybe. But it's really about being in the midst of regular life. It's not about going apart, and that feeling is right there, Every Beating Second, life is right there.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, last question for you. In my research about you, the word wonder comes up a lot. So can you explain what it means and how you achieve it?
Janet Echelman:
I am unabashedly curious about many, many, many things. And I suppose wonder is what I think of my childhood. All of us, when we were little, and you go out in the garden, start playing in the grass and the flowers, that sense of wonder, and you discover a lizard, or a frog, if we can hold on to that sense of discovery, that is the sparkle of living, really.
And my work, I'm letting nature animate the work. So it's always breathing and changing its shape with the wind, with light. I'm re-experiencing wonder at the beauty of this world when I lie underneath the sculpture and lookup.
Thank you so much. This was really fun, Guy. I had no idea it'd be this much fun, and you gave me socks. Those are the softest, most comfortable socks. What a perfect gift. It's like something very personal that you really experienced.
Guy Kawasaki:
I swear, some people ask to be on our podcast so that they can get the MERGE4 socks. But I digress. Anyway, so listen, one more time, I'm going to tell you, it is March 6th, this is launch day for our book, Think Remarkable: 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference.
My thanks to Janet Echelman for being on our podcast. Wow, her artwork is so immersive. Be sure you check it out. Terminal Two SFO, and other places around the world. My thanks to Beth Daley of The Conversation, for bringing this remarkable person to our attention.
And my thanks to the Remarkable People team, Jeff Sieh and Shannon Hernandez, Sound Design. Madisun Nuismer, producer and co-author. Tessa Nuismer, researcher. Luis Magaña, Alexis Nishimura, and Fallon Yates. That's the Remarkable People Team.
And I lied. One more time, Think Remarkable, now available. Check it out. It'll help you make a difference. Change the world, dent the universe, and be remarkable. Mahalo and aloha.