Hey, everybody, We're here Alive and thrive in Toronto, home of blue
Jays, raptors, maple leafs, and Canadian psychic Robert Lindsay Mill. That's
me. Welcome to my side of the Crystal Ball. My guest tonight,
Pat Benicassa Uh is an artist. And when my producer Michelle suggested that that
Pat be a guest on the show, I thought, what would an artist
have to do with being psychic or what would an our teacher know about or
fit in to the show? I trust Michelle implicitly, and I, as
I always do, I took her advice and we book Pat. We have
had the most fascinating conversation about art, about being psychic, and we've talked
about how we feel or how Pat feels when she's creating, when she's designing,
and it's remarkably similar to the way I do psychic readings and sessions.
Not only is it remarkably similar to what I do and during psychic readings,
her way of living her life, her commitments, her dedication is It was
like, you know, looking at a female version of the way that I've
lived my life. Pat benacassa A remarkably fascinating interview. And of course we've
got a ww rs before I get started on our show tonight. I've just
got a couple of requests and you know them. So if you're watching us
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TikTok on my side of the crystal ball as well. So we're just about
to start WWRS and I'm looking forward to sharing that with you. There are
four steps to learning, four steps to awareness and growth. The four steps
are unconscious in competence, conscious in competence, conscious competence, and unconscious competence.
So here's how it starts off. Imagine a little child, say three
four years old, sitting on the kitchen counter, and their mother is tying
their shoelaces. Now, I know, in today's day and age, little
kids often don't have shoelaces, you know, they have velcrow snaps. But
let's pretend it was when I was a little kid, and every kid had
shoelaces. So imagine this little child sitting there on the kitchen counter, three
four, maybe even five years old, and the mother's tying up shoelaces.
The little child, whether it be girl or boy, looking around, taking
glance at everything, and maybe not even paying attention to what their mother's doing.
So that child doesn't know that they don't know how to tie their shoelaces.
So that's called unconscious in confidence. I don't know, I don't know
how to do it. And whenever we start something, or anytime we come
across something new, we start off with I don't know that I don't know.
So now the little child is out playing with their friends, little girl,
little boy playing with their friends, and all of a sudden, that
little child who doesn't know that they don't know how to tie their shoelace,
is about to find out. They look down, see their shoes untied,
and then they reach down to try to tie them, and then they realize,
oh shit, I don't know how to do that, And now they
are now they know that they don't know, and that's called conscious incompetence,
second stage of learning. So after a while, the child who is in
conscious incompetence, over time practices does ties up their shoe and eventually they can
do it all. But you have to work really really hard to tie the
shoes. But they can do it, and that's called conscious competence. I
know, I know how to do it, but it's difficult. Conscious competence.
Now, as that child grows older and gets bigger, and when they're
a teenager, if they still don't have those valco straps, one day they'll
be bending down to tie their shoelace, and in tying their shoelace, they'll
be able to talk talk with a friend, or make a cell phone call,
tie up the shoelace and have something to drink as well, and they'll
tie their shoe up without even thinking it at all. And that's called unconscious
competence. I don't even have to think about it because I know. And
there are the four steps of growth, unconscious incompetence. I don't know that.
I don't know conscious incompetence. Oops, now I know, I don't
know conscious Consciousness means that we know, we know how to do it,
and then the next step is unconscious competence, and that's when we just do
it. And that's what Robert has to say. How did you know you
are an artist? How did it happened? I cannot remember a time when
I wasn't all I know. I think I was about four and my parents
had reader digest books all over the house, and as a little kid,
I saw the white space on the edge of those black lines, and I
would get pencils and crayons and start drawing and making marks that did not go
over well. I'm just going to tell you that, but I just saw
the white space and did what I thought anybody would do. You just make
marks? How could that not go over well? Just making marks and drawing
pictures and your child? How did not not go well? I was doing
it in their books, oh, okay books. When I opened it,
I saw that those lines, I'm thinking, oh, those black and I
was coloring between the lines, and I was embellishing, and you were making
the nicer and better and more right. Okay, monks did in the middle
medieval times. Do you think you could have been one of those? I
think, oh boy, we're going to jump right into it, aren't we.
It seems like it. Yeah. I believe I do nothing by myself.
I believe that my beloved ancestors are always with me. They're the ones
they're always with me. Okay. And I'm not saying ancestors. I'm saying
beloved ancestor because you don't want to invite riff raft. No, no,
no, you don't know riff raft for me either. Well sometimes, so
the best way I can say it is beloved ancestors. I just feel like
anything I do, they're always guiding me. Do they talk to you?
I'm not psychic? Okay, psychic Robert. Do they talk to me?
If I listen, I'm guided, okay. Uh. That means I can
pick up a piece of sheet metal and start making paintings on it and I
just know what to do. Okay, now is this yes? I understand
that. Okay. So do I hear them? No? But I feel
them. I feel them inside of me. Where do you feel that?
Oh? Gosh, just uh from in you? In you? That's that's
really a hard thing to answer. I never thought about it because I just,
you know, I just be. I just be, okay, and
in my being they kind of share space with me. I understand. That's
how I do readings. So you know, I was not always this way,
quite honestly. It wasn't until I met my partner, who's very comfortable
with the dead and very connected. And I used to drive like when I
go past the cemetery. Hell, I put pedal to the metal. I
didn't want to think about it. So you know, when you fall in
love, people rearrange your mental furniture, right, yeah, Okay, my
mental furniture is getting rearranged. And over the years I've come to see and
understand that. You know, I come from Italy, Italy is so small.
My parents were born there, and I had this philosophy that the country's
so small that eventually we're all cousins somewhere along the line. Either way,
the section of Toronto I live in is Corso, Italia. Well there you
have it. You're living right, Robert. So I just feel that when
I'm in trouble, when I need help, I just tell them I don't
know what the hell I'm doing here, I'm scared. What do I do?
And uh, I don't know. I just trust them with me.
So they guide over you, your your ancestors or or your guides or are
they or are are they one and the same? You know what? I
don't mean this in a rude way. Does it matter? Does that's where
I am? They? It just feels like leve familiar to me. I
can't tell you again, I don't know why. But if it's familiar,
it's okay. And so I just know. So your ancestors guides, the
familiars, Do they guide you in what you create? Do they move your
hand or do you sense or do you or or how does that translate from
your familiars to guiding you? I'm thinking about your your your art, but
or is your art one in the same whoa you? Wow? These are
huge questions, magnificent questions. Let me. I wish I could be the
one to say yes, I'm downloaded and they move my hands. No way,
I have to work my butt off. Well, I brag about having
to work my butt off being so good at my job. Okay, so
you understand that you know absolutely creative practice. You work twelve to fifteen hours
in the studio. I research things. I have a body of work that
I'm developing. And so for example, I was a painter for like fifteen
years and somebody came to the studio one day and I was glazing. I
took Reuben's technique of glazing and mixed with color as like twenty thirty layers of
glazing. And I said to them one day, I said, one of
these days, I'm going to build the damn thing out of glaze. And
I swear to God, I thought I got hit by a bolt of lightning.
Architects called glass glaze, and I thought, you're trying to make the
canvas a piece of glass. I immediately got rid of all the painting stuff.
I put it in boxes. I called the glass company and had them
deliver two panels of three foot by eight foot glass. They delivered it,
it's in my studio. I'm thinking, yeah, yeah, glass, And
I thought, oh god, now what you know, I just knew I
had to work in glass. Now where does that come from? Okay?
And then there's this percent for Art competition, national competition to design a skylight
for the Minnesota Judicial Building on the State campbellol Grounds. So I thought,
oh, because I started working in glass, I thought I'm gonna I'm going
to submit to that because that's going to accelerate my learning curve. Yeah,
that's what of Well, not only did I enter it, I want it.
Wow. Now let me explain that. Okay, at the time,
I was going through a divorce. It was the worst time in my life.
My family lives in Michigan. I was really scared and and I couldn't
confide in them because my dad was kind of sick and I didn't want a
burden. You know, it's an Italian thing, you know, you just
tough it out. You keep it to yourself, and that's what you do.
And a discovery we well, wasps do that too, do they?
Oh? Oh, we might have the Italians beat on that one. Okay,
you then I yield to that. Okay, you don't understand what I'm
saying too. And so what happened was I researched who was on the committee
to select the artwork. There were ten people, State Supreme Court, people,
designers, there was a whole group. I researched every one of them,
their lives. I wanted to know what they had for breakfast, and
them I wanted to know. And I subsequently found out that the architect had
already picked who he wanted, and it was this guy that was really famous
doing these judicial skylights. And I can remember the day when it came to
me, you got to stop being scared. Either you go for broke,
but you sure as hell have to stop being scared. So I cleaned out
my savings account and I built a six foot by seven foot birch plywood replica
of the building. And I thought, I don't like flat First of all,
I don't like flat windows. It really makes me crazy, you know.
Okay, So I thought, I'm not going to make a flat skylight.
Who and you can get that a diamond dozen So I made a three
dimensional skylight. It hadn't been done before. And then I I saw pieces
of glass leaning on my studio wall, overlapping, and I saw it.
I thought, oh my god, the colors mix, the light goes through
these glass over holy you know, okay you could say it go aheads,
okay, so any word you want to say it. I'm just it was
like an epiphany, a freakin epiphany, and then I knew what to do.
So the you know, it was a three foot by four foot model
and glass. We lifted it, flipped it over, put it in the
birch plywood model. And the irony was the guy that presented before me,
who had it in the bag, showed a wax paper quarter inch model.
He really thought he had it. I showed sixteen x twenty color photographs replicating
that model I had built with different light forms to see what that light would
look like on cloudy days, bright days. So long story short, it
it happened, and now I almost failed high school geometry. But I have
a passion. I can see geometry. I can see it, and I
love literally see it or or or or know it seeing it. What when
people say, how the hell did you make that skyline? I just saw
it. I mean I just I saw it in knowing. I don't know
if English has words for this, Okay, okay, because because I don't,
well, I do, but I don't see. I I sense and
feel uh and sink and but but sometimes I could describe a color and know
what the color is, but not necessarily see it. But but it's there,
and I know it, and and I can describe it and and and
make my client or show my clients so they'll understand. See. Now,
I just thought that was seeing what you just described, except it's not visual.
When I'm doing psychic things, it's not usually visual. It's it's sinking.
Okay. I think it's a combination of of of of knowing what these
compound angles would do. But again, I I almost flunked high school geometry,
and I I don't know these these equations at why excess hanging out with
why? I don't give a red? When when you get inspired like that,
do you see the finished product or does it get built piece by piece
in your minds? Okay, shift, we're gonna shift here, Okay,
good. I'm artists in residents at this Catholic school. Okay. They wanted
me to be a teacher there or you know, to teach in the art
department. I said, no way. I went to Catholic school. You
get me as a residence. I'll redesign your art department, but I'm not
going to teach. You know, art and Catholic schools they don't they don't
work. Okay, But if I come in, it's gonna work. Do
you want to do it? Yeah? Yeah, come on. So they
built this chapel. Robert and the president of the school is standing by this
fourteen foot by eight foot window and he said, no, pat outside that
window. We're going to have a steel crucifix across out there. And I
turned to him. I said, Joe, what the hell are you thinking?
A steel cross? No, what you need is a three dimensional chapel
windows with a glass cross perched on limestone boulders with an overlay of Saint Matthew's
clouds forming in the sky. That's what you need. It came out of
my mouth so fast. In my mind, I'm going, what are you
doing? Where's this coming from? What's going on? Just hell up?
And Joe looks at me. I said no, no, no, no
steel cross of anything. He said, then show me, So I said,
no problem. Oh, God, you know really okay? So I
went back to my studio and I went in. I thought, what did
you just do? I always had this conversation. Now what that is my
that's my refrain. Now what did you do? And I got a hot
blue gun. I grabbed glass rocks from outside and I built the first three
D sketch of that window. I built it and it was about a foot
and a half. I saw it. I put it all together and crude
form. You know people do sketches. I do three D sketches. Wow,
And there it was, and I knew. I thought, my God,
to me, that's from my ancestors to me. I've been given that,
and you chose to accept it. Choose to accept it. If you're
given the gift, you chose to accept it, because if you didn't accept
it, you wouldn't have worked your ass off. I God, I didn't
even think about the accepting. I was just so blown away by the concept.
But you could have said no, you know what, there's always time
for a no, Robert, here's time for no. But this was as
you did, choose it as an artist. I could not walk away from
that. It took my breath away. Yes, I understand. So,
uh, I do situations like that when I'm talking to someone about a project
and then I start describing it. Yes, I go back to the studio
and that's that same conversation. Now, what are you going to do?
Where the hell did that come from? You know? Now I kind of
laugh at it, But when I get that, I I know that it's
coming from somewhere and I trust it. And it's ever given me a bad
direction. Ever, so that it that has never led you in a bad
direction? Do you know what it is? I just think it's my my
ancestors guiding me. Okay, do you have any part of it? Of
course I do, other than other than physically doing it? Or do you
or is it your ancestors guiding you giving that information? I think it's a
combo plate is absolutely. I don't think you can be an empty, empty
vessel to work like this. Sure. No, if I were a flatliner,
if I you know, everything was just you know, if I didn't
invest my heart into something, I won't do it. If I'm not invested,
you won't get it. Okay. So if I am invested and passionate
and dedicated, yes, of course, physically do my best to build this.
Of course they're going to be a part of it, but they can't
work with a wet rag. No, I don't think it's possible. So
were you the chosen one? No? Okay, now I don't mean like
the great spiritual master. Were you the chosen one to do this? I
don't think in those terms, honestly, Robert. It sounds too elitist to
me. Two exclusive, I don't know about chosen anything. My education was
a disaster, absolute disaster, from first grade till I left graduate school.
I went to Catholic school, and because I'm dyslexic, I'm a d D.
I don't learn in that academic way, and I was put in the
dumbass classes right away, and I was programmed that way, and I always
kept drawing. And then when I went to high school, I was told,
you're not going to college because you're not gonna use people. You're just
not gonna be anything. Don't don't even think about it. It's not for
you. And so, uh, it was horrendous. I was made fun
of because when I read the words would jump around and they would the nun
would call me to the front of the room and say, this is what
a stupid little girl looks like reading. Oh wow, really if they did
that today? Oh wow, can you imagine? But what I'll tell us
actually I can? Well yeah, yeah, you know, I just have
to interrupt you for just just one moment. The things that you're the way
you're describing how you do your work, how you live your life, what
you've been through is an artistic a painter, a woman artist describing exactly what,
very similar to my background. And I'm listening, and I'm listening to
a thinking That's why I'm asking you the questions that I'm asking from that level
is because oh, that's how I do it when I'm being psychic. Hmmm.
Okay, That's why I was asking those questions. The way I was
is because you're describing your process is very similar. Uh and and and your
life pattern is very similar to mine. Okay, That's why I was asking
those questions that you know, I'm thinking, Wow, this is like me
talking well sympatical. Yeah, just a different just just a different venue of
expressing ourselves. But but the way you're getting to it is is very similar
to to how I do it. Hmhm. So that's why I've been asking
that or asking these questions. I was sitting here blown away by where does
art come from? And does it come from the same place for everybody?
That's a good question. I maybe another way to ask it is why do
we need to express ourselves? Why do we? Oh? Okay, I
know that right. Why do we need to express ourselves? Why do we
long to make our mark or to say something? What is it that drives
us to take material and make it into something else? What is that?
What is art? What is the need for human beings to go beyond what
they know and to make something that connects with others? What is that?
What the hell is that? Do you know? I? You know?
When I I was teaching for many years, Okay, even though education I
hated it. I love teaching and I love being in the classroom with students.
I taught art college and art high school, and I love those kids
fiercely because they dreamed to be something and make Okay, I got Okay.
When I teach, they would say, Oh, she's going in the ad
D car. I'm going to park the car now and come back and answer
your question. Okay, I got that question. So often you're like,
WHOA, what is art? Pat? What is it, okay, And
I think every artist has to find that answer personally. And for me,
it happened when I read Martin Heideger, and he asked the question what is
a thing And the answer was, you know what a thing is by the
way it gathers the world unto itself. Oh my god, it knocked the
wind right out of me. I thought, Yes, art is a point
of proximity that dissolves the distinction between our here and there and pulls us towards
itself and each other. That's my definition of art. Okay, that's a
little deep for me. I'm going to have to be listening to that over
and over again. It's a little can I say it differently? So if
you have a table, yes, and you put the salt shaker on the
table, yes, all of a sudden everything is in relation to the salt
shaker on the table if there's nothing else on the table, Okay, yes,
right, okay. So when you put an object on the table,
it becomes a point of proximity on that empty table, and what it doesn't
affect it gathers much the same way as I spent years making abstract paintings,
taking the geometry from Persian rugs and breaking it down. Okay, what does
a rug do? It gathers the room around itself. It gathers the room
around itself. So if you look at a room with yes, and you're
standing there white walls, it's a room with a floor and white walls.
Down that carpet, yes, which I'm looking at right now. I'm sure
you are, and over a wood floor, all right, so you have
the visual when that carpet is in that room, it becomes the point that
gathers everything around the room. Walls are around that, it pulls it all
together. Okay, yes, I got it, got it? Okay.
So Heidiger says it in a more fancy way. But and I'm not trying
to be ridiculous with language or talk art art smart sound. You sound like
a pretty down to earth coming. I don't. I don't do that,
But I do love the notion that that a thing gathers the world unto itself.
And I thought that was such a poignant way of thinking of a piece
of music. You can listen to a Beethoven piece two hundred three hundred years
later and it cuts across gender, nations, boundaries, maps, time,
place, and rips right through the heart of you. Right, yes,
yes, I'm talking about right there. That's it. WHOA Okay, I
see that, So did I answer you? What is art? I remember
one time several years ago, I was visiting a friend in Ottawa and she
wanted to take me to the National Art Gallery. And I'd never been to
one, and I didn't want to go. It was a terribly cold winter's
day and it was like a blizzard out, and she dragged me out to
go to the Art Museum. And when we first went in, I don't
know how we ended up in the spot we were in. We were in
the Modern Art and there was this one exhibit where a model a board was
taken apart in pieces put on the floor, and you know, somebody paid
one hundred thousand dollars to call that art, and I got really mad at
that kind of stuff. We then went for a walk and walked through into
the Master's section. I'd never been there, But when I walked in this
huge room with all these men asters paintings on it, there was one that
caught my eye way down the back and it reached out and it was moving
wow, And and it was one of Vincent's yep. And and and when
I looked at it, I said, he was angry and I could feel
his anger. So it was from when was he alive in the late seventeen
hundreds or eighteen and Bengo, yeah, eighteen fifties, eighteen sixties. Yeah,
and his and his that that that painting just came alive and it thrived.
The energy, it just it was. It was unbelievable. So again,
like you're talking about Beethoven and his music from listening to it three hundred
years ago and yeah, wow, okay, so art doesn't have to be
a pain. It can be music, it can be Yes, it's so
it's it's a living, breathing energy. You know, you're the second person
that asked me that. And uh, there's an energetic level. Yeah,
we have it as human beings. I think objects have it. I think
that the whole animus mundi, that which is all connected in the world is
energetic. And so how can art and not have that kind of energy?
Okay, I do believe there's you know, I also think like place has
memory, place has memory. So for example, a lot I did a
series of paintings of demolished industrial sites on sheet metal and I would build these
industrial sites and paint them, build them on sheet metal. There were sheet
metal paintings, and as I was doing it, I realized play has memory,
and these these paintings function like the memories they have become because they don't
exist anymore, but they're in our collective consciousness growing up. And you saw
these factories when you drive by the road. They're embedded in the I don't
know zeitgeist, if you want to say, of where we grow up.
So I do think place has memory. People say when they go to Gettysburg
that it's palpable, that they feel right, and that also so I would
say it as it holds energy from it holds energy from the time it was
created or at Gettysburg when when all that stuff was going on in Gettysburg.
That energy the vibes stay there. Or you can go to the coliseum and
put your hand on the walls. They'll let you get that close and you
can feel the energy from the centuries. Oh yeah, okay, okay,
that's yes, yep, And that's like that that's being psychic, Okay.
I I don't think of myself as being psychic. Yeah I do, though
you are. You're the real real well, and you're the real deal too
in your field. So but I'm what I'm blown away by is the way
you're saying things. You're you're saying things in the way I think, only
differently. You're saying them differently, but the ideas are the same, the
concepts are the same, which is which is really blowing me away. Well,
I'm a visual person, so I would manifest this in a much more
visual kind of way. And I don't know. I think of psychic as
doing things from the inside out. That you have this inner eye, this
inner way of knowing, you just feel it, you know things. Yes,
now a lot of my contemporaries have well actually I'm older than them all,
but but I'm not sure if they're my contemporaries anymore. But anyway,
people seem to uh sense their energy and can can actually see uh and describe
it like like a painting. I can, but I'm not necessarily seeing the
painting or or the color. I just know that it's there. Okay.
In my real life though, I do see color and and and when I'm
doing something, I see things in balance and and energy and balance and colors
and balance, and and I can look at a at a at a room
and and see where where it needs a certain color or a certain type of
shape or whatever. But it's I don't see it. I just know it,
Okay, I understand that. I would say that when I did get
into education, I went in dragging and kicking because I hated education. I
was very as a younger artist. I was very rageful because of my horrific
education. I really had a chip on my shoulder the size of Nebraska.
And it wasn't until yes, when you get a little bit older, when
you stop knowing everything. It wasn't until god, in my forties that one
day I realized. I almost saus. I was like, about what five
years ago when you had that realization. Oh, you're very kind. I
think we're contemporaries. I think we are. I'm in my seventh decade.
Really, yeah, you look fabulous. I'm seventy three myself. So you
got you got two years, you got two years on me, that's all.
Oh, so stee, we're contemporary, we are we are there you
go. So I was so bitter about the way I was treated as an
education and it wasn't until I left graduate school. I got to graduate degrees
to say that to the people that kept telling me I wouldn't amount to anything.
I had to do that. I just had to do that. And
I also thought because to be an artist, I needed those degrees, which
is the truth of the matter. Is the day I got my MFA,
I took the certificate back to the Masters of Fine Art. Yes, I'm
sorry, Master, I took that certificate. I brought it back to the
studio and I burned it with a match, really, and I made it.
I'm formerly Catholic, so if everything's a ritual, so I burned it
and I said to myself, this is not going to make me an artist.
Only a lifetime of work will determine whether or not I'm an artist.
That gives me goosebumps. Because I say that about being a psycher, then
you understand, well, absolutely, yeah. It's the purpose of my life
and I've spent my entire life doing it exactly exactly. There was one time
I was being interviewed. It was in the late seventies. I was being
interviewed by this It was out in the West coastin and it was at the
Vancouver Sun newspaper, and she was a very masculine woman and very masculinely dressed,
and she was crabby, and she didn't particularly like me, and she
said to me. It was at this time she said, so you know,
how long are your readings? And I said half an hour? And
she said, well, how much she charged? And I said eighty dollars
and she said eighty dollars a half an hour. How come you charge eighty
dollars for half an hour? And I looked at her and said, because
I can't get a hundred, and she went ballistic, just crazy. And
then and then she said, you're you're gonna lose your gift. You're too
greedy. And what are you gonna do when you lose your gift? And
this is what I said to her. Well, first of all, I
will never lose it, but if I did, I wouldn't have a purpose
to be alive. Yeah, And then I know what her response was that
but but at that, you know, so, so I've been we often,
I don't know about artists, but certain psychics often if we make a
good living, we're abusing our talents and our skills. You know, let's
walk down that road for a moment. When I taught, when I taught,
I would tell students, beware of people talking to you about selling out.
First of all, the people that were screaming at me in grad school
about selling out were professors making eighty to ninety thousand a year, so easy
too, And so I just said to students, what is wrong with earning
a living, earning your daily bread by the gifts you've been given. Don't
let anybody start walking down that road with you, because it's nonsense. Right,
You are the caretaker and guardian of your talent, absolutely, you steady
on. So there's always that chorus of people's, well, if you earn
money, you're selling, am I supposed to give it away? So does
a brain surgeon say, well, I love doing brain surgery. I don't
have to charge for this. I mean, that's just irritating. I have
the same feelings. You know, it's fun watching you go through it too,
And I get really, you know, surprised when when people think that
way, they're often those that can't do it as well. Yeah also right
often or or they're not doing so well in their life. So but I
can't be responsible for where they're at in their life to hurt my talent or
my dreams or my passo. Absolutely, that kind of negative energy siphons,
and we have to be careful of who we surround ourselves with. Absolutely.
So as you proudly proclaim how dedicated and committed you are, well we can.
You know, when I was about twenty one, I'd been doing my
job as a psychic for six years and I was close to my ten my
ten thousand hours by the time I was in my early twenties. And when
I was about twenty one, I heard that if a young man, when
a young man becomes a priest, he makes a vow to say a mass
every day of his life. And so at about twenty one years old,
I made a vow that I would do either do a psychic reading or practice
doing a psychic reading every day of my life. And I made it to
just thirty years, just before I missed the day. Wow, that's a
wonderful story. Yeah, And it's about it's about being committed, yes,
yes, absolutely, which is how you get good. Absolutely, if something's
going to happen, I want to be in the studio when it happened.
Absolutely. Yeah. So you got really good as an artist, teacher,
educator because of your commitment while you had the talent, your commitment to expand
it, grow at make it greater is what's done. At you had the
ability, you chose to develop it and work hard at it, because you
never would have been as good had you not. I just can't imagine doing
anything without putting my heart in it. And I would tell students if I'm
not in the studio making art, I sure as hell I'm not going to
be in your teaching art, right. So I do think that for me,
it was the outrage of just being so bitter about the horrible education I
had that and then realizing one day that I was given a gift, that
whole thing was a marvelous gift. And when I understood that, it made
me the teacher that I am. How old were you when you saw that,
Well, I got divorced when I was what it was eighty nine,
I was in my forties, and so I carried that chip for a long
time. And also when I moved to Minneapolis from Detroit, I got out
of graduate school and I found a warehouse space because that's what you need to
do. And I start hanging around with these kids from the Minneapolis College of
Art and Design and go have beer and coffee. God, they would be
talking about artists, philosophers, writers, scientists. Robert I didn't know who
the hell they were talking about. Because I was so busy trying to learn
and keep my nose above the water line to pass college. I didn't learn
jack. So every time I was with those kids or those people, I
would excuse myself go to the bathroom. I had a notebook. I'd write
down every philosopher, every book, and then I'd start reading. Like a
crazy mother, I would read everything. And so five years, seven hundred
books later, I was just devoured. I had a passion to read because
it was a joy. I didn't have to stutter and the name shamed.
I could open a book, and I found my teachers in those books.
I found Emily Dickenson fought. I found Paul Robison, you know. I
found Emma Goldman, I found Albert Camu. I found them. Those were
my education, Those are my teachers, and i'd bring those with me when
I went into that classroom. When you bring them with you, are they
your memories of them or does their energy manifest in you when you're bringing them
with you. I don't know, Robert, I don't know how to answer.
All I know is they My life was never the same because of them.
So do I carry them like change in my pocket? I don't know.
But you know, when I want iron will tender heart, I think
of Emma Goldman. When I want to think the prose of rage, I
think James Baldwin Man. Yeah. Yeah, when I want to dive into
the mystery, it's roomy. So do I am I I don't know where
they are with me or not with me. They they helped me grow up,
Okay, they schooled me. So what that means is when I had
that revelation if a kid was when the students came into my class, I
could read every one of those kids energetically. I could tell you who was
doing self harm. I could tell you whose parents were going through a divorce.
I could tell you who thought they were the greatest thing in art.
They didn't have to say a word, just one. I knew it.
I knew those kids the energy when you were the teacher or a student too,
when I was a teacher. When I became a teacher and accepted the
gift of that horrendous that I was given guidelines what never, ever, ever,
ever to do to a student. That's what those years were about.
So I did the reverse. I made education alive. I made it something
that it's joyful, it's fun, and you work your ass off and you
see things happening. And each kid had I was a broken record. Trust
your instincts, don't trust me. Trust your instincts. You've got them.
You've got them. So all the things I didn't learn, or you know,
they tried to pound out of me was the very thing I brought into
the classroom. And boy, you want to talk about magic. Oh my
god, that's magic man who just but your your words are just go with
your instincts. Is that what you said? Trust yours your instincts. Here's
my line. Become aware of what's obvious and then more becomes obvious. Oh
that's nice. I made it up. And when when you become aware of
what's more obvious and more obvious, more becomes obvious, until you get to
a point of what's obvious to you isn't obvious to other people. There you
go, right, Okay, well that's how you do it. And that's
how people be psychic too. Okay, that's how I teach my students.
How to be psychic, become aware of what's obvious. Look at look at
what's in front of you, see them. Yeah, huh, this is
fun. It's it's really it's it's well, your energy is really a lot
of fun. But but it's it's it's it's it's really fun hearing you speak
about what you do the same way I speak about what I do with the
same sense of commitment, dedication, awareness, fulfillment. And the only way
you can get all that is to also fall on your face. Oh yes,
oh absolutely, yeah, oh yeah, because because in my thinking is,
you know, what we have to do one way, what we do
one way, we must do equally the opposite. We have to know,
we have to see both sides before we can understand. So that that's my
thinking as well. It's really fascinating talking about how you do your work,
and well I wanted to get to the inside part because because your work,
your your art that's on your website is stand alone. It doesn't have to
be add words added to what you do. It stands alone in its beauty.
It's fun talking with you about how you think, how you put all
that beauty together. That's and that's where I wanted to focus on. I
don't know what other people wanted to talk to you about, but that's what
I wanted to talk with you about, okay, which is what we've been
doing absolutely. So what would do if you were just going to talk on
your own? What would you say? Now? Well, I've always followed
the idea. Yes, I always follow the idea, which means when I
was coming up in art school, you had to do one thing, like
if you were a painter, you had to do you painting your whole life.
Okay, you had to stay with one thing and develop it. I
didn't. I was a painter, and then I started working with glass and
steel, and then I started working in sheet metal, and then, you
know, I will follow the idea wherever it takes me. And I'm an
iconoclass. In other words, I don't. I don't say, oh,
sheep metal is for building. Hell? No, sheet metal is a gorgeous
surface to make art on. You know. Shards of glass can make a
portrait of somebody, oh yeah, or pieces of dried wood. That piece
that you talked about, the Jewish Star of David I did, It's called
the Mogan David. How do you remember what you never forget. And that
piece I made out of throwaway bleached wood. Wow, and it started to
form. And when I grabbed the story behind it was a dear friend of
mine told me that she just found out that her husband's family during World War
II in Eastern Europe, they found a great with three hundred bodies in it.
And I said to her, send me the names. I need to
see the names. She sent them to me, and I remember being in
the studio and I start. I said the names out loud. I just
said the names out loud. I went down the list, and as I
was doing it, I started grabbing this wood. I started putting pieces together,
and about eight or ten hours later, I used an art glass called
German new Antique pale yellow for the Star of David patches that the Jews had
to wear. And then and then what happened with this piece? After I
built it? I wanted to know how to write, how do you remember
what you never forget? That phrase came to me as I'm handling and building
this thing. I called my friend who gave me the names. I said,
I want to write this in Yiddish? Can you translate it? She
said, no, no, no, no, no, do it in
Hebrew. I know somebody with a Hebrew typewriter. So she asked the man,
would you translate it? And he said yes. I got the translation
and it took me three days and nights to perfectly do the Hebrew characters exactly.
And then she invited me to the Minneapolis Jewish Vinkel Club, of all
these Jewish old timers, to show the piece. The man who did the
translation came up to me, an elderly gentleman, and he took my hand
in both of his, and I said thank you. He said, I
was honored to do this, and I'm a survivor of Auschwitz. Wow,
what did that feel like? What does it feel like? Now? I'm
all choked up? It wasn't It took my breath away. And at first
I worried because I'm an Italian American, I'm not Jewish, and I worried
I don't fit in you know how you worry about these things. And then
I realized when he took my hand, I am the vessel for this translation.
It came through me. Why, I don't know. All I knew
was that give me those names. I couldn't go another day until she gave
me the damn names, and I had to say it out loud, like
a like a frickin whispered prayer, each name. I understand it. I
understand it. And I didn't know what I was going. I didn't even
know I was going to make a work of art. I just start doing
it. So when you ask are you guided? You know I was listening.
My being, My being was listening. And then when I met this
gentleman just touching his hand and that he was honored to do this. But
God, feel for a split second, and I mean like a nanosecond,
it felt like a massive rush of connectivity, as if we were all a
thread of light. I can't explain it. It just shot right through me.
And it was so you know how when something happens, and then when
you realize it happens, it goes away. And I'm very I'm an emotional
person. I wear my emotions on my sleeve, my shoes, my shoulders.
I'm crying during commercial, That's just the way I am. And I
could hardly keep it together. And then the rest of the people there were
looking at and touching the letters and it was just profoundly moving. Yeah,
where does that work of art live now. Funny you should say that right
now. It was brought to the attention of a rabbi who is making arrangements
to go someplace that I don't want to say just yet. It won't happen
if I do that, but it's going to be at a place that I
never dreamed in a million years if it goes through. So when I did
this piece Robert, I knew it was not mine to keep. And I
said to the piece, where will you be? Where must you be?
I don't know, I don't know, so tell me where you must be.
And I did that piece in two thousand and six, and there were
a couple of times when I tried to connect it to different places. It
always fell through. So I thought, you're being blocked. Stop it.
But out this piece will this piece will know when to go. So I
thought, okay, wow, is I guess that's probably one of the most
profound things. One time I was going by uh uh this uh there's like
this row of antique places and junk places, and there was a tabletop,
a table leaning against the wall, and I thought, holy shit, older
I almost I slammed the brakes of my truck. No think I know,
I thought Martin Luther's tabletop talks. So I went there and this older woman,
she was like eighty. I said, I'd like to buy that table
how much? And she said so I bought it, and I came back
in with a sawsoll. Now, a saso, for those of you who
don't know, is a reciprocating saw. It's kind of a macho looking thing.
But I like it because I can fit in my hands. Okay,
it's not like Shaine saw. I won't touch those, Okay, Okay.
I came in with this saws all and that poor woman gasped and I said,
I need to take the legs off. And she thought I was toosy
pots crazy in the head. I mean, she thought, you know.
So I took the legs off. I put it in the back of my
truck. I took it to the studio and I started researching Martin Luther's table
Talks, the writings, and then I did a portrait of Martin Luther and
his wife Katie, and on the side of the table I put quotes from
table Talks. And then again I get this hit. This is not for
you to keep, This is not yours to keep. So I think,
okay, here we go again. Okay, fine, And I was invited
to do a show at luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and so well,
the Peace lives there. I asked some I sent them photos. I
said, is this something I would like to give this to the college,
And they emailed me immediately and that's where the Peace lives in their their community
center on campus as a Lutheran college. And uh, I thought, okay,
Marty and Katie, you're in good company. Okay, it's yours.
You're a healer too. I know. I hadn't thought about it like that,
think about it, risialized that. It's a lovely thought to think that
someone who's not a faith would do that. And then that piece that goes
to Israel or anywhere brings out healing energies of healing those that have been deeply
wounded. Or this this can go on forever because it will also be the
descendants of those that were originally ruined, were wounded, that will be carrying
that wound. Yes, and in your way, to some people, you've
helped them heal. That is what that man was experience and going through.
And that's all that's congratulation. Good for you, you know, And that
is the power of art. That is the power and I believe it heart
and soul. And I tell students you are one of the most powerful things
in the world to be an artist, a writer, to put things in
the world. Are you kidding me? Fasten your seatbelts man. You've got
a lifetime of making a difference. Yes, how you doing? By the
way, let's how's the interview going? You know you're holding back anything or
is this? Oh god, I have lots of stories that hell, but
I'm trying. I'm so emotional. I'm trying to be a little more so
little stuff voiced here. Oh it's great. I how do people find you?
I know I found you through uh Michelle, you know, my my
my producer. But but how do how to just normal people find you?
I have a website and where is it. It's It's www dot Pat Beenankaza
hyphen art dot com and it's Ben and Kaza beism book E N I N
C A S A. If you just google my name, Pat, Ben
and Kaza, you will go to my website. Do you sell your art?
Yes? I do. I do. Like say, for example,
I just sort of drove up to your studio and said I would like to
buy some art. Did you make something for me? Or or is there
stuff on the wall that I could buy? Or oh my god, you
go to my website. All the pieces that are not in private collections are
for sale. Okay, so just contact me and I can just give you
a price list. That's you know how I would do it. Hot.
This has been a really beautiful, wonderful, invigorating, stimulating, exciting conversation.
And thank you so much for being on here with me today. It
just means so much. Well, I'm honored to be here and I love
talking to you. Robert. Yes, thank you. Wow, it wasn't
that a great show. It was just fascinating talking with Pat tonight. The
the synchronicity in our way of thinking, the way she does her art,
the way I do my psychic work, the way she developed the way I
developed it was it was just uncanny. So thank you for being such a
wonderful guest. Uh And just before we say goodbye from this fabulous show Tonight
number twenty six, I have a couple of requests. If you're watching us
on YouTube, please like, comment and subscribe to our channel. And if
you and also you can find us on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and
iHeart if and pretty much anywhere else you can find your podcast. If you
want to find me personally, you can find me on my website www dot
Robert Lindseymilne dot com. And now, just before I say goodbye, I
have these things. Do good, stay safe, and above all, just
be kind. Good Night, everybody,