We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Joseph Ayers. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Joseph below.
Hi Joseph, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?
In my experience developing true confidence stems from cultivating an empathic perspective. So for me that started with creating a space in my life where I could not only observe the world with personal confidence, but also with a feeling of being intrinsically connected to everything around me. Developing a point of view that nurtures empathy ultimately led to perceiving reality from multiple perspectives, and I believe this leads to confidence. I’ve realized that when we acknowledge and attempt to understand others, we inevitably let down our personal defenses; I think this is key to true confidence. To quote one of my heroes, James Baldwin, ‘the longer I live, the deeper I learn that love, whether we call it family, friends or romance, is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light’. I think it’s really important to understand this work of loving each other, in every regard, to truly develop confidence in oneself. The alternative leads us down a hall of mirrors where we inevitably, obsessively, judge ourselves and others. Perhaps it’s true that this habit of comparing ourselves to others is one way to create a sense of confidence, but it’s based on shallow bias and defensive hubris in my opinion.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
At this moment the 4 corners of my life are being an artist, a teacher, a parent and life partner, and a community supporter. I say 4 corners because these are the pillars of my life that give me structure and gratitude, and they all work together to keep the roof over my head! I feel really lucky to have been inspired by my teachers, family and peers, and even luckier to be given the opportunities to follow in their steps. Teaching is one of the most rewarding and humbling experiences for me. I have been teaching art since finishing graduate school in 2007, and have focused on multimedia classes at Parsons School of Design since 2014. It’s really inspiring to work with very talented international students who are beginning to fuse their life experience together with their passion for art and design. I not only get to guide and inspire them on their own journey, but I also get to share my ideas and artistic perspective, and ultimately grow with them. For example, I teach a course called Time, and it’s forever fascinating to exchange discoveries and experiences in these group settings. The subject of Time has infinite dimensions that constantly affects our embodied experiences and human perspective. So to assist young artists experimenting with different ways of perceiving, manipulating and understanding this medium is exciting beyond words. We learn how to manipulate time-based media, but we also focus discussions around conceptual aspects of time, like story telling, history, cultural narratives, social structures and the infinite ways that time perspective dictates our past, present and future….it’s endless exploration and discovery. And all of these experiences and discoveries influence my own work as an artist. Teaching from an empathic perspective creates a genuine sense of equity and inclusion in the class, and I truly regard many of my students as my teachers. They often make personal discoveries and connections that I have never seen before. I am equally fortunate that both my daughter and life partner are also amazing artists. Again, to be able to live and recipocate, share and learn together, makes my life so full in that regard. It’s a life filled with obstacles and struggles, but that’s what makes it more beautiful and precious as time goes by. All of life’s decisions are a work-in-progress. It can get pretty crazy out there, but as one of my favorite artists, Louis Bourgeoise, said ‘Art is a guarantee of sanity’.
Along with being an artist and teacher I also make time to be on the board for an arts non-profit in my community, which helps aspiring artists get opportunities and funding to share their works and projects with the public. Recently I held a position as a gallery director, and developed programming for an art center in my community. During this endeavor I was able to connect several arts organizations in the community, and curate several local and regional artists into world class exhibitions. The icing on the cake was that this work was recognized with a prestigious Hudson Valley Presidential Arts Center award that I applied for on behalf of the center.
Currently I am teaching, and working on a new body of work for a solo exhibition that combines a variety of mediums and forms, all of which explore these ideas of empathy, time and perceiving from multiple temporal perspectives; ideas that course through every vein in my life. This work reflects on the same ideas that I present in my classes, and also the aspects of life and community that I try to focus on.
I started by saying these areas are the four corners of my life, but it’s perhaps more accurate to describe them as overlapping circles. The Japanese have a Venn diagram for happiness called Ikigai, and I try to model my life within this framework. My life partner and her family are Japanese, and I’ve learned a great deal from their cultural perspective. Recently I have also started working on a book of poetry and photographs that is really a kind of personal non-linear diary of sorts. The photos and poems revolve around ideas of embodied time.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I am sorry if I sound redundant here, but I would have to say the qualities that I find most important are being empathic and sympathetic to others’ lived experiences, developing a diverse body of knowledge so that you can understand the world from multiple perspectives, and always stay open to new ideas and experiences. And I think it’s really important to try to be sensitive to the interconnected nature of all things. Sensitivity can help you develop anything that you want to improve and refine in your life.
We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
There are so many inspirational quotes from other artists, thinkers and makers that can answer this question, but ultimately I think it has to be a combination of both your strengths and instincts, but also balancing your strengths with habits that encourage personal development and growth.
Make a space to focus on your ideas and goals, and don’t procrastinate by looking for excuses. Try not to waste too much time and energy obsessing on the obstacles. Envision the ideas, imagine the outcomes/goals, and then discover an economic path to achieve them. Use your energy and time to make small progress toward your dreams and aspirations, and have patience if progress is slow. I am paraphrasing here, but architect Frank Ghery famously told his students something to the effect that in one’s life you shouldn’t waste time trying to be what someone else has become, because you can never be that person anyway. But if you work within your own interests and experiences, and develop a personal expression, eventually you will become the expert in that unique language.
Contact Info:
- Website: Josephayers.com
- Instagram: ayers_joseph
