A few blocks from my house, there’s a gorgeous golf course surrounded by mansions. I take my dog there early in the morning, and we walk its serpentine paths under ornamental lemon trees and palms, marveling at the excess.

Fountains, statues, columns, rolling lawns, gates, cobblestoned driveways. We scarcely see a soul besides the occasional gardener or jogger. Once in a blue moon, a gate swings open and a Bentley rolls out.

​

It’s tempting to look at these beautiful homes and imagine how they came to be. To wonder what the inhabitants did to afford such luxury.

Are they titans of industry, heartless corporate lawyers, hedge fund bros, or gormless heirs? Did they work hard for their money or steal it or stumble over it? Do they marvel at their good fortune or take it for granted? Do they share their wealth or writhe naked on huge piles of cash and doubloons?

Whatever I may conjecture is idle fantasy, a mere pastime as Twiggy and I log our morning miles. We will never know what lies in their wallets or their hearts.

I had a similar feeling last week in the Phoenix Museum of Art.

Room after room of gorgeous art, so much splendor, but what lay behind it? How can an artist possibly birth something so perfect? We imagine it must be talent, some superhuman gift, skills carefully acquired, a rich education, intellectual rigor, some magical process impossible to divine.

I look at a wall of Kehinde Wiley’s portraits, and they feel as far from my sketchbook pages as the marble-columned mansions are from our little brick house.

We’re technically in the same neighborhood but a million miles (and dollars) apart.

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This week, I launched the new season of our podcast, Art for All. Each season I seem to shake things up. A new format, a new objective, a new set of technical challenges

In Season One, I strived for a sort of NPR-style with a lot of interviews and editing and scripting and sound effects. It was a huge amount of work, and I soon came to hate it.

With Season Two, I decided to go in the opposite direction. No guests, no bells, and only the occasional whistle. I made mini-podcasts, each episode under 10 minutes, just me reading an essay into the mic. After a while, this process felt very isolating. I also found that my YouTube video essays were a much better way to make this sort of content and get a response from the audience, which helped me make my work better.

For Season Three, I was joined by my pal John Muir Laws, and we started each episode with a topic, then rambled around into a free-ranging conversation about whatever we were thinking about.

For Season Four, I am taking that same basic structure but expanding it to include all sorts of interesting people. I have been going through my Rolodex® and contacting anyone I have ever had an interesting conversation with over the years. Some are close friends, others occasional acquaintances. In time, I imagine some guests may be total strangers.

As I work on this process, things keep iterating and evolving.

I may begin with a clear idea of what topic I want to discuss with a guest, but when we start, soon find we really want to discuss something very different.

I went into a recent recording session planning to discuss grief and art. Instead, we went deep on artificial intelligence.

I also thought I would just turn on the recorder and then dump the whole session into the podcast. Instead, I found I wanted to trim certain conversations, pruning sidebars to focus on a key subject. But there are other chats whose peregrinations are charming and fun, and I keep them intact.

In my earlier seasons, I was much more concerned about what the audience would think about what I was making. Am I on strategy? Do I fit in with trends in podcasting? Is the audience growing?

After 60+ episodes, I have a very different perspective.

I want to make the sort of podcast I would like to hear. One that is always surprising and rich and on topics I am interested in.

Sure, many are about art, but some will be about whatever is on my ever-curious mind. I am less concerned with whether a lot of people listen and more interested in my core goal:

to sit down with a smart and interesting person and have a good conversation.

The podcast is a good excuse.

This sort of thing seems increasingly rare in modern life, to have conversations that are mutually beneficial and surprising, that will open new doors and make fresh connections, that we will all think about long after the mic is off.

I think I know what that will be like, but I’m not adhering to any particular model, and I’m not locking myself into many rules.

I hadn’t known that is what I was doing when I started. I hadn’t known where I was going exactly or what I wanted to find when I got there.

And I may still not be as right as I seem to think I am.

This could well be just one more stop on my journey. I’ll know more when I reach the next crossroad.

My ambitions are more like gas in the tank fueling my momentum than any sort of map of where I should go. The only compass I have is a rich melange of my interests, my dreams, my values, my past, my influences, and I have to just trust it to get me somewhere good.

I see the mansions, I see the exhibitions, and they are mysterious and beautiful.

But they are not mine. I have to build my own home, make my own art, find my own way.

Your pal,

Danny

P.S. Wait, what, you don't listen to the podcast? Let's remedy that. You can subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, like Apple or Spotify Or if you're more visually inclined, you can watch/listen to the conversation on YouTube. A new episode comes out each Monday morning. Podcasts, essays, videos ... at this rate, you'll soon be sick of me. I know I am.