Point To Line To Life (Kandinsky's Goat)

We talk with Claire about moving from Minneapolis, how road trips to Taliesin and House on the Rock reshaped her eye, and why Kandinsky’s point-line-plane changed how she sees art, music, and daily life. Art theory turns into simple tools for empathy, spirit, and choosing what matters.

• moving from Minneapolis after 26 years and being closer to family
• Wisconsin travel memories of Taliesin and House on the Rock
• Kandinsky’s shift from law to color and meaning
• objective versus nonobjective art in plain language
• point to line to plane as a guide for choices
• art as therapy for self-knowledge and empathy
• spirit as everyday energy shaping words and actions
• music at the senior center and finding real color in performance
• heritage, work, and names connecting identity to craft
• small compositions in daily routines and aging with dignity

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage And Guest Intro
• 2:30 Moving From Minneapolis And Family Ties
• 7:30 Road Trips And Frank Lloyd Wright
• 10:20 House On The Rock Versus Taliesin
• 12:30 Kandinsky: From Law To Color
• 16:00 Objective And Nonobjective Art Explained
• 20:30 Point To Line To Plane
• 25:00 Art As Therapy And Teaching
• 29:00 Spirit, Energy, And Everyday Composition
• 34:00 Names, Work, And Heritage
• 38:00 Life In The Dining Room

Transcript

Claire: 0:00

you're my you're my first guest oh my gosh you would be doing a recording holy smokes guest you're well okay yeah oh this podcast is that's a good question and we're trying out some new one-on-one interviews we've been on the podcast before right one time I don't remember what it was but I think I sang a song or something one line of a song and Peter recorded it Ben I think but what it was Ben it was Ben yeah yeah in your in your in your old place he must have been there too though yeah Peter was somewhere he was there too but okay if if Ben was here because I remember Peter being here I don't remember welcome anyway we have a recording we we have a recording to revisit to see who is there uh this I'm Scott and Ben is not here and I'm interviewing his grandmother Claire my mother-in-law who isn't here and Ben isn't here no are you're are we doing this for him no for the listener who wants to know whoever well imagine like you're talking you're sitting on a stage talking and there's like three four people out there which is you can charge them all yeah sure I don't know am I said so I don't think we're at the level of but I'm not a materialist to you probably won't having our listeners pay so now you can anyway any questions uh yeah tell the listener where you moved to where I moved to sorry I I can never remember the name well from from where you moved from Minneapolis to here oh 3208 Chicago Avenue South Minneapolis and Minnesota and I I lived in that house from 1199 to June 11th 2025 26 years yeah yeah my goodness that's the longest I lived anywhere it was great to have a reason to go well go to that part of Minneapolis for all those years anyway powder horn was always great yeah to go walking or running or or s sledding at oh you guys did a lot of that went sledding one time down on the snow the kids weren't very old at that time yeah but it was moving wasn't didn't seem hard at all because it seemed like it was the next next phase of my living that I needed to do and and so it it felt fine to move back with the family because um they didn't have to drive for two hours to visit and but they still have to come from California yeah I drove I drove all over Wisconsin to get here.

Scott: 4:21

Not y yesterday earlier no last last weekend last week before oh I I stayed in Rochester on Thursday night and then Steve and I took off for this festival on it was gonna be Saturday night and we went to on Friday we went to Spring Green and Tallyessin that was kind of fun.

Claire: 4:52

Did you tallyassin a part there there's Frank Lloyd Wright's place um in Wisconsin in southwest Wisconsin yeah yeah I've been there been there a long time ago remember we got a new bee week because I inherited some my mother's money and then I um yeah I remember that I decided to pay for the car because why pay interest and you took a road trip to we well the whole family went Dave Dave was with us too the whole family and Joe was the baby you went to where what was the goal of that trip I think we specifically went there to see the Franklin Wright place yeah because we lived in St. Charles anyway that was a long time ago it must have been I know I don't know if my wife recalls that oh she might because we went all through that kind of a tall house we were in all through the house what the place you stayed in well we didn't stay overnight uh but I know Jill was a baby and now and so Marsh must have been and she was already dating Dave so she must have been over 16 so she should remember that I don't know I'll have to get that story from her or I forgot that she's been there. I know there's somebody's home or whatever was many something about it being many stories high I can't quite remember that.

Scott: 7:07

Is that the house on the rock oh yeah that could be is that where you went yeah house on the rock okay that makes sense I have heard that from Laura makes sense okay I always thought they were one and the same but it's like no they're not they're not at all there are two different people who built two different houses of interest still today in that locate in that area both with their own relationship to the you know the main reason I think he is I think he invented the architecture he invented just to deal with the hill that he wanted to build a house on who Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright yeah the whole ranch idea is like well you don't want he wanted to build a house on this hill.

Claire: 7:59

Oh okay but the idea of like but I he wanted the hill to remain you know right natural and then he he he was probably one of the first to build an extension out over so it overlooked kind of hung right over the hill I remember that view though. Oh yeah maybe that's the back the house on the rock okay this is just like um would be like just a grassy knoll uh on a farm next to the Wisconsin River that was like near the farm he grew up on and he just liked going up to that oh hill so it's like he wanted to build a house there but he didn't want to cap the hill okay so it's all his architecture okay and fitting it's all related to that like almost boyhood like I want to build a house there but I respect the hill okay he considered the naturalness of the land well later on he went to the southwest somewhere and he built the some of the first houses in underground too after he did House on the rock so so um yeah Laura and I went and saw the oh you saw that yeah that one so that that was filled underground some of it yeah yeah so what what book did you bring what book you brought a book a book here well there actually are two of them but and one is one that his own story is in there that he wrote and Rosalie Kundinsky was born in 1868 and he was um has was 30 years old and he had a degree in law because his father was doing that then he had always liked color and looking at art and so forth and so he decided to go to Germany instead of accepting the law job that was presented to him and so when he got to Germany one day he was sitting and looking at a objective work. Objective means that there's something in there like a picture or a person or something in there that you they were trying to create or something and instead of seeing the object he saw the gradation of the of the of the artwork of the color the gradation of value in in the work and he was just so moved by it and it wasn't in it was within you know like we have within ourselves our reality is unseen but it's there and I think maybe so many of us growing up we don't realize that we have eyes and ears and a nose and a mouth and so do the animals that run around but we evolve to a place where we can make a choice so if it's yes or no you can you can have a choice and it's it's your your ability to be able to do that. So I guess we should always be responsible for what we say you know whether we want to or not you know or how ugly it is or how beautiful it is or just plain decent so anyway that's kind of how the words objective and non-objective came into greater greater information for the public or whoever was interested came about because he himself began to do non-objective work that was just probably a line or something like that on a on a composition that he was making. So he began thinking of it as um putting a point down and then once you put something with that point like a line and and then it it changes the power of the point because the point is no longer all by itself getting the attention of the whole composition that's why some people you could put a point in a large composition and that's all you would see and then you would see the point you could put it in the center but if you put it probably off to a corner the it would be off balance for him it was a different a way to share what he was doing. Well this is some of the writing he did himself and looking for the so these are even though they're different shapes they're all considered as one thing even though it's showed up viewers even though it's not round yeah they're all considered as a point. So then when you go to adding going to go on to play so I know there's one place it shows it more clearly fields about fields two dimensional structures yeah yeah I was looking for that one it says point to line to plane I think we want to talk about the line for a bit lane formation comes from um well these are that happen yeah lines being traced out here we go I think this is otherwise uh skipping here okay points to lines to point to line to plane point to line to plane yeah I can follow but somewhere it's really all it's all one to two to three dimensions. Here's here would be a point and then this would be a line you could probably show that how it changes the composition when you put a line next to it and maybe add more things to it he goes on and on explaining in great detail and since he's so educated he's quite an intellectual there we have a point. So here you have many points and it changes the composition but yet you consider it consider it a balanced composition because of the way it's balanced within within the composition so when when did you encounter this Kandinsky somebody someone must have given this to me I found it in my bookshelf and then and I must have read it a long time ago but I didn't pay much attention to it but what then you went back and read it again and it like well I probably read it really read it for the first time you know and uh because you know sometimes you wonder about yourself you know what what are you what's within yourself or whatever who are you really why are you really what you are and stuff like that and and after I read that about the point and then putting a line on it and and then a plane and and and one you could put an object on it which most people are trained to do an object right even though they might have a gradation of value in something in the artwork but basically what they want to be noticed is the object they're putting in there. Sure and so then he he made that a point across very clearly but when when he started some schools in Germany but when he got there he other other people that were still objective they didn't like his work at all and sometimes he had to close the school you know that he was he was with and go on and do something else which he just kept on doing and so that's why we have wrote wrote that's why art wrote books of art yeah books about art yeah and then it it helped help me understand humanity a little bit better too about why some people live a certain way and other people live another way some people are materialists and some live more from feeling rather than the objects that they have and sure you have to have your your needs met and so forth but some people just go on and on and they think of the of the thing rather than the feeling of a person. And so it it represents everything really like in inhumanity and so then you kind of get to know yourself a little better you know and oh that's the why I do that I was feeling badly for that person or interesting I let my empathy get carried away and made a wrong decision you know so it's like it's like this guy's been your therapist pardon this guy's been your therapist yeah sounds that's what it sounds like I'm not a therapist but whatever whatever mental process he describes you find useful for yeah oh yeah he's encouraged he's encouraging maybe the same thing a therapist does so kind of different inside oh that's the way I believe behave the way I believe yeah because I probably started out as an objective with my first oil paintings and stuff when I did uh the mill city the mill building and but that was a copy work but within that work there's a lot of um non-objective to but at the same time I mean I went to art school and everything but they never came right out and and said what is the difference between objective and unobjective none of the instructors ever came up with that how would you define it huh how would you define it if you were teaching someone else well I would I would bring up the point of condenses a lesson in it that and then you'd have to you couldn't help but get into that we are human beings you know and we have a reality that is unseen right okay I mean that's that's subjective or that's non-objective. Yeah which so you can be soft spoken you can be harshly spoken and and that's a different real different truth or whatever and it has it's almost like in looking at an artwork you know it but you can't and music is probably the most clear art there is because you get the feeling you don't see the notes or anything like that but you but the music is there and it doesn't you can record it surely but everybody hears the same thing well maybe that's not true but everybody hears the same everybody what everybody hears the same notes but they don't hear it the same way that could be that could be yeah yeah I mean it's just like looking at somebody with a beard you know because you grew up not looking at people with beards and now all of a sudden it's hair there everywhere and and it's kind of uh I mean I'm sure it'll change sooner or later that everyone will you see so many bald announcers on television and you kind of act like they're bald heads it's refreshing I know I I've only got a partially bald head you can't tell from this angle. Well but that's something nature gave you and and look at all the ads on television um let's say you can get your own hair back get it to grow or something like that. Yeah yeah so um so we we always have part of the podcast where we uh sponsor something so we have so we can what do we have um point to line to plane is kind of a it's kind of a good thing to be taught early in age and to help human beings sponsored by point to line to plane to plane means that you fill the whole picture there isn't a thing you don't do that you don't have a point for doing it yeah you want a drink of water you want a cup of tea you do such and such and such and then you have a whole you finally completed the composition you have your and it's all composed of the actions you you did so that's the composition you didn't put it on paper any it doesn't have to be typed on or written on or anything you you created a composition. Yes compose yourself how do you do that hopefully before you decompose how do you decompose you drink too much too much alcohol anyway and and after he because um you could involve religion like anytime we think of spirit we we think of kind of heavenly things or think of the creator or something like that. But spirit is just another word for energy you don't see it right but it's within you with what energy did you do that what spirit were you in when you did that I was in an angry spirit or I was in a kind spirit and so I think that that's another good thing to learn probably in when you're two years old because I think two year olds express themselves their spirit very well if they want something because they're just beginning to learn and to be objective in what they want and so on. And sometimes they have a fuss and sometimes they don't or they they've learned not to be behave a certain way just because things don't go right but then there's the spiritual in art too and the word art is a German word for work it is I did not know that it's the art of things you know is it artful is your work artful use your energy to do that so it so if you're working in I guess I can use my own own heritage for doing that my father's name was German and the first part of it was HOFF which and Hof and it's it's Hof Hofer Hof is it hof hof hof and and that would mean in German that word means yard oh hof yeah hof hof and then his last the last three letters were art on the end h-o-f a r t and so then I think maybe he was a yard worker in Germany because his ancestors were yard workers because he loved working in the yard and shaping up things and so somebody told me that once I was a clerk in a store and this customer came in and yard worker and and uh so I too am a yard worker as my father was a whole whole fart and whole fart you had a yard you were working on at 32nd in Chicago yeah for I worked I planted trees there yes so I have a lot of pictures of myself planting trees in my in my hand yeah so I'm all fought but point to line to plane yeah thank you point to line to plane everything we do it's as a point then we start doing it we get our cup of get some water and have a drink okay and then we're satisfied and we've covered the plane okay of our league and thirsty everything goes from one dimension to two dimensions yeah and then maybe the three back to back to anything once it becomes an object in time then it's four dimensions. Yeah yeah point to line to play so anyway um anything else you'd uh let's see though I should come up with a question it's a good question yeah that's right I told you I wasn't good at just saying things so lately I am I think as I get older I can blur out stuff that's I don't know why but I suppose I'm not being judging myself anymore whatever um watch your tongue see this thing goes on for it doesn't ever tell you the time until it's over well we'll know shut up and listen compulsive talkers you can take a picture that that yeah okay what's it what's it like at the dinner table in the in this uh establishment oh my goodness people sit and look at each other they kind of sit quietly and their wrinkled faces then And their gray, gray hair, and they slumped over. And their chairs that they push around to walk with. And um and then the you see the the fork going from the plate to the mouth.

Scott: 30:23

As the motion they can make.

Claire: 30:26

Yeah, that's the motion, that's the quietness of it. Sometimes there's a jolly bunch, you know, that laugh. But I mean it's amazing how many people a lot of people are quiet, lose their eyesight and they don't can't hear. So on. So it's very quiet. We do have a woman, woman that's 106 years old, and she comes at the table and and somebody next to her will help her out, of course, but uh but she's still she can feed herself still. But I never notice that she talks to anyone when she's there.

Scott: 31:13

And how often do you go listen to the music when the musicians come?

Claire: 31:17

Yes. Once a week, and then they sing songs that uh uh there's lots of strumming of guitars, but my complaint about that is because I listen to guitar players, you know, like Peter and you or whatever. And sometimes there isn't any uh spirit in it, it's all broom drum droom droom drum. And that goes on when they play the whole song through it.

Scott: 31:50

There's there's no are they using machines?

Claire: 31:55

Machines?

Scott: 31:56

Yeah, is anything coming out of the speaker? Like a drum machine or a guitar machine?

Claire: 32:03

No, they haven't got each has their own instrument. Uh there's a bass viol, and then there's a either a fiddle or a violin or something like that, the one, and that has the most variation and the most color to it, and what sometimes the the guitar players do get, even though it's the same note or whatever, and um you can still put some color in it, you know, and change it just just slightly or whatever, even though you're still in the same note, you change it somehow, give it some color, and that's I think that's what makes it an art afterwards. But if you just sit and strum that, you know, continuous volume and tempo, it it's really I mean, it's not nothing to play to senior citizens because you know you don't have very many years left to live you all.

Scott: 33:06

Do you know of the name of a song which had such a beat that you were didn't quite like?

Claire: 33:11

No, I can't think of it, but it's sometimes I call in a song.

Scott: 33:17

Uh-huh. What's what's the song you called in?

Claire: 33:23

What's it? What's a Tennessee? I was wolving with my darling to the Tennessee. And but mostly songs that are quite old. Because every the members of the group are senior citizens.

Scott: 33:55

Yeah.

Claire: 33:56

And they're they're very good at what they're doing. Yeah.

Scott: 34:00

The ones performing the songs?

Claire: 34:02

Yeah.

Scott: 34:03

Sure.

Claire: 34:04

And there's quite a group. There's sometimes there are a dozen people there. And but the main fellow was gone for a while, but but he has Oh, is it the same group that comes back each time? Yeah. But for birthdays, there's one person, and then that person sings. And the last time, August birthday, I wouldn't mind if he came to sing in September. Because you could hear the words he was saying and his music, he was jovial and fun.

Scott: 34:39

Uh-huh. Right. Yeah. You should tell him that.

Claire: 34:46

There was color in his color. Yeah.

Scott: 34:50

Okay.

Claire: 34:52

And not not just one color itself, but very gradation of value. Yeah, a gradation of value. That you could use that in your in music, couldn't you?

Scott: 35:05

I I guess if I'm not. You mean are you saying you can establish what's what's um has is worth more? What has is that what you mean by the gradation? Like where here's something that had value and now it has temple, great age, and what value.

Claire: 35:28

Well, what could you um well it's obvious how how how you strike the string.

Scott: 35:38

Yeah, sure.

Claire: 35:39

Yeah, it can go up and down the volume, radiation of volume, or something like that.

Scott: 35:47

Okay, it changes.

Claire: 35:48

Yeah, it changes the gradation of value. Is it loud? Is it soft?

Scott: 35:53

Yeah, it changes, yeah.

Claire: 35:55

Okay, you you can change the grade A duration of values, but the time can be the same. Hello? Come in. Hello? You have any laundry for us to do? Not today. I usually put it out um before I go to bed and it's picked up on Tuesday morning. Okay, sounds good. Okay, we'll see you later. Thank you. Bye.

Scott: 36:29

So, you know what I think has happened is there's no time limit because we're not logged in. There's no other no one else joining us.

Claire: 36:40

We have no time limit.

Scott: 36:44

Right.

Claire: 36:44

But we are free to choose one for for our interviewer, what do you think?

Scott: 36:52

Yes, for the yes, for the podcastable part of the interview.

Claire: 36:56

For our little chat.

Scott: 36:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then after that, you can have an unrecorded chat, which is much better.

Claire: 37:04

More self-conscious.

Scott: 37:07

Less less self-conscious.

Claire: 37:08

Less self-conscious.

Scott: 37:09

Yeah, because it's like you close the curtain and then you go, okay. We're talking without these three people listening.

Claire: 37:18

Are you recording this now?

Scott: 37:20

Yeah. But but it's never gonna stop.

Claire: 37:23

Okay.

Scott: 37:24

I count on it usually stopping at 40 minutes.

Claire: 37:27

So I see. And everything we do has value. I think that's a that's a truth or reality or whatever. It's more of a reality can't you?

Scott: 37:44

A value that we need to gradate.

Claire: 37:46

Huh?

Scott: 37:47

Gradated value. I'm sorry.

Claire: 37:50

It has a gradation of value.

Scott: 37:53

You heard it here first. Yeah, that that in this podcast.

Claire: 37:58

And I don't have any color on my face. People tell me my face isn't wrinkled. I think my face is wrinkled.

Scott: 38:08

No, you look like on the walk this morning.

Claire: 38:14

Lady was telling about how why her face is wrinkled because she was in the hot sun a lot.

Scott: 38:22

Okay, well, you're you moved to the city, kept out of that hot sun.

Claire: 38:27

Well, I did that when I was taking care of children. I didn't go out about much.

Scott: 38:34

Oh.

Claire: 38:35

And then I sewed in the house.

Scott: 38:40

There you go. But as as stay out of the sun, kids pays off that well.

Claire: 38:49

Just use it carefully. Respect it.