Founder's Story - "I Met Andy Warhol—and He Bored Me to Death" | Ep 263 with Charles Edelman

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

We begin with the question people rarely ask an artist directly: what does an artist’s life actually look like? Charles Edelman answers with a life-in-stories—New York studios, MoMA walkabouts, and a candid aside that meeting Andy Warhol was “boring.” He frames his practice at Charles Edelman Masterpieces as a “mental gym,” a place where discipline, curiosity, and play keep boredom at bay and skill compounding. His book Crashing Waves of Passions threads through the conversation: Van Gogh’s legend (including “the ear”), Susan Valadon’s overlooked power beside Toulouse-Lautrec, and a time-travel tableau that situates these spirits in modern rooms to explain the disabilities they navigated and the work they made. He rejects the doom story that artists only matter after death—he’s lived well, taught at Dartmouth, trained in a gifted program at Yale, and painted twelve-hour summer days by choice. The episode pivots to purpose: inspired by Picasso’s Guernica, he’s raising support for a ten-by-thirty-foot mural that does the opposite—an explosion of joy, love, and light—arguing that beauty can heal as forcefully as outrage can indict. Key Discussion Points:Charles traces how early memories of light became a lifelong motif, and how quiet places—Belize jungles, Cusco skies, Cozumel shores—strip away noise until people find themselves. He argues that creativity is teachable; a seventy-something student gave up golf because making art felt truer. Corporate teams, too, can be rewired: give them constraints, history in forty-five minutes, and a playful brief, and they’ll surprise themselves—just like his billionaire students tasked with designing family-friendly paintings for a Central Park restaurant. He tells a lineage story through Marcel, the eighty-three-year-old master printer for Picasso and Dalí, who looked at Charles’s work and said, “He would love it.” There are gallery-wall brags and grounded details—charity projects, low pricing for collectors who return for ten to fifteen pieces, a recent New York Weekly profile—and there’s a standing invitation: he believes one painting can change how we see, maybe even lift a tragedy’s weight. Takeaways:Art isn’t mysticism; it’s method. Show up early, work long, keep it fun, and your eye will catch more light. The myths about artists suffering to matter are lazy; a sustainable life is possible with craft, community, and a clear offer. Inspiration multiplies in silence; go somewhere quiet and your hand gets honest. Great teaching unlocks dormant makers—whether they’re executives, students, or “not creative” friends. And if Guernica proved painting can channel horror, a monumental counter-image of joy can be just as world-shaping. Closing Thoughts:Charles Edelman’s stories make the studio feel less like a pedestal and more like a train you can board. If you want on, start with one page, one sketch, one hour—then repeat. To see the work, commission, or study, visit CharlesEdelmanMasterpieces.com or find Crashing Waves of Passions on Amazon. Ditch the other hiring sites, and let ZipRecruiter find what you’re looking for — the needle in the haystack. Try it FOR FREE at this exclusive web address: ZipRecruiter.com/WORK. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

so charles i've always wanted to understand how it is to be a artist what what is an artist's life like what is the whole life cycle of an artist and it got me thinking about i cannot recall who is the person that cut off their ear and tell me about that story he didn't honestly i thought that we were talking for 15 days instead of 15 minutes and i met him Andy Warhol and he was very boring to me. Okay. And so 15 minutes of fame. Let's go 15 days and I want to learn about you. All right. So here we go. I wrote a book. This is Van Gogh. You know that no woman ever wanted to marry him. And for reasons you can read in my book, you know, whatever, schizophrenic, bipolar, argumentative, poor, you name it. And you know what? Here's my book.

It's selling on Amazon, and it's doing really well. It's called crashing waves of passions, okay? And for somebody like you, I'm not a negative person, this book will educate you, and it might last you a long time, okay? Because I've been an artist since I was 12 years old, and I want to show you something that's really important to me because I had thought COVID from some of my students, and I don't teach much anymore.

I paint and draw a lot. This is an artist named Susan Valadon, okay? And in my book, I came up with the idea that there were three artists that knew each other, about 1887, 1888 in Paris, in, you know, the Moulin Rouge. And Van Gogh was one of them, and Talus Lattrach, and she's the other. And she is a role model for young artists. She was the first artist accepted it into an important salon in 1895. And then on top of that, you don't have to buy my book.

I'm not pushing it, but it would be nice. It's $10 on Amazon. And so I put them in New York because I used to be a New York City artist. Went to graduate school there. And here they are at the Museum of Modern Art. And they're looking. There's Toulouse Latrek. and I explain why they had these disabilities

or how they overcame it. So I love the way you're listening to me, okay, and I really appreciate that, thank you. But you know what? They're at the Museum of Modern Art, and they love these artists work. And I don't know, I'm not good at math anymore, but they can't believe the artwork

and what happened with architecture in New York in 2023. So tell me about the artist life because I always find it fascinating that many times the artist becomes most famous after they die, or at least the ones I've seen, they do this art many times it sounds like, and I'm not, I don't have a lot of experience, but they don't really make a lot of money from it, like you said, and then they die, and their life, it seems kind of sad, but then this fame creates and then wealth comes later on. I find that very interesting. Can you explain why? That's the story of not every artist, okay? I had a beautiful house. I had a tremendous life I was teaching, but I was also painting about 12 hours a day in

the summer, okay? And I used to wake up at 5 o'clock. And so I want you to be able to relate this, I have a good friend who's an NFL player, who's a neighbor, former NFL player. And, you know, I'm not going to say my age, but I'm 21. Anyway, he's about 50-something. And I asked him one time recently, I said, you know what? I'm doing this until I'm 128 years old. How many NFL players could do that? And he had 11 surgeries.

And so I like your smile. So I think you're getting the point. Every artist is different, and I'm with Baden Bauer. They're promoting my work, and Fabrizio, Andy, and Sheila have done it a remarkable job. So I want you to read about me. Will you please? It's in New York Weekly, and it's a New York Weekly September 2nd, and it's an article about what I'm doing for the art world. Do you think that a painting can change the way we see,

life, maybe even heal a tragedy? Well, do you know, the painting by Guernica, I'll talk a bit, okay, because we'll run it out of time because we're not doing 15 weeks. But Guernica was about the Spanish, a Spanish destruction of a fascist in a town in Spain at night. The bombers came in. So here's my goal as an artist. And I need help with this. Please go to my website. Please buy my work.

I have really good prices. I had a private art dealer. It's Charles Edelman Masterpieces.com. But Guernica changed the world. So here's my story. I knew that in New York when I was 20 years old. And I want to do a 30-foot painting that's the opposite of Guernica.

But that cost a lot of money and I need a huge studio space. So my painting is going to be joy, love, happiness, and all these things that I think the world needs right now. You know what hiring feels like, like searching for a needle in a haystack? You post a job, get flooded with resumes, but most just don't have the right experience or mindset. That's why I tell every founder I meet, use ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter finds amazing candidates fast, and right now you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash work.

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Why do you think that artists will continue to risk everything when maybe the world doesn't understand them? And it reminds you, you know, when you go to like a museum and many times, you're like, what was the artist thinking, right? It almost seems like we don't always understand what the artist is saying, but yet the artist is so dedicated to, you know, risking everything, putting it all out on the table to create something that they want to see in their mind. Read my book. It's all in there. Seriously, 43 pages and I'm not a writer and I'm not bragging, but I love that book. Okay. But this story with that is here's what, here's how I think when I was three years old, I saw light in my bedroom. And you know what? I still love painting

and drawing ways of light. So let's get profound here a bit. I think that there's things inside of you, Dan, and inside of all your listeners that have stayed with them forever. And one thing besides my artwork, I'm really brilliant at bringing out the creative side of people.

And I have a student who'll love this on the video. He's in his 70s. He's probably given up golf for the last year and a half, two years since he's known me. And he's given up golf because he loves art. So I can bring out these things, okay? And to follow it up, I'm talking a lot. Normally, I'm a good listener, okay?

But there was a thing, I'll give you something. There's an artist named Robert De Niro Senior, and that's De Niro's father, okay? De Niro posted in a magazine years ago. that he wanted some artist to come explain his father's work. I've been to his father's, I've been to De Niro's restaurant in New York. I've been to the theater upstairs. And I could do that. Bob De Niro, you want to learn about your dad seriously better than maybe anybody could talk.

And I could do it. Contact me. I wrote to him, no response. So please talk to me, sir. Okay, we worked on a project with Al Kilmer. And I noticed he was a very prolific artist, and it seemed like that was really his outlet. It was his big passion beyond everything, or maybe the acting was the art, but he painted and he had stuff all of his studio. I found it really interesting.

What do people get? Like when you create a painting or you create something like what you're doing, what is it? Is it intrinsic, extrinsic? What is it that that you get from doing this? Well, about, I moved to South America, Mexico, Belize, and I didn't know you back then, but if you went to the jungle with me in Belize, we could have painted for two weeks. And after me teach, I'm serious now. And I can do this with corporations.

I can do this with anybody. But the quietest place in the world, and you know what happens? You find yourself. knew myself. Okay. But with nothing around, and I'm a New York, I used to be a New York City artist, so I know the difference. And so recently, or a while back, there was, what's her name, Spade, and there were Anthony Bourdain, and they committed suicide, right? And had they been with me in Kusko, Peru, they wouldn't have killed themselves. And I'm serious, and it's sad, but I'm not joking about that. So what I have a creative genius far in my work is artwork pushing the boundaries. It's

gym for the mind because I'm bored once a year maybe. Okay. And seriously, I have a wonderful girlfriend. I have a wonderful life and I had a beautiful house and you know what? I live. How can you escape? And I escaped. And I think that for a lot of your people on, that are going to watch this, they need to escape a little bit. And I can do corporate talks. I develop things. I can teach the history art in 45 minutes. Seriously. Does it make you a great artist? No. But it increases your knowledge about the world. And I'm reading two books on Leonardo now. So you're asking me really good questions. How do you know so much about everything? If you could channel Leonardo da Vinci or if you could channel any artist that is no longer alive

and you could paint with them one time, who would it be and why? You know what? You asked for stories. I knew an artist that I met was 83 years old. I won't say his name other than it was Marcel. And he knew Marilyn Monroe. He was a famous artist, but not as a top echelon, but he was. a master printmaker for Picasso and Dolly. So I adopted him at 83. He used to come to my studio

once a month. Look at my work. So here's Marcell. He's sitting there. Okay. And one day, I had known him for two years, I said, Marcel, what would Picasso say about my work? And you know what he said? Barre-on, transcoat. Kelly. Okay, Marcel, it's three minutes. We're recording now, Marcel, give me a break. He would love it. So that's my story. I don't have idols and I don't have and somebody like you or somebody like Meryl Streep who flirted with me. You know, what am I going to do? I was seeing somebody. You know what I'm saying? Can I show you a couple pictures? This one behind me, you can see. This one I used to paint like this. I'm trying to impress you.

Thank you. And I did this about a year ago. Thank you. Rembrandt's like a great-grandfather. Great, great-great-grandfather. He died in 1669. I'm sorry. I didn't need him.

And I think, thank you. I'm pretty good, you know? And the other nice thing about it is he can be modest. Here's another one. And this is, you got to have fun. Did you hear me, Dan? You got to have fun with your work. And this one, I was just in New York weekly in September 2nd.

So your viewers, please go to that. I don't know you. But anybody out there, I could help you. But please collect my paintings. I'm determined to do this 10 by 30 foot painting. And I've been in museum. shows, but you know what? He got to do what you have to do if that sounds too silly. And I taught at Dartmouth. I was in a gifted program at Yale, and we're going over time.

I know you're going to tell me. What would you like to ask? Tell me about Yale. That was a long time ago, another lifetime ago. I moved on in 2016 when I got on a plane and lived in Cozumel. I was in a gifted program. I was a poor kid, okay? And I worked my ass off because I wasn't a baseball player good enough, okay, for the St. Louis Cardinals to play center fields. All right, you look like you're a baseball player, okay? And so just quickly, because we've got to wrap things up, I know in about two hours, which is fine, okay? And so I expected everybody to be geniuses. And sometimes on the weekends I was in a special gifted program.

There might be two people out of 30, whatever. There are 350 people accepted from Canada and the United States. And you know what, man, I'm like a tank or a train. You jump on the train. And if you're a student of mine, you jump on the train. And I'll take you places that you never dreamed of. And that's how I am as an artist. So Yale, Dartmouth was amazing.

and how do you teach mostly billionaire kids? You push them with things that they don't know and you give them projects. So my idea was LeBron James, Taylor Swift, were sponsoring a restaurant on Central Park by 59th Street and they had to design paintings for two floors across from Central Park, but it was for families. And you would not believe the rock and roll lion musician bands they created.

Surrealist eyes. And you're getting ready to ask me some else. Please. No, I'm fascinated by your stories. And I would love to read the book. So tell me what is the name of the book. And I'm guessing you said I can get that on Amazon. Yeah.

And it's a whole $10. So it's three years of worth so that you're paying me about three bucks. And I'm not even getting the whole amount. but do me a favor it is a steel and I priced my works low I'm in about I don't know how many private collections

and people come back and used to buy my work because I moved but some people have 10 to 15 works in their collection and that's the main thing that I'm doing all this far so go on my website

Charles Edelman Masterpieces.com and I also posted and on my website under sports art. So if you like sports, you'll see my list of this list. And is there anything else? This has been great. I never played baseball, by the way. I was pretty horrible at all sports.

But no, I've always wanted to be an artist one day. I'm inspired. I'm going to go, I'm going to go make some art after this. And let's see how it looks. but I appreciate your time. I enjoyed the story. I've never talked to anyone who met Andy Warhol before. So that's a first.

And I think I've also haven't talked to anyone who's given me so many stories, which I prefer. I actually enjoy listening to stories in your life and your art seems incredible. So thank you for all that you do. And thanks for joining us today. I've done a lot for charity. And I'll tell you what, within a month. I'm turning several people right now that I have students private, not many, but I'm turning them into artists, okay?

So take some classes with me. You know how to reach me, okay? And so maybe you do. All right, you can go through my website. And it's genius at work, one, at yahoo.com. But you know what? I'm not a tough grader in the beginning. Amazing. That's good. I won't fail. But thank you, Charles, for joining us today and excited about the art. The future of art.

The future of art. And you know what? Any corporations, anybody that wants to reach out to me, please do. And I won't disappoint you, including Bob De Niro, my good friend. Amazing. Thanks, Charles. Thank you. And I'm serious about teaching. Okay. I would love to. Thank you.