Episode Details

“An artist is someone who is celebrated for being themselves. A professional artist is someone who is paid for being themselves.”

“It takes as much creativity to make it work as it does to make the work.”

—Gretchen Andrew

Gretchen Andrew is a viral painter, hacker, and creator of the award-winning FaceTune Portraits, a series of oil paintings that “reveal the hidden scars of social media filters.”

Two years after college, Gretchen quit her so-called “dream job” at Google and set out on a performative experiment to become an artist. It was a wild success!

Most recently, two paintings from Gretchen’s Facetune Portrait series have been put forth for permanent acquisition at the Whitney. These provocative portraits criticize how AI and plastic surgery are homogenizing and dictating our collective beauty standards. The world needs this series and it was a joy to talk to Gretchen about creativity, algorithms, morning routines, robots, Botox, and how to become an artist.

Follow Gretchen on Instagram @gretchenandrew

Gretchen Andrew’s website: gretchenandrew.com

Erica on Instagram: @erica.j.schmidt

Erica on Substack (new!): @ericajschmidt

Erica's website: ericajschmidt.com

Full shownotes: ericajschmidt.com/podcast/artist-gretchen-andrew

Gretchen Andrew on This Is Your Strange and Beautiful Life

00:00:00 Intro: Gretchen on today’s unreasonable beauty standards

00:01:44 Theme song plus Gretchen’s bio and riveting banter on Botox

00:06:04 Gretchen gets a running scholarship at Boston College. Landed a job at Google, which she quit after two years to illegally move into her art studio. How did this happen and how did it go?

00:09:39 Using the Internet as a force for good. Trying to make it as an artist in San Francisco

00:16:30 Gretchen’s take on the term “self-taught.” How she acquired the technical skills she needed without getting an MFA. How she fo