Category: Blog
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We choose the harder path
It seems counter-intuitive, but as human beings we are hard-wired to reject the easy path. There’s a class of things we value that are easy: comfy chairs, take-away food, spas. And there’s a class that is hard: having children, climbing mountains, learning the trombone. It’s possible to value both, but those things that are hard…
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LM Sacasas on fragments
A quick follow-up: I just posted about the fragmented style of Lynda Barry’s book Syllabus. And here comes LM Sacasas (a writer I’d put firmly in the in the well-formed argument camp – in the introduction to his latest newsletter, The Convivial Society: What you have here is a sub-genre of the Convivial Society which…
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Syllabus, by Lynda Barry
I just finished reading Lynda Barry’s book Syllabus (Amazon), which documents the work she did through her creative arts course at University of Wisconsinin the 2010s and packages it up as a kind of self-serve course in comics/art/creative practice. It’s a book with a highly unusual format.
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How to trade books
From an exchange of letters (and books) between Marta Werner and Janet Malcolm: 19 September 2012 Dear Marta, I cannot tell you how moved I am by your offer to give me your only copy of the book. Your generosity is staggering. Of course I accept with enormous pleasure and gratitude. May I, in inadequate…
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Art as a political project
People disagree on whether the practice of art is, could or should be a political act. Hey, I disagree with myself on this question. But I’m noting down this idea in the ‘no, that’s a mistake’ column: I personally don’t believe that it’s art’s job to make the world a better place. That’s our job.…
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Just keeping your hands in motion
Nothing more than a repost of a quote – whilst I’m on Lynda Barry / thinking with your hands tip: “Sometimes we are so confused and sad that all we can do is glue one thing to another. Use white glue and paper from the trash, glue paper onto paper, glue scraps and bits of…
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Lynda Barry on drawing ideas
I just found this interview (via Austin Kleon of course) with Lynda Barry, way back in 2008 on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, with Neal Conan. She is promoting her – then, new – book, What It Is, and talks eloquently on art, play and thinking with your hands. I took some notes… Process over…
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Noticing door knobs
“I photographed every door or drawer knob, handle, or latch I touched from the time I awoke on Thursday, June 3rd, until I went to bed on Friday, June 4th, 1999.” Allen Bukoff Fluxus Research: Opening and Closing Doors and Drawers Fluxus is an approach to art (dull people insist it was a historical art…
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John Gossage on metaphor and directness
I enjoyed this conversation with John Gossage on the ever-excellent Magic Hour podcast (recorded back in 2016). He talks about representation in photography in two different ways that might seem contradictory, or at least pull apart in an interesting tension. The episode opens with this line from Gossage, (which we don’t hear in context in the…
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Larry Sultan on the institution of family
Larry Sultan has made one of the most well-known photobooks about family, Pictures From Home (Amazon). It’s deeply personal work, and involved the intimate collaboration of his parents in making images that might otherwise appear somewhat exploitative. In this short interview, he talks about the work through a different lens – the family as an…
Andrew Sleigh 