Category: Creativity
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You can’t judge creative work by Sales
Or Likes, Hearts, Views, Shares, or any other type of metric. That’s a difficult idea to reconcile, because these metrics can influence how much energy you spend on your work. For example, if your work generate enough Sales, then you can draw a Personal Income from it, which then makes you a Full-Time Artist. (Congratulations!)…
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Donald Glover, on productive gentleness
When Donald Glover asks himself, “What’s a good man to you?” he replies, “Someone who knows themselves. Who loves themselves. My father was really gentle with us. Physically and mentally. It felt radical at the time. I really miss him.” Similarly, when he’s recently asked what advice he’d leave with his kids (emphasis added): The…
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What my personal website and blog have done for me
As often happens, there was a great thread at Hacker News that inspired this post: 1. When I was 15, I started my first blog at Blogspot. (It’s still there!) It became a source of great fun and advertising money as a teenager. Because I wrote enthusiastically about technology, I eventually also met other people…
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Don’t make what you think other people want you to make
“What you really want to do is, when you make your videos, make sure you’re making them for yourself and it’s something you actually believe in—not a video that you’re doing because you think it will do good. Too many people make videos that they think will get views, but it’s not really in their…
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From fliers to billboards
Some conceptual artists work mostly with language and words. This includes Glenn Ligon, Barbara Kruger, and Jenny Holzer. (Lots more here!) Holzer was the most familiar to me; I came across her truisms in books, and also through her collaboration with Virgil Abloh in 2017. I recently found out that Holzer’s work didn’t start off…
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11 books that started as articles, speeches, or podcasts
For several years, I’ve kept a running tab of articles, speeches, or podcasts that have turned into books. It’s time to start publicizing it. This list is for you if you’ve ever considered—or longed!—to publish a book: start today, start small (by yourself!), and start with what you’ve got. A book is just a snapshot in…
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Blind Faith Heroic by Richard MacDonald
Richard MacDonald(American, b. 1946) SculptureBlind Faith Heroic, 2007.Limited Edition of 8 The cube is your life and we are balanced on the tip of life,So we can fall in any direction.We are poised in a pose that we can only hold for a split-second…So it is about being in that instant, in the moment.We are…
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“Art changes people and people change the world”
A great reminder, attributed to John Butler. I saw this on a brick wall in Tokyo; I’m glad that they posted it. As I previously wrote: “We can choose a responsibility, every day, to collect the best of what came before us, to embody it, and to preserve it by sharing its charms with other…
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On quitting, failing, and, “I find a lot of people who should quit don’t”
I recently posted my friend Vin’s blog post at Hacker News, where it sparked a lot of discussion. In particular, one comment by rcme stood out to me: I find a lot of people who should quit don’t. Their taste becomes compromised and they fall in love with their own work. I have high school…
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Contentions: If you really want to make an impact, tell a story
You may never own a pair of J’s, though there’s a chance you’ll know Michael Jordan’s story. You may not have heard one of Amanda Palmer songs, though you may know of her stories with crowdfunding. You may not watch Oprah, and you might still know her as a billionaire who started with nothing. Same…