Category: Inspiration
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Pointing at Wayne Thiebaud
On Christmas day a week or two ago, an American painter named Wayne Thiebaud died at 101. I had never heard of Thiebaud, nor can I remember ever seeing any of his work. Which, now that I have, feels like a fatal flaw in my two years of higher art education. I’d like to write…
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Words from Sondheim
As I assume you’ve long heard by now, Stephen Sondheim (writer of Into the Woods, Company, and Sweeney Todd among others) passed away last week. A hero and a pillar in American theater. On a plane, two days after his death, I watched Six by Sondheim on HBO. A documentary covering the life and career…
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Nike Workwear
Today, a video from one of my favorite internet filmmakers, Van Neistat, led me to this wonderful brand, William Ellery Technical Apparel. A maker out of New York City producing “outdoor and workwear apparel from vintage wears, envisioning each garment’s unique story.” With “boyhood sentimentality” shaping the clothing and the company. I, of course, fell…
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The Art of the Find
On a rare scroll through Twitter the other night, I stumbled across a blog I’d never seen before. Created by a designer and web developed named Reagan Ray. Reagan is a curator. He collects things he loves, category by category, and shares them with the world. From famous Texans, to comic book super hero lettering,…
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Imaginary Instruments
I’ve had a couple tedious work days in a row. The kind that felt like I could not, for the life of me, figure out a solution to the problem I was working on. The sort of hours spent pondering how anyone could every possibly be so pitiful as to pay you for anything you…
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Goya and Van Gogh
Two famous painters from history – Francisco Goya and Vincent van Gogh – were born on this day, 275 years and 168 years ago respectively. I do not have anything very insightful to say, I just scanned through each of their works again this evening, and pulled several ‘comparable’ pieces (only in rough terms of…
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Quantity Masks Crudity
Even crude work becomes impressive in high enough quantity. Like Jason Polan’s Every Person in New York. Pretty much anything becomes impressive or beautiful to us humans in high enough quantity. LEGO clone troopers. Layers of paint. Words repeated a 100,000 times in a row. Sometimes, if you find yourself struggling to create a singular…
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A Lens of Celebration
Van Neistat, filmmaker and older brother of Casey Neistat, released the first videos on his brand new YouTube channel – a series called The Spirited Man. I was ecstatic to see this, and even more so when I watched the videos. Then watched them again. And again and again and again. And fell in love…
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Ted Lasso and the Meaning of Life
I already talked about the spirit and impact of Ted Lasso, but I can’t stop thinking about this character. Specifically, the seemingly endless well of optimism and joy that Ted carries with him everywhere he goes. The idea of happiness is one that I think about a lot – where does it really come from?…