The discovery that nobody knows anything can be frightening but also incredibly liberating, if you take it to heart. If nobody knows anything, you might have a shot at doing the things that you want to do after all. If nobody knows anything, you can figure things out on your own and do things your way. If nobody knows anything, nobody can tell you what to do.
-- Austin Kleon, Don't Call It Art, p. 19-20
Luckily, art critics are only interested in art. If you don't call it art, the critics won't care what you're doing, and they'll leave you alone. Now you can do whatever you want.
-- Austin Kleon, Don't Call It Art, p. 9
One day I was listening to an interview with the musician Fiona Apple, and she admitted that she reads a lot of parenting books, not because she plans on having kids but because she wants to learn how to parent herself. "So, you're the parent and the child?" the interviewer asked. "Well, I mean, you always have to be," Apple said. "Everybody has to be for themselves, I think."
-- Austin Kleon, Don't Call It Art, p. 4
As I was learning to love and care for these little artists in my life, I started wondering why I didn't show myself the same love and care. It was the thought I had when I read parenting books: Why are we doing all this stuff for our kids but not ourselves? Why aren't we all taking time to play? Why aren't we all letting ourselves get bored? Why aren't we all limiting our screen time and going outside?
-- Austin Kleon, Don't Call It Art, p. 4
On Saturday, I soaked in the syllables and sensuality of Natasha Oladokun, Pauletta Hansel, Anne M. Doe Overstreet, Brian Volck, and John Paul Davis during the The Wild Poets Bramble Ramble: Poets in the Round at Nowhere Else Festival.
6.
I mention them now,
I will not mention them again.
It is not lack of love
nor lack of sorrow.
But the iron thing they carried, I will not carry.
I give them--one, two, three, four--the kiss of courtesy,
of sweet thanks,
of anger, of good luck in the deep earth.
May they sleep well. May they soften.
But I will not give them the kiss of complicity.
I will not give them the responsibility for my life.
-- Mary Oliver, "Flare"
The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love -- whether we call it friendship or family or romance -- is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other's light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for another.
-- James Baldwin
You may be exhausted from holding things and be disheartened. And even weep if you are very emotional. Which could be anyone on any day. With good reason. But then there is the next moment and the next day and...hold on[.]
-- Maira Kalman, Women Holding Things
It is hard work to hold everything and it never ends.
-- Maira Kalman, Women Holding Things
Objects around us hold our attention and our love.
-- Maira Kalman, Women Holding Things
The terrors of the world exist. And we are wounded. It would be so nice to never be afraid. But I am afraid that is just not possbile.
-- Maira Kalman, Women Holding Things
If you meet the Holocaust, you can never escape its grip. You are obliged to feel it reverberate through all things for the rest of your life.
-- Maira Kalman, Women Holding Things
