Usable.

David Bowie's advice to young artists ...

We tend to think our opinions are a lot more important than other people's in some way.  Often we feel as though we have the key to something.  I don't think that we do at all, I just think we dwell on it more.  We tend to look at the world as some usable substance more than a non-artist would.  For many people just getting through life is enough, that's a big enough task, let alone having to look at the world and the universe and say, "Now, if I had my way ..."

Seeker.

ADVICE to a YOUNG PAINTER

FIRST AND FOREMOST, DETERMINE IF WANTING to be a painter is just a passing romantic or otherwise fanciful notion or whether in fact it is a genuinely primal calling you must follow to be whole. Then, know what you’re getting into. The number of people in America today who can understand and appreciate real painting is about the same as the number of wild condors in California. Motive is everything, so if you find yourself daydreaming of becoming lionized amid a shower of applause, prizes, awards, chic soirees, and fat checks, then painting will be a waste of time, as this will guarantee your station outside the gate, knocking to no avail for the duration, and there will be no spiritually dignified Life in Art. There are probably places you can still access serious formal training in drawing and painting, but I don’t know where they are. To be on the safe side while you’re looking, steer clear of the so-called art institutes, as well as the pointless, ineffectual art departments at colleges and universities. Instead, be proactive by drawing, painting, reading, and traveling. This will eventually result in a real education and a path of your own while at the same time being far less expensive than a fraudulent degree. It will, however, put all the heat on you to pay attention and study diligently. Keep in mind as well that to become proficient will require a minimum of ten thousand hours of actual painting.

CHOOSE YOUR HEROES CAREFULLY, identifying not only those who were truly great but also those whose sensibilities have spoken to your own. In doing this, remain suspicious of anything less than a hundred years old. We’re only eighty-eight years away from Monet, so do not be seduced by recent historically romantic prose. He did a great deal of unspeakable work. Be especially contemptuous when an ego-maniacal alcoholic who peed his pants routinely as a hobby sixty years ago while inanely drizzling paint all over the floor is referred to as an Old Master. Always go back as far as you can in your discipline. Remember and believe that very close to 100 percent of everything produced under the banner of Art in your time is utterly worthless. Be a seeker of truth and beauty. Never be impressed by the price of anything. Use your gift of the true artist’s X-ray vision to see through the fabric of manipulated reputations as crocheted by the unholy alliance of art dealers, so-called collectors, critics, and museum personnel, all of whom are perched before grinding wheels of their own designs, axes poised.

READ AS MUCH GOOD CLASSIC LITERATURE AND POETRY AS YOU CAN. You need to be fluent in the realm of verbal ideas and concepts to balance the essentially nonverbal ones you use in your work. Most writers, by the way, do not really subscribe to the specificity of the visual alphabet. You must. Along with poetry, novels, and essays, you would do well to read biographies, autobiographies, and letters. By all means do not stick only to the visual arts; include them all. This is to learn how others handled their journeys, bearing in mind you can’t emulate anyone else’s. Travel will serve to inform you as to the enormity of the world and its wondrous diversity. This will help with your sense of humility, which is of key importance.

NEVER FORGET YOU ARE A SWORN ENEMY OF THE STATE, and all manifestations of the Establishment, whether political, social, or pseudo-intellectual, are there for you to practice your place-kicking, so arm yourself with a stout heart and sturdy boots. Those in positions of power are almost universally charlatans, knaves, liars, frauds, or flat-out criminals. As a hopeful but still naive young artist, you may assume, as I once did, that surely somewhere in the world of art, especially in the museums, there would be intelligent, caring people who could identify and then stand behind the difference between feces and brown shoe polish, but you will finally become disabused of this once you are able to see through the ever-present smokescreen of “artspeak” and identify the huge, poisonous grease slick of furtive, underhanded capitalists roaming the territories for little more than the hope that a few fleeting moments in the spotlight will result in a straight flush.

NEVER LOSE SIGHT OF THE FACT that a gallery is a store, and nothing more. If you have to use one, keep your ego out of it, and concentrate on whether the proprietor is keeping his store in order, selling his wares effectively, and paying his bills on time. Watch your back. The higher the table stakes, the more you will need to maintain the bat signal pointed at the dark skies over Gotham. Work diligently with seriousness of purpose, but never take yourself seriously. There is no free lunch, so if something sounds too good to be true, it is, every time. Grants are always an inside job, so to get one ordinarily requires time on your knees kissing someone’s hinder. Don’t do it. Expect to be poor. Don’t plan on it like some whining loser, but think about how you’re going to survive when it happens, as it has to every real artist in history. On the other hand, by all means do not strive for wealth. It can happen, and has to some, but it’s always some stripe of fluke, and as randomly as it arrived, so will it disappear, and will not have had anything whatsoever to do with the inherent value of art.

IDENTIFY WHERE YOU CAME FROM, WHERE YOU ARE, AND WHERE YOU WISH TO GO. Travel only in healthy and intelligent company. Immerse yourself in great music, even though you may not be a student of its complex theories. Enjoy good, clean food. Learn how to gather it and how to prepare it. Take full responsibility for your own behavior. Be neither a sender nor a receiver of text messages. Live skillfully. And never watch television.

Russell Chatham

Happy Birthday, Ray Bradbury

What you’ve got to do from this night forward is stuff your head with more different things from various fields.  I’ll give you a program to follow every night, very simple program. For the next thousand nights, before you go to bed every night, read one short story. That’ll take you ten minutes, 15 minutes.

Okay, then read one poem a night from the vast history of poetry. Stay away from most modern poems. It’s crap. It’s not poetry! It’s not poetry. Now if you want to kid yourself and write lines that look like poems, go ahead and do it, but you’ll go nowhere. Read the great poets, go back and read Shakespeare, read Alexander Pope, read Robert Frost.

But one poem a night, one short story a night, one essay a night, for the next 1,000 nights. From various fields: archaeology, zoology, biology, all the great philosophers of time, comparing them. Read the essays of Aldous Huxley, read Lauren Eisley, great anthropologist.   I want you to read essays in every field. On politics, analyzing literature, pick your own. But that means that every night then, before you go to bed, you’re stuffing your head with one poem, one short story, one essay—at the end of a thousand nights, Jesus God, you’ll be full of stuff, won’t you? 

Ray Bradbury, born on this day in 1920, from “Telling the Truth,” the keynote address of The Sixth Annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, 2001

Open.

A few years ago, my Dad sent me an e-mail after we had a discussion about "the world today" ...

Dwelling on and blaming every day can take a physical and mental toll and eat up one's time. There is too much of this stuff along with other things in this world that are negative. This again is part of the problem(s) in this day and age. If it's on the internet in anyway, shape or form, it has to be true ... that's false ... but that is what "some are into" today.  Common sense says that some of this topic may be correct, but more data has to be generated and discussed on topics "in open discussion," not, "If you don't believe me, you are against me," etc.!!!

At this point, hate and blaming DOES destroy good days and DOES give many people headaches and loss of sleep and this is TRUE, this we know, we must try to overcome or be above it, which is VERY, VERY hard to do! 

These are some of my thoughts ... Dad.

Thanks, Pop!  I hope the Amish lady came today.

Useful.

C.S. Lewis' letter to a young girl offering advice on writing ...

When you give up a bit of work don’t (unless it is hopelessly bad) throw it away. Put it in a drawer. It may come in useful later. Much of my best work, or what I think my best, is the re-writing of things begun and abandoned years earlier.

I would add that it's essential to keep a journal and take it with you everywhere.

Everywhere.

Scream.

Let out a scream and don't be afraid to give 'er!

Overcome.

A few years ago, my Dad sent me an e-mail after we had a discussion about "the world today" ...

Dwelling on and blaming every day can take a physical and mental toll and eat up one's time. There is too much of this stuff along with other things in this world that are negative. This again is part of the problem(s) in this day and age. If it's on the internet in anyway, shape or form, it has to be true ... that's false ... but that is what "some are into" today.  Common sense says that some of this topic may be correct, but more data has to be generated and discussed on topics "in open discussion," not, "If you don't believe me, you are against me," etc.!!!

At this point, hate and blaming DOES destroy good days and DOES give many people headaches and loss of sleep and this is TRUE, this we know, we must try to overcome or be above it, which is VERY, VERY hard to do! 

These are some of my thoughts ... Dad.

Independents.

Observing.

Don’t let athletics run away with you as you may see in nine cases out of ten.  It doesn’t amount to a row of pins.  What you want to do is slowly but steadily get ahold of the simple facts of nature by reading and observing and also get all you can from Grandpapa, who can probably give you more practical knowledge than lots of professors, and then when you come to the science part it will come easy.  This is also true in art.  I’ve lived in the country, closer to nature, among animals, etc., and have learned and observed lots of little, seemingly little, things that have helped me in my final scientific study.  Write compositions and stories of your wanderings in the woods and when you can, send one to me.  Do as John Burroughs does.  If you can get some of his books and read them they are wonderful.

You've got a most interesting future before you if you wish to make it so and I wish you all possible success.

N.C. Wyeth, from a letter to his brother Edwin, May 25, 1903

Trying.

Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day. At the end of the day—if you live long enough—most people get what they deserve.

Charlie Munger

Thank you, Kurt.

Convenient.

After.

ADVICE

You know how, after it rains,
my father told me one August afternoon
when I struggled with something
hurtful my best friend had said,
how worms come out and
crawl all over the sidewalk
and it stays a big mess
a long time after it’s over
if you step on them?

Leave them alone,
he went on to say,
after clearing his throat,
and when the rain stops,
they crawl back into the ground.

Dan Gerber

Advice.

ADVICE for a YOUNG PAINTER

FIRST AND FOREMOST, DETERMINE IF WANTING to be a painter is just a passing romantic or otherwise fanciful notion or whether in fact it is a genuinely primal calling you must follow to be whole. Then, know what you’re getting into. The number of people in America today who can understand and appreciate real painting is about the same as the number of wild condors in California. Motive is everything, so if you find yourself daydreaming of becoming lionized amid a shower of applause, prizes, awards, chic soirees, and fat checks, then painting will be a waste of time, as this will guarantee your station outside the gate, knocking to no avail for the duration, and there will be no spiritually dignified Life in Art. There are probably places you can still access serious formal training in drawing and painting, but I don’t know where they are. To be on the safe side while you’re looking, steer clear of the so-called art institutes, as well as the pointless, ineffectual art departments at colleges and universities. Instead, be proactive by drawing, painting, reading, and traveling. This will eventually result in a real education and a path of your own while at the same time being far less expensive than a fraudulent degree. It will, however, put all the heat on you to pay attention and study diligently. Keep in mind as well that to become proficient will require a minimum of ten thousand hours of actual painting.

CHOOSE YOUR HEROES CAREFULLY, identifying not only those who were truly great but also those whose sensibilities have spoken to your own. In doing this, remain suspicious of anything less than a hundred years old. We’re only eighty-eight years away from Monet, so do not be seduced by recent historically romantic prose. He did a great deal of unspeakable work. Be especially contemptuous when an egomaniacal alcoholic who peed his pants routinely as a hobby sixty years ago while inanely drizzling paint all over the floor is referred to as an Old Master. Always go back as far as you can in your discipline. Remember and believe that very close to 100 percent of everything produced under the banner of Art in your time is utterly worthless. Be a seeker of truth and beauty. Never be impressed by the price of anything. Use your gift of the true artist’s X-ray vision to see through the fabric of manipulated reputations as crocheted by the unholy alliance of art dealers, so-called collectors, critics, and museum personnel, all of whom are perched before grinding wheels of their own designs, axes poised.

READ AS MUCH GOOD CLASSIC LITERATURE and poetry as you can. You need to be fluent in the realm of verbal ideas and concepts to balance the essentially nonverbal ones you use in your work. Most writers, by the way, do not really subscribe to the specificity of the visual alphabet. You must. Along with poetry, novels, and essays, you would do well to read biographies, autobiographies, and letters. By all means do not stick only to the visual arts; include them all. This is to learn how others handled their journeys, bearing in mind you can’t emulate anyone else’s. Travel will serve to inform you as to the enormity of the world and its wondrous diversity. This will help with your sense of humility, which is of key importance.

NEVER FORGET YOU ARE A SWORN ENEMY of the state, and all manifestations of the Establishment, whether political, social, or pseudo-intellectual, are there for you to practice your place-kicking, so arm yourself with a stout heart and sturdy boots. Those in positions of power are almost universally charlatans, knaves, liars, frauds, or flat-out criminals. As a hopeful but still naive young artist, you may assume, as I once did, that surely somewhere in the world of art, especially in the museums, there would be intelligent, caring people who could identify and then stand behind the difference between feces and brown shoe polish, but you will finally become disabused of this once you are able to see through the ever-present smokescreen of “artspeak” and identify the huge, poisonous grease slick of furtive, underhanded capitalists roaming the territories for little more than the hope that a few fleeting moments in the spotlight will result in a straight flush.

NEVER LOSE SIGHT OF THE FACT that a gallery is a store, and nothing more. If you have to use one, keep your ego out of it, and concentrate on whether the proprietor is keeping his store in order, selling his wares effectively, and paying his bills on time. Watch your back. The higher the table stakes, the more you will need to maintain the bat signal pointed at the dark skies over Gotham. Work diligently with seriousness of purpose, but never take yourself seriously. There is no free lunch, so if something sounds too good to be true, it is, every time. Grants are always an inside job, so to get one ordinarily requires time on your knees kissing someone’s hinder. Don’t do it. Expect to be poor. Don’t plan on it like some whining loser, but think about how you’re going to survive when it happens, as it has to every real artist in history. On the other hand, by all means do not strive for wealth. It can happen, and has to some, but it’s always some stripe of fluke, and as randomly as it arrived, so will it disappear, and will not have had anything whatsoever to do with the inherent value of art.

IDENTIFY WHERE YOU CAME FROM, WHERE YOU ARE, and where you wish to go. Travel only in healthy and intelligent company. Immerse yourself in great music, even though you may not be a student of its complex theories. Enjoy good, clean food. Learn how to gather it and how to prepare it. Take full responsibility for your own behavior. Be neither a sender nor a receiver of text messages. Live skillfully. And never watch television.

Russell Chatham

Do.

Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk.  It'll teach you to keep your mouth shut.

Ernest Hemingway

Hit.

Think playing on sports' travel team will help your kids get a college scholarship? Think again. Commentator John U. Bacon advises that they hit the books instead.

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