Art comes from art

10 things worth sharing this week

A page from the 10th anniversary edition of Steal Like an Artist

Hey y’all,

Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:

1. “Art seems to come from other art.” Art Thief: Lessons from Wayne Thiebaud is a video exploring the influences of the painter to accompany his delicious-looking retrospective at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. (I sure hope they sell Steal Like an Artist in the gift shop!)
   
   

2. As if I needed another reason to visit, across town at SFMOMA, there’s a Ruth Asawa retrospective. It’ll eventually travel to the MoMA in New York and the Guggenheim in Spain, but until then, you can check out Ruth Asawa: Retrospective and Marilyn Chase’s biography Everything She Touched: The Life of Ruth Asawa, which is out now in paperback. (I’m in love with this photo of her house.)
   
   

3. California artist Tucker Nichols has a beautiful looking career-spanning book coming out from McSweeney’s called Mostly Everything: The Art of Tucker Nichols.
   
   

4. Oakland-born filmmaker Ryan Coogler did a #showyourwork style video for Kodak breaking down aspect ratio as promotion for his forthcoming movie, Sinners. I wasn’t terribly interested in the movie until I watched this video and then found out the vampires were inspired by the villain in the excellent animated Kleon pizza night blockbuster Puss In Boots: The Last Wish. That’s how you promote your work — talk openly and honestly about your process and your inspiration! (By the way, Show Your Work! was at the top of this list of books to help build your personal brand without making you feel like a walking billboard.)
   
   

5. “I try to bring the hand into almost everything I do, because the hand knows as much as the head does.” Forgive me some more advertisements for myself: Nice News published a well-written profile of me that covers a lot of the things I practice and preach and writer Holly Ringland shared a gorgeous post-script at the end of our Q&A, “Planting Iris.”
   
   

6. People who love pictures and words: My 10-year-old cartoonist has devoured the comics of Raina Telgemeier and Scott McCloud, so I thought their “Understanding Comics for kids” collaboration The Cartoonist’s Club would be an absolute slam dunk. He read it with great interest (“They make zines like you, papa!”) but his final review was, “Why wouldn’t you just read Understanding Comics?” (I read it and liked it, so if you know a kid who hasn’t read all of Scott McCloud’s books multiple times, I recommend it!)
   
   

7. Beautifully intricate Romanian Easter eggs and Ukrainian egg decorating. (Reminds me of a sign I saw some boys holding in east Austin many years ago: “Don’t make your own Easter eggs — ain’t nobody got time for that!”)
   
   

8. “Being crazy about a woman like her’s always the right thing to do.” Last year I caught The Last Picture Show on TV, got totally sucked into it, but had to go to bed. I finally made time to watch the whole thing last week, and it was great. There’s a clip of director Peter Bogdanovich explaining to Dick Cavett in 1972 why he shot it in black and white — Mel Brooks is one of the guests who praises the film, and I’m kind of curious whether he was taking notes for his own black and white movie, Young Frankenstein, which would come out a few years later. I’m now reading Larry McMurtry’s novel. (If you’re looking for a top-tier read, Lonesome Dove is one of my favorite big books for summer.)
   
   

9. “I’m going to put on a iron shirt / and chase the devil out of earth.” RIP reggae musician Max Romeo. He did great work with producer Lee “Scratch” Perry, especially War Ina Babylon, which ranks high on a list of other great albums recorded at Perry’s Black Ark Studios like The Congos’ Heart of the Congos, Junior Murvin’s Police and Thieves, and The Heptones’ Party Time. (Here’s a playlist of some of Romeo’s recordings.)
   
   

10. Your assignment next week: Show up!
    
    

Thanks for reading. This hand-rolled, ad-free, AI-free, anti-algorithm publication is made possible thanks to the love and support of readers like you. If you want to help keep it going, buy my books, hire me to speak at your event, or, best of all, become a paid subscriber:

xoxo,

Austin