My next book: Don’t Call It Art!

10 things worth sharing this week

Hey y’all,

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

1. My next book is Don’t Call It Art: 10 Ways to Create Like a Kid Again. It was inspired by my time spent as a studio assistant to my two sons when they were really little and the lessons I learned from them about loving and caring for yourself as a creative person. The book is designed to put you back in touch with that wild and fearless 4-year-old kid that still lives inside you and wants to come out and play. The release date is June 2, but you can pre-order it now wherever you love to buy books:
   
   

   
   It’s a weird time, to say the very least, to be putting out a book about curiosity and wonder and freedom and fun and humor and imperfection and magic. But it’s also a time when, I think, we could desperately use those things in our lives. Watching my kids draw and make music and come alive to the world unlocked something in me that I’ve been trying to get into book form for over 10 years. I really can’t wait to share it with y’all. If you liked any of my other books, you will love this one.

   

   
   

2. I borrowed the title from John Baldessari: ”I learned so much about art from watching a kid draw. I taught at the grade-school level. Kids don’t call it art when they’re throwing things around, drawing—they’re just doing stuff.” (And Brian Eno’s diary: “People do much better when they don’t think they’re being artists… if you don’t call it art, you’re likely to get a better result.”)

   
   

3. “There is a hugely underestimated intelligence attached to manual labor…. When you use your own energy, your own body, you have to be economical about how you do it. If you’re picking potatoes all day, or picking stones, you are working repetitively. You have to work with a rhythm and a fluidity, and you can’t be fighting it or forcing it. That’s really important for what I do as an artist—if you work with the right flow and rhythm, you give the work that rhythm.” A profile of Andy Goldsworthy.
   
   

4. “It felt like the opposite of the machine. No one could mistake my drawings for an actual statement; they were wobbly and imperfect, obviously made by my hand.” Kate Bingaman-Burt on 20 years of her daily purchase drawings. (Do not miss her typewriter interview!)
   
   

5. RIP civil rights leader Jesse Jackson. Take some time today to watch him reciting “I am somebody” with kids on Sesame Street and reading from Green Eggs and Ham on Saturday Night Live. (To quote bell hooks, “We cannot have a meaningful revolution without humor.”)
   
   

6. RIP filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, who didn’t make his first feature until he was thirty-six, and went on to make forty-seven of them! I had a quote from Wiseman in the first draft of Keep Going — his work embodied the message of the book! — but it felt too jarring in the context of the page, so we cut it. Here it is:

   

   
   

7. RIP actor Robert Duvall, who said of his favorite role, “When I finished Lonesome Dove I said to myself, ‘Now I can retire. I’ve done something. Let the English play Hamlet. I’ll play Augustus McCrae.’” (Gus is one of my favorite characters in literature and Larry McMurtry’s novel is one of my favorite books. It’s the perfect big book for summer. Or any other season, for that matter.)
   
   

8. RIP actor Tom Noonan, whose passing gives me an excuse to watch Michael Mann’s Heat for the 100th time.
   
   

9. “You are a human animal…” RIP Michael Silverblatt, host of KCRW’s Bookworm. The Bookworm archive is really incredible — just earlier this year I found four episodes with writer Robert Stone, spanning the years 1992-2007. Try typing “Bookworm” and your favorite author’s name into your podcast app and see what comes up. (Here are Silverblatt’s 10 “rules” for reading.)
   
   

10. A delightful typewriter interview with cartoonist Tom Hart.

Thanks for reading. This hand-rolled, ad-free, AI-free, anti-algorithm publication is made possible thanks to the kind support of readers like you. To keep Friday free for everyone and get an exclusive email from me every Tuesday, become a paid subscriber:

xoxo,

Austin

PS. I did remember to mention there’s a new book coming, right?