Return of the snail!

10 things worth sharing this week

Hey y’all,

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

1. Last weekend I found myself printing 100 snails for a little project I’m working on:
   

   
   You can see how I make these prints in my unofficial guide to block printing.
   
   I take a lot of joy in the repetition of this kind of comfort work. It does something to me emotionally — I think, ”Let’s do another one… until we’re dead!”
   
   I’ve made the snail the mascot for Don’t Call It Art because it took so long for me to get the book just right. (Snails leave a snail trail, writers leave a paper trail.)

   

2. “I like art that feels like it was made by a free person. I like to see how a person chooses things. I like art before it gets noted and workshopped and homogenized. I like art that preserves the rough edges of the person.” Brad Neely on embracing errors when making art.
   
   

3. “Uncertainty is healthy.” (I really want to read Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life — it had the best-ever book trailer — and watch more of James Burke’s Connections beyond this shot.)
   
   

4. ”Looking into the things that you’re not good at, especially intellectually, is one way to stay young, because you’ve got a beginner’s mind.” Stewart Brand on The Ezra Klein Show. (Brand tweeted that folks should read the transcript so they "don't have to try to understand my words poorly spoken through a denture lisp," but I think that's why people should listen: it's very rare to hear someone in their late 80s in front of the microphone! More, please!)
   
   

5. My other mid-life inspiration this week came from our prickly pear cacti — despite being beat-to-hell by the storms of life, they are still growing:

   

   (Gardening provides rich creative metaphors that are antidotes to hustle culture and other contemporary nonsense!)
   
   

6. “Do you have any small routines or actions, like a personal ritual or quiet signal, that help activate your creativity each day?” “Yes, not doing anything.”
   
   

7. XOXO was an experimental festival for independent artists and creators from the internet. (My wife and I went in 2013 with our brand-new baby. It was great.) They just launched XOXO Explore, a complete archive of all eight years of the festival and a bunch of new limited-edition merch. I pre-ordered the “Lower Your Expectations” light because I’ve had their sticker up in my studio and on our kitchen fridge for years and years:
   

   

   The Montaigne drawing is by Ed Carey and the post-it is to remind me that newsletters should be letters!

8. If you ever wanted to own the “Here to Make Friends” t-shirt I’m wearing in Steal Like an Artist, now’s your chance! My friend Chris Glass told me they’re taking pre-orders until May 8.

   

9. Shout-out to Chonkers the Sea Lion and Athena’s orphaned owlet.
   
   

10. “Anybody who survives is taking revenge. Revenge is a creative force. No matter how much you were told not to be artistic, still being artistic, that’s revenge; no matter how childish and naïve you were told your ideals were, still believing in them, that’s revenge.”
    

Thanks for reading! This hand-rolled, AI-free, anti-algorithm publication is made possible thanks to the kind support of readers like you. The best ways you can support my work right now: pre-order the new book and/or become a paid subscriber!

xoxo,

Austin