Click here to subscribe.
The one-hour studio
How I’m making art in times like these:
At some point in the day, I go into the studio. I don’t touch my computer. I set a timer for one hour. I try to make some art. When the timer goes off, I either stop or keep going, depending on what’s on my calendar.
Read more: “The One-Hour Studio.”
New dumpsters, old fires
Last Friday I didn’t have a top image or a subject line for the newsletter, so I said, “You know what? I’ll give myself an hour to play and see what happens.” I pulled a half-finished blackout poem out of the drawer and came up with “New dumpsters, old fires.”
Walk-ins welcome
I love it when people visit me in the studio. For years, I’ve been dreaming of getting a “walk-ins welcome” sign like you see in barber shops to hang in my window. (See #44 on this list.)
After watching Dean Peterson learn sign painting via his @deanpainterson Instagram account, I thought, “Why not just hire Dean to make me one?”
Boy, did he deliver!
Read more: “Walk-ins welcome.”
Typewriter interview with Sally Mann
I somehow got photographer Sally Mann to do a typewriter interview. It’s great. You can read it here.
Shooting pool in dad’s basement (a mixtape)
Here’s another new monthly mixtape made from a sealed, pre-recorded cassette I got for 99 cents. I tape over the cassette’s protection tabs and then I tape over the music and then I tape over the artwork.
This one gave me some technical difficulties. I actually destroyed two cassettes trying to record it, so I wound up with a cassette that was longer than I thought it’d be, so I had a little Side A / Side B fun and made Side A (mostly) songs that my dad likes and Side B songs from my dad’s era that I like.
Dad was born in 1954, so his peak nostalgia zone — the music he heard as a tween/teen in the mid to late 60s — just happens to be some of the best music ever recorded. (A few of his favorites didn’t make it here: The Byrds’ “Tambourine Man,” Creedence’s “Suzie Q,” Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale,” etc.)
I’d had the idea for the tape for a while, but Walter Martin’s organ episode gave me the final push to make it. Putting it together made me realize how much I really genuinely love Boomer music — I can’t help it!
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube.
Filed under: mixtapes
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 635
- Older posts→