Pages from a finished diary

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Every time I finish a diary it feels like I should mark the occasion. People ask me what I’m up to these days, and I say, “Working in my diary, mostly,” and they probably think I’m insane.

Looking back through this one, I notice how filled it is with drawings by my four-year-old: he is in that irresistible period where every single drawing they produce seems to be vibrating with life and you want to save them all. The ones in the diary are mostly discards that I “rescued” from the recycle bin to use in collages…

Collage, collage, collage. So many collages. That’s what I do when I don’t have anything to say.

If you want to see more, head over to Instagram, or I’ve posted the photo sets below.

ALSO: before anyone asks what brand I use…

Set one…

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Pages of a finished diary. (1 of 3) #kleondiaries 1. I always decorate the cover with weird stickers 2. I usually do a “guardian spirit” on the inside cover, but this drawing of a skeleton from my 4-year-old worked better I thought #juleskleonart 3. Drawing of poison ivy by the 4-year-old and real dialogue 4. Beethoven obsession 5. Sometimes it’s just quotes and collages 6. Phone doodles while talking to my friend @johntunger 7. I draw angry comix so I don’t say mean things out loud 8. When I have nothing to say i collage. Especially good when I have a daily paper with the comics section 9. More collages + 4-year-old’s drawing More: #kleondiaries

A post shared by Austin Kleon (@austinkleon) on Oct 23, 2019 at 7:19am PDT

…and set two…

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Pages from a finished diary. (2 of 3) #kleondiaries 1. I like to glue the four-year-old’s thrown out drawings to magazine backgrounds 2. Spider collage 3. Big feelings collage 4. Collage and quote about redwood roots 5. Sometimes I wake up with words in my head and even if they’re “bad” or “offensive” words I do something with them 6. Linocut prints by my six-year-old 7. Pretty standard page: longhand brain dump + doodles 8. More 4-year-old drawings (they’re irresistible) + comic dialogue 9. Epic Batman collage story #kleondiaries

A post shared by Austin Kleon (@austinkleon) on Oct 23, 2019 at 7:25am PDT

…and set three:

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Pages from a finished diary (3 of 3) #kleondiaries 1. Sometimes I will work on a new talk by drawing a comic and let it go wherever it wants to go (you can tell how much I’ve taken from @thenearsightedmonkey) 2. Tape collage / writing about what I’m reading 3. Abandoned collage 4. Grey’s anatomy + sheet music from the thrift store collage 5. Drawing of my son in his lucha mask 6. I like to take text ads and make new messages 7. A postcard of @valeriefowlerart‘s work + stickers and a torn note from my friend’s daughter 8. Back matter 9. I don’t always decorate the back cover but I couldn’t wait for the next notebook to bless it with Bucee Hope this isn’t too boring. When people ask me what I’m up to, I say, “Working in my diary.” ? #kleondiaries

A post shared by Austin Kleon (@austinkleon) on Oct 23, 2019 at 7:31am PDT

Australian newspapers black out

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

From The Guardian:

The front page of every newspaper in Australia was blacked out on Monday as part of a campaign against moves by successive federal governments to penalise whistleblowing and, in some cases, criminalise journalism.

Here’s a closer look:

Filed under: newspaper blackout poems

Advice can be a vice

Monday, October 21, 2019

“No one wants advice — only corroboration.”
—John Steinbeck

I’m in the New York Times today, talking to writer Anna Goldfarb about how to give people better advice.

My friend Heather Havrilesky (author of What If This Were Enough?) is also quoted in the piece. I DMed her after we were interviewed that I don’t know how to convince people that “I’m actually an extremely unhelpful person in real life which is why I write the books.”

The more I become known as someone who gives advice, the more skeptical I become of the whole act of advice-giving, the more reluctant I am to dish it out. (I believe strongly that anyone who aspires to be a professional advice-giver should be prescribed a copy of Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts.)

This feeling is further exacerbated by my experiences as a father, in which any advice or teaching I offer is routinely dismissed immediately or backfires in some other fashion. (See: “You are fine without advice or suggestions.”)

The best I can do is be a teacher while remaining a student.

From the article:

“My M.O. is to share things that I’ve learned along the way in the spirit of, ‘This worked for me, maybe it’ll work for you, too.’”

The only thing I’ve really learned about being directly asked for advice:

Be clear on the advice-seeker’s goals. When people approach Austin Kleon, author of “Steal Like an Artist,” for advice, he drills down and identifies the exact problem: “What do you want to know specifically that I can help you with?” This way, he won’t overwhelm the person with irrelevant information.

Finally, it’s impossible for me to type the word “advice” and not hear Arnold Schwarzenegger in Pumping Iron: “He comes to me for advices. So it’s not that hard for me to give him… the wrong advices.”

It’s impossible for me to even hear the word “advice” without thinking about @Schwarzenegger in PUMPING IRON: “He comes to me for advices. So it’s not that hard for me to give him… the wrong advices.” pic.twitter.com/Ws9yFmdNNV

— Austin Kleon (@austinkleon) October 21, 2019

The music, man

Sunday, October 20, 2019

A cut-up of an ad for The Music Man on Broadway. One day I want to do a whole series of collages where I take ads and don’t actually add or subtract anything, just cut and shuffle them, like verbal/visual anagrams.