Austin Kleon – Page 387

BLACKOUT POETRY WORKSHOPS AT THE DALLAS MUSEUM OF ART

Friday, June 24, 2011

I had the pleasure of leading a couple of blackout poetry workshops at the Dallas Museum of Art last weekend. It’s still a huge thrill for me to see a whole room full of people of all ages and backgrounds making art in the same space. I’ve found that folks really don’t need much instruction—they just need materials, some space, some time, and permission to play.

On Saturday, I led an all-teen workshop of 15 students. We worked on poems, and then we went into the galleries to soak up some inspiration. I showed them some pieces I liked and talked about how I look at art in museums and how I look at art in general. One thing I said to them is that it’s one thing to feel something about a piece of art, it’s another thing completely to be able to express it in words. Sometimes you can’t explain why you like a piece, and that’s okay.

I carried an iPad around with me, and as we were looking at the work, I’d pull up a few of my blackout poems to talk about the work in context. At a Mondrian, I talked about color and grids. In sculpture, we talked about subtraction. Etc.

In the Reves collection, which displays the Reves’ collection as it was originally displayed at their villa, I talked about my experiences with 20×200 and collecting art, and how art doesn’t just hang in a museum—it’s something you live with in your everyday life.

Thanks to all the great people at the Dallas Museum of Art for having me. I love teaching, and I love talking about art, so this was a real treat.

See more of the museum’s photos on Flickr ?

MORE CHALK MUGS

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Every (work)day I write something on my mug and post it to Twitter: @austinkleon

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TALK, TALK: A LOOK AT MY OFFICE AND SOME RECENT INTERVIEWS

Saturday, June 11, 2011

On my two-desk setup with from the desk of…

I have two desks in my office — one’s “analog” and one’s “digital.” The analog desk has nothing but markers, pens, pencils, paper, and newspaper. Nothing electronic is allowed on the desk — this is how I keep myself off Twitter, etc. This is where most of my work is born. The digital desk has my laptop, my monitor, my scanner, my Wacom tablet, and a MIDI keyboard controller for if I want to record any music. (Like a lot of writers, I’m a wannabe musician.) This is where I edit, publish, etc.

On “How To Steal Like An Artist” going viral in an epic, 1 1/2 hour-long interview my friend John Unger on his radio show, Art Heroes:

It’s been a really big happy mess….People keep saying, “Oh, nice problem to have,” and yes, it is a nice problem to have, but problems still require time, effort, and sometimes money to solve.

On stealing from the avant-garde with Fringe Magazine:

What’s fun for me is taking this avant-garde technique and trying to make something fairly traditional out of it. Something you can send your grandma. Or your mom, maybe. Maybe not your grandma.

On “my vision” for Newspaper Blackout with E-Junkie:

It’s less of a vision, and more of a smell. The smell of marker fumes.

On art as a career with The Daily Brink:

My mom always bought me tons of art supplies, and we had scheduled time for making stuff every day when I was really little. She also let me bang on pots and pans with her wooden spoons. I spent most of my afternoons in high school hiding in the art room, but I never considered being an artist a serious thing to do as a career — I thought I’d go off to college and become a professor. A professor of what, I didn’t know, but I figured I’d teach and write books. Sometime in middle school I think I stumbled across the term “Renaissance man.” That’s what I wanted to be — somebody who does a lot of different things.

On my favorite books with Austin Eavesdropper:

I love everything Kurt Vonnegut and Lynda Barry and Saul Steinberg ever put out. I love Joe Brainard’s I Remember, which is a memoir made up of a bunch of sentences that begin with “I Remember…” I love Carl Jung’s memoir, Memories, Dreams, Reflections. I love Frank O’Hara’s Lunch Poems. I love William Maxwell’s So Long, See You Tomorrow. I love David Hockney’s book, Secret Knowledge. So many books! Since 2005, I’ve kept lists of the best things I read every year.