I’m on the new episode of the Inspiration Place podcast.
Another interview!
Tag: creativity
How to dabble.
I’ve had a bunch of ideas and projects simmering on the stovetop of my mind and, because most or all of them may never get out of the kitchen, I thought I’d serve them up here and see what you think.
Mike Lowery just sent me a little book he made and had printed (How to Keep a Travel Sketchbook ). I loved the book but was also curious about how he’d had it made which turned out to be a company called Scout https://scoutbooks.com/ that makes little books of a certain size and length, and the cuteness of these little books, essentially pocket-sized pamphlets with kraftboard covers, reminded me of the books I used to love to make as a kid and I badly wanted to make one again. A similar impulse happened when I came across the Newspaper Club, a company that prints small-run newspapers, and I was obsessed with the idea of making an issue or two, but which, like my fantasies of letterpressing and screenprinting, died under a bleak vision of exhausted cardboard boxfuls of unwanted printed matter stacked to the ceiling of Jack’s former bedroom, sort of like the warehouse scene at the end of Citizen Kane but more ramshackle and sad. Anyway, the idea of making my own little books has haunted me since I was six and the fact that you can make them more easily and more professionally than ever keeps that flame alive.
Continue reading “How to dabble.”How to get great.
You’ve probably heard of “The 10,000 hour rule”. Malcolm Gladwell popularized it in Outliers — in which he posits that it takes that long to become expert at any skill. Gladwell’s distillation of the science behind “rule” has been debunked since then. Not surprising, our own experience confirms that there’s more to the story.
Think about driving. You’ve probably been doing it for decades. If you commute for an hour, you’ll drive 10,000 hours in twenty years. So are you an expert driver? Really? Could you win a NASCAR race? Do stunts in an action movie?
Continue reading “How to get great.”How I found my tribe.
We just launched a new social network just for SketchBook Skool called the SkoolYard. Among many other things, it’s another place for me to hold forth and write long pieces —like this essay to welcome new members. You may not be in the community yet but some of my thoughts may still resonate with you.
When I was little, we moved an awful lot. We lived in London, Pakistan, Pittsburgh, Australia, Israel, and Brooklyn — all before I finished seventh grade. I lived in different neighborhoods, spoke different languages, and had to learn about new cultures, new sports, new foods every year. I guess this diverse upbringing had its upsides but the hardest part was always being the new kid. And always feeling like an outsider.
Continue reading “How I found my tribe.”How to feed your soul.
It was the end of yoga class and I lay on the floor in corpse pose. Suddenly a rich, deep voice in my head spoke to me out of the candlelit darkness. It spoke slowly and distinctly and said, “Your body is the dog of your mind.”
Huh?
I thought about this cryptic phrase for the rest of the day. I even Googled it. Slowly I came to an answer.
Continue reading “How to feed your soul.”How to win by losing.
This is going to be mortifyingly embarrassing but I may as well tell you about it. When I was a teenager, I loved the Newhart show. Not The Bob Newhart Show where he was shrink in Chicago married to Suzanne Pleshette but the later one in which Bob had a different wife and lived in Vermont. You may remember that show, a not-terribly funny precursor to Fawlty Towers, in which Bob ran an inn and there were the three local brothers named Larry, Daryl and Daryl.
I loved this show because of Bob’s second career, his real career. He was a successful author of “how-to” books. This struck me as the perfect ambition. To sit in a cozy study and churn out books that were effortless to write. Not to strive for Pulitzers or National Book Awards but just to crank out shelves full of books on animal husbandry, basket weaving, and transmission repair. Real books nonetheless, arrayed on shelves filled with one’s name over and over on the spines.
Continue reading “How to win by losing.”How to make anything.
I spent a lot of time in school learning to conjugate latin verbs. I ground my way through trigonometry. The dates of medieval wars. I memorized the key exports of African countries, the table of elements, and the names of all the US vice presidents.
But I never, ever studied the very thing I’ve made a living from my entire adult life.
Continue reading “How to make anything.”How to get naked.
A few nights ago, my boy Jack and I went for a drink at a dive bar near our life-drawing class. We’d spent three hours in a warm room drawing a naked lady and it was time for a beer and further discussion of a central question: why were we doing it?
What was the point of filling up paper (or my case, an iPad screen) with lots of drawings of a stranger? Was it art? Was it exercise? What should we think about the drawings we’d made. Should we share them with other people? Should we hold on to them? What had those three hours been for?
The central question is one that Jack has been asking himself a lot since graduating from art school: why continue to make art?
Continue reading “How to get naked.”Podcast 14: Doing Your Thing
In this episode, I explore dozens of examples of creative people either being limited or exploding the labels that define them.
I hope it inspires you to make some changes and take some risks of your own.
COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODE
Podcast 13: Breaking Creative Blocks
This week on the podcast author/coach Jill Badonsky gives me sage and funny advice on breaking down creative barriers and getting to work.
- Jill Badonsky
- Sketchbook Skool
- Watercolor Rules and how to break them – a new kourse
Listen and subscribe to podcast
COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODE (transcribed by robots, vaguely checked by humans) Continue reading “Podcast 13: Breaking Creative Blocks”
Danny Gregory 