I am back home in Austin, Texas. Here are my 10 things worth sharing this week:
Don’t Call It Art is officially a national bestseller! Thanks so much to everyone who has supported this book. Austin, Nashville, and Cleveland were such fun events — great questions, fun signing lines. BookPeople, Parnassus, and Mac’s Backs have signed copies now. (Easy Father’s Day gift!) I’m delighted by the reader response so far, but especially by how many kids have apparently stolen the book off their parents’ coffee table and read it? (I heard from one parent who said their teenager discovered they have aphantasia from the ending of the book? Amazing.) If you got the book and love it, a 5-star review on Amazon or Goodreads goes a long way.
“If you’re in a rut, kids can show you the way out.” Elle Hunt did a deep dive into my work for The Guardian.
Podcasts: So many fun conversations I had with lovely people dropped this week! I talked to Walter Martin about the raw power of demos, Gretchen Rubin about punk rock and being bad, Jason Chatfield about Jungian mid-life stuff, Joanna Penn about paper reference books, Andy J. Pizza about the opposite of depression, Tim Bogatz about setting up a summer practice that can sustain you throughout the year, and Brendan O’Meara about Metallica and Marshawn Lynch. (We talked about my book, too, of course!)
After writing about my 4 notebooks for Noted, I thought it would be fun to share an unvarnished look inside my book tour diary:
“You don’t know for sure what you’re getting and that’s part of the excitement… not knowing and surprising myself.” RIP photographer Duane Michals, who “considered himself lucky that he didn’t have to ’unlearn’ what was taught in art school.” I love what he said about seeing Magritte for the first time: “That’s the great response: ‘What the hell’s this?’”
Thanks for reading! This hand-rolled publication is made possible thanks to the kind support of readers like you. The best way you can support my work right now is to buy the new book. Liana Finck says it’s a “smart and joyful book” and Alan Jacobs says it’s my best!
xoxo,
Austin
P.S. Shout-out to Ruby and Cleo in Cleveland, Ohio, who gave me drawing lessons, showed their work, and, for the brief hour we spent together, made everything in my book come true:
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