This week I’ve gone down a rabbit hole of my love affair with square and I’m going to jump right in to my slightly (ok very) click-baity heading, I didn’t add Austin Kleon to my list of interviews as he’s been far too busy with his new book. There’s a but coming, so stick with me!
The idea to invite him on my interview series came about for two reasons,
a) I’m a big fan, have all his books, been reading his newsletter for years (pre Substack even).
b) I have noticed that I’ve been working in a square format for some time, it started over 15 years ago with my square greeting cards, the majority of my sketchbooks and watercolour paper are now square, my new canvases are square, many of my commissions are square, even my neon pink pin board is square! And I remember I picked up the first book in the series ‘Steal Like An Artist’ because it was square. Its squareness drew me to it. All of his books are square. So, I was just curious was there a connection based on a love of square?
I’d asked Austin an extra question, was there any particular reason his books were square?
Was he similarly semi-obsessed with square? Perhaps I was hoping for a form of connection that would soothe my ego with a ‘look you were right, you belong, you’re in good company’!
To his credit he did answer my extra question…
Too swamped for the interview right now, but thanks for the invitation.
The story of the square format is towards the end here, and it’s kind of funny/interesting, I think — feel free to quote:
“When it came to the actual size and shape of the book, my editor Bruce Tracy pointed out that the slides were landscape and books are usually portrait, so why not make the book square? That sounded great to me. I went looking for a book on my shelves with the same dimensions. I designed a dust jacket to wrap around it, with white letters on a black background. I brought this “dummy” to Bruce for our first in-person meeting. “Can I keep this?” he asked. That’s basically the cover design you’re holding in your hands when you pick up the book.”
The full post is here…
I particularly liked the way he described the feel of the book as a CD (I miss CD’s and cassette tapes) with the list of titles on the back. If you were to ask me the same question, I like painting square because with equal sides my gaze is held, locked in, unlike portrait and landscape shapes which encourage your gaze to roam around top to bottom/left to right and before you know it you’ve moved onto something else. Square feels to me, complete, solid and I believe our brains love the symmetry of it.
So, there’s no real shared obsession of square that I can claim, there’s also no advantage to working in square and I know this because I came across some research showing that rectangle paintings are the most popular, but I also found this Mark Daly (Oil Painters America) article where he wrote about daring to paint square, interesting if you are similarly interested in all things square.
On reflection, it is clearly the content in the square that matters most not the shape itself which is the segue I was looking for to say what a delight the contents of the new addition ‘Don’t Call It Art’ to the collection is.
One thing I have learned to be absolutely true is that if I can detach myself from the outcome of my painting/scribbling/drawing then what becomes available is pure pleasure and possibility.
My most successful work has always been the work I’ve done in pursuit of joy and with no thought to the ‘end product’ and that’s exactly what this book taps into, all the different avenues you can take to get out of your own way and enjoy yourself. I can highly recommend and know I’ll be dipping back into it regularly whenever I need a reminder. Get your copy here
My interviews are having a summer holiday, August is a strange month for some, routines change, breaks are taken, so they’ll return in the Autumn , when we’re all back from our holidays, with the fabulous Hannah Nunn.
After our extraordinary trip to Mongolia, we are UK based for the Summer. I have six weeks of painting ahead of me, but we’ve snuck away to one of our favourite dog friendly hotels, Summer Lodge, a very short stay as it is a bit ‘spenny’! But a big treat like this once every few years, seems well earned. Perfect spot to disconnect from the ‘real-world’ hang out in the beautiful gardens and relax with a sketchbook.
I’ve been working on a set of mini paintings for a project coming up. Everything will be revealed in October and yes I know, the irony is none of these are square! But in my defence the size and shape was not decided by me and proves I can still paint in portrait 🤣
Next week I’m back with a permission to paint session for my lovely paid subscribers, if you like the sound of this, here’s a free taster video. I’ve also got a new page which hosts all the perks you have as paid subscribers.
If this is the kind of thing you enjoy - the process, the mess-ups, the honest bit before the pretty bit, there’s more of it happening over in Permission to Paint. Not more polished. Just more waffle really! 😂
As always, thanks for choosing to spend your time here.
Jo x
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