How to write an artist statement that doesn't suck
The point is not to sound smarter. The point is to say what you mean clearly enough that the work can arrive with its force intact.
Creative advice
Craft, taste, and process advice for creative work.
53 records updated
Make better work
7 RECORDS
28 slightly rude notes on writing
“If you want that perfect brush stroke or that exquisite shot, then you have to squeeze your neurons until they scream.”
Nothing Too Late, Nothing Mistake
I really think when something is made by friends or lovers or people who consider each other a good hang, it shows up in the fabric of the final product.
Accidental Instagram influencer Ida B. on meeting your own standards
“If the only thing you really give a shit about is the thing that you're doing and being able to do it in a way that meets your own standards, weirdly, I guess that's the key to success.”
Using AI makes writing more bland, study finds
“The LLMs are pushing the essays away from anything that a human would have ever written”
How Not to Interview (Interesting People)
“You are not the subject. They are. So let them lead.”
More links
- Why the best writing advice is often the weirdest The New Yorker Saved #184
Get unstuck
3 RECORDS
How to Write? Longhand on paper? Typewriter? Word Processor? Scrivener or Obsidian?
“Each tool creates a separate set of constraints on your creativity.”
How I learned to just fucking write
“That pattern would follow me through my creative life until I found a way to write or make art that allowed me to bypass my inner critic.”
More links
- How to stop procrastinating The Economist Saved #189
Build a creative life
9 RECORDS
#188Take Your Pleasure Seriously: Play as a Way of Being
“Seriousness hardened into restraint; a good life became something to optimize, streamline, and save.”
The Quester's Guide for exploring your world
“An interactive journey of ideas, activities and stories designed to make you see the world differently and turn the world into a creative playground”
Letters to a Young Creative
“Seek the unchanging or what should not change.”
More links
- Dull not to TikTok Saved #187
- Ze Frank: Get Uncomfortable YouTube Saved #187
- How to cultivate artistic friendships The New Yorker Saved #184
- Conan O'Brien Delivers the Commencement Address | Harvard Commencement 2026 YouTube Saved #183
- How to Make a Living as an Artist fnnch Essays Saved #182
- Developing creative identity Michael's Notebook Saved #181
Develop taste
4 RECORDS
How to have good taste
“Taste is knowledge.”
TASTESLOP
“The biggest thing people are missing about taste across the board is that it is relative, contextual, and social.”
The Dead End of Good Taste
“I expect we'll see a shift in emphasis from taste to character, in which the premium is placed on contradiction over cohesion and the specificity of one's interests over generalized cultural fluency.”
More links
- Aesthetics are your problem and mine Saul Bass Saved #175
Work with technology
8 RECORDS
The Cost of Easy Answers
“When every gap in understanding gets filled instantly, we lose the conditions that make human curiosity possible.”
Media artist and researcher Roopa Vasudevan on creative resistance in the digital world
“We put faith in the algorithm the same way we put faith in divinity.”
AI as a Design Medium
“If you treat AI as a tool, you ask: how do I get the right answer? If you treat it as a medium, you ask: what happens if I push this?”
What happens when identity becomes a subscription service
Figuring out who you are is an incredibly inefficient, high-friction process.
An unpersuasive guide for how to resist temptation online
“To cling to the primacy of the word is to reject completely the modern methodology of persuasion.”
When Magic Becomes Mundane
A reflection on how AI tools transition from feeling revolutionary to becoming part of our everyday workflow
More links
- Subway Takes' Kareem Rayma on ignoring the data Adweek Saved #182
- Appearing Productive in The Workplace No One's Happy Saved #181
Protect your attention
8 RECORDS
Strategy needs good words
“Strategy is the art of getting other people to do something. In the pursuit of that, narrative is the strategist's tool.”
A check-in with a very inspiring creative on creating a creative life
“You need downtime, slow time, and vast nothingness to get yourself back to being creative.”
"Nothing" is the secret to structuring your work
This is how many people work: they start with a mess, work terribly hard while adding to the mess, then lose oversight and get frustrated. The harder they work, the worse it gets.
BONFIRE OF THE INANITIES: enshallowfication
“I think my problem - perhaps yours too - isn’t just unfinished projects. It’s unfinished thinking.”
You want to be 'interesting'? Baby stop dabbling
“Late capitalism needs us to be shallow interest-tourists.”
More links
- How to remember everything you read (stop trying) X (Twitter) Saved #189
- How a Writer Uses AI Without Losing His Voice Every Saved #188
- Manage Your ‘Ultraprocessed Time’ The New York Times Saved #184
Talk to people
1 RECORD
The stranger secret: how to talk to anyone – and why you should
“I realised that there is a sort of unwritten code you learn as you get older, which enables you to assess whether a conversation is a good idea or not.”
Stay human
8 RECORDS
#190Aesthetic injustice is when you deny someone access to beauty
One of the saddest things anyone has ever said to me ...
WEIRD WINS
Why, how, and when weird wins - and what you can practically do as an agency, brand or just human to win weird too.
Calvin and Hobbes and the Price of Integrity
Private realities, the magic of imagination, and the specialness of certain friendships.
Anti-Dystopia
“That is anti-dystopian action at its core: doing what makes the world more human, even when you cannot prove it matters in the grand scheme.”
Visual artist Daniel Arsham on the possibility of endless failure
In creative spaces, it’s not like you have a career where you’re working for someone else. Instead, you’re inventing your own job and your own reality.
More links
- The best way to consume magic is to not know it's coming TikTok Saved #185
- The Long, Hard, Stupid Way Frank Chimero Saved #174
- The System That Punishes Beautiful Design Design Theory Saved #170
Not yet filed
5 RECORDS- The Man Who's Spent a Lifetime Making One, Giant Map YouTube / People Make Games Saved #185
- You should worry far less Hot Takes Saved #185
- "CREATOR" IS A JOB, MOTHERF*CKER Evan Shapiro Saved #181
- Guide Yourself by the Stars and Not the Passing Ships Rishad Tobaccowala Saved #181
- Crisis Response: Trying the Old Thing Harder TikTok Saved #178