Extraordinary Things: The Mundane, Slowing Down, and Art Monsters

This week’s reading is a mix of paying attention to details by slowing down and getting to know the Art Monsters and how they are not to be condoned, pardoned or emulated. These are some parts that I haven’t grasped clearly at first, but as I read onward, I finally understood what he meant. Read on!

You Have Everything You Need

Great artists are able to find magic in the mundane

• You do not need to live an extraordinary life to make extraordinary work

  • It’s easy for us to say that if we can only trade our monotonous and boring lives into something else and every creative problems will be solved automatically. It doesn’t actually solve anything and it’s too good to be true at some point.

• Everything that you need to make great work can be found in your daily life. You just have to pay attention to them.

This is what Rene Magritte thinks about the goal with his art. He is a famous Belgian surrealist artist known for his paintings such as The Treachery of Images (The ‘This is not a Pipe’ painting), The Son of Man, The Lovers, and among others.

If we also want to breathe new life into the ordinary things around us, then we should do what an artist does: Paying Attention.

How do artists look at the things around them?

• They pay extra attention to everywhere in the world

  • They see more through observing

  • Artists also teach us to pay more attention top ours

How to Start Paying More Attention?

• Pay more attention to your mundane life.

  • Observe how things move normally in your everyday life. From the moment you wake up, from going outside your house commuting to your destination, or as simple as sitting elsewhere and observing how everything unfolds. Everything is extraordinary when you try to focus your attention to it.

And this leads us to:

Slowing Down

Slow Down!!!

• It’s hard to pay attention and observe the mundane life when you’re too fast.

• If your workflow is to observe and see clearly, slow down enough to observe what people don’t usually see.

• Nowadays where speed has become the norm and everything is moving too fast, slowing down requires special training.

  • You have to train yourself to slow down to observe how everything unfolds in its own ways. You might find yourself surprised to see how ordinary things can turn into something beautiful when everyone doesn’t see it unless you observe very carefully.

Your attention is one of the most valuable things that you possess.

• Everyone will compete for your attention and steal it from you, with social media being the perfect candidate to siphon your attention and energy away from the things you do.

• What you choose to pay attention is what will make your life and work be made of (You are what you consume, I guess?).

  • In Steal Like an Artist, I can relate this to the concept of choosing what really resonates and leave everything else. We are as good as what we collect and vibe with.

• We love paying attention to the things we love, but the things that we truly care are hidden from us

So, what should we do to pay attention to what we pay attention to?

• Revisit the things you love to do

• Identify your patterns to what matters to you and what you really care about.

• Know yourself better. What hooks your attention?

Note: building a system in going back to your old works also helps you see the bigger picture of the things you do. Nothing stops you if you know what you want and you know what are the things that you pay attention to. As what Jessa Crispin wrote,

Another quote from John Tarrant says,

Slaying the Art Monsters

A hot take: A lot of great art were made by jerks, creeps, assholes, vampires, perverts, etc.

• These kinds of people leave victims in their wake (they are art monsters)

• What’s funny and hard to grasp is that there are actual people who are legitimately bad and have reprehensible actions in their personal lives are very much capable of creating amazing works that is somehow moving and useful to us (yup, this is an actual fact. Lots of assholes are making great content, but I think we dismiss them because they have good art. We are lucky that in this generation of artists, we call call out those artists who does good art yet makes life harder for other people because of their behavior.).

  • How we process this info and how to move forward with it is our concern and part of our work to be done

  • Also, this gives us a reminder in which Austin Kleon emphasizes that we chose to be artists because we want to make lives better, and not to be an artist in order to drag everyone else down

If so, what makes great artists good in this part?

• Great artists help people look at their lives with fresh eyes and a sense of possibility

• These great artists helps emphasize that art is supposed to make our lives better.

And the main highlight of this newsletter is this one:

If making your art is ruining anyone’s life, including your own, it is not worth making. You’re better off spending your energy with something else that makes other people around you feel good and even more alive.

The world needs more decent human beings than great artists, for art is for life and not the other way around.

Like what you’re reading so far? Give it some love and share it to others!

Quotes to Live By

Techy Thursdays - Milanote

Hey there! I’m introducing Techy Thursdays, where I can be able to share the tools/app/software that I use in creating stuff as well as other tech that I found that may be useful for you as an artist/non-artist. This section will sometimes pop up in several newsletters, so subscribing to the newsletter helps a lot in keeping track of the things that I am able to share and maybe they will be useful for you someday!

For today’s Techy Thursdays, I introduce Milanote! (Not Sponsored!)

About Milanote

to learn more about Milanote, watch it here

Milanote is a digital tool that helps creatives to organize their projects in one place. Unlike the traditional note taking apps, it is a visual workspace that allows a user to create and organize their moodboards, mind maps, to-do list, and many more.

Here is a sample of my customized moodboard for my recent project. You can also select a template as a start and work your way to what suits your preferences!

And here are the templates that you can tweak for your preferences:

Overall, this is a great tool that I use and can be useful to others who love to stay organized in their creative projects.

If you want to try it out, it’s free! Maybe use my referral link? :)

Note: You can use Milanote for free without time limits. However, if you want to upgrade to unlimited notes, images, and links (free version offers 100 notes, and images or links), you may do so. As for me, the free version already makes my creative workflow good and I don’t need to upgrade anything yet.

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That’s it for today’s issue. See you next Thursday! Keep on keeping on ;