“I think society is one of the greatest impediments an artist can possibly have. I rather think that Duchamp concurred with this view. When I was young and needed help, society wouldn’t give it, because it had no confidence in what I was doing. But when, through my perseverance, society took an interest, then it wanted me not to do the next thing, but to repeat what I had done before. At every point society acts to keep you from doing what you have to do.”

— John Cage

From an interview published in: Moira Roth, Difference/Indifference: musings on postmodernism, Marcel Duchamp and John Cage, OPA (Overseas Publishers Association) N.V., Amsterdam, 1998, p. 72.

Eronnie Samuels and Alan Harris are visual artists who work in the same creative warehouse as I do. (You might recall I blogged last year about Eronnie’s 2011 Sun Studios exhibition.) To celebrate the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, the two artists teamed up for a joint exhibition, which opened on 3 November at […]

A selection of cartoons by Eric Dando, a writer I admire. the plot Aspects of the Novel only two flavours booty is this funny? not wrong at all is it? tribute to Henry Dreyfuss teapots uppity love poem pork pies *** About Eric Eric Dando was born in Tokyo in 1970 and lives in Daylesford, Victoria. Copies […]

A horribly late post but better almost a year late than never! Professor Yoshinobu Miyamoto, a paper engineer and Professor of Architecture at the Aichi Institute of Technology in Japan, visited Sydney in June last year to present at the Paper Convention Collective‘s A4 Paper Festival. He is famous for creating amazing paper models like […]

For some unknown reason, I go around collecting different editions of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. I bought my first copy of the novel at St Mark’s Bookshop in New York, read it on the plane home and I haven’t stopped buying since. I’ve just discovered this great series of Evelyn Waugh cover designs by Bill […]

The Spark Exhibition opened on Saturday 27 August at Sun Studios.  It features the work of Eronnie Samuels, a Polynesian artist, who has a studio in the warehouse where I write.  We’ve been comparing notes on the creative process over the past few months and it’s been fascinating for me to watch how this exhibition has […]

The moment I decided to acquire a typewriter arrived as I stood in The Museum of Modern Art, New York, looking at this Olivetti Lettera 22.  It was on display as one of the key design achievements of the 20th century. Back in Sydney, I picked up this Lettera 32, a later model designed in […]

The banners for this blog were designed by the incredibly talented illustrator, Matt Huynh.  I felt very lucky to be able to work with him for the first time (hopefully it’s not the last!). Since my intent for this blog is to talk about the creative process, Matt suggested that he draw elements of my […]