Stop ❤️-ing Art; Become a Fan instead
ST49: Your Next Failure, Minimal Photography, and Reproducing Robots
👋 Hello again!
Stepping out of the haze that is paternity leave and back into reality, I, Thomas Essl, am thrilled to be sending you another instalment of this newsletter.
It has been a while. This is the natural consequence of first expecting and then having your first child. Sure, I have less time on my hands now. However, a more significant contributing factor to my radio silence was that in those special days, weeks, and months, it has been hard - dare I say impossible - to think about anything else. Especially once Ivy was here, I cancelled my Netflix subscription, refrained from meeting anyone, and remained mostly offline, except for dispatching daily photo series to my family abroad.
In the wee hours when I waited for our little one to fall asleep, the bedroom was lit by the soft and warm glow of a night light, the world outside was quiet, and time didn’t seem to exist. Then I’d debate the meaning of life with my wife or pick up a handily self-illuminating iPad to sketch a little.
I’m no illustrator, but I take pleasure from imitating illustrators. It somehow makes me feel connected to them, and I learn a ton about what’s possible in my sketching tool. At the moment, I’m a real Luis Mendo fanboy. Most illustrators you come across on the web take care to only work in one particular style. This makes sense since, as an artist, you’re always told to differentiate yourself from others in this way. When I came across Luis’ Instagram feed, I was immediately struck by the variety of styles exhibited. Here is someone who has truly mastered his tools and enjoys applying them in all possible ways, shaking things up thoroughly between assignments. In doing so, he inadvertently offered me a whole library of different styles to get inspired by.
Above: The first portrait of baby Ivy in a style imitated from Luis Mendo’s post
Being a fan of artists is infinitely more rewarding than scrolling past the intermingled fruits of their creativity in an endless feed. Realising this, I came up with a nifty micro-habit: I stop myself from liking anything on the main feed. Instead, I scroll until an image comes up that I love. Then I tap the artist’s profile picture (instead of the like icon) and spend the rest of the session exploring only their work, engaging with it from their own feed. I love discovering the links to further resources in their bios. This is how I found Luis Mendo’s website and learned about the space he created for other artists in Tokyo. I found out that many of his illustrations are featured in my favourite magazine, I subscribed to a podcast he designed the cover for, and I marvel at the intricate ikebana-style mobiles his partner created. Naturally, I’m now subscribed to his newsletter.
Of course, this way of interacting with artists’ work online prioritises depth over breadth. It means I’ve recently only engaged with the art of about a dozen artists instead of hundreds, but it has elevated anonymous disparate thumbnail images into representations of fascinating stories. When I put my phone down these days, I more often feel inspired rather than overloaded and drained. Try it! The next time you see work you love, tap the artist, not the heart. Let me know how it goes. I’d love to know about the stories you uncover.
Here are Seven Things I want to share with you today:
Personal Development: What Do You Need To Fail at Next? What failure teaches us about ourselves and about the dreams we should actually chase
Leadership: Millennial Managers Can Change Company Culture for the Better
Art: Minimal photography that celebrates the colour and light of Santa Fe
Design / Data Visualisation: Incredible data visualisation exploring the process of water filtration
Technology: In case you missed it, robots can now reproduce
Film / Entertainment: One year old but still great! Mailchimp presents Shorts for SXSW
💌 Thank you for being curious with me.
🤝 Please share this newsletter or forward it to a friend. It’ll help me keep going.