I love The Stranger. I wish there was a newspaper in DC that was cool enough to make compelling stories out of ideas that aren't really news. And no, I'm sorry, The Washington City Paper doesn't count, even though it has Dan Savage too. It's just not the same.

Anyway, they had a cool article today. And I wanted to share it. It's from an article entitled "How to Be a Person Who Isn't a Failure," and you can read it in full right here.

"How to Be an Artist

Have an idea. You can't just make something pretty. You also can't make the same thing year after year and call yourself an artist, unless you are boring down into that thing and getting lost in it to such an extent that you keep finding new sedimentary layers that blow your mind and the minds of people who don't even know you (for an example of this style of career, consider Jeffrey Simmons).

Look at the artists who are important in Seattle and in the world (look, look, look; read, read, read), and figure out what you really think about them, not just what other people tell you to think (also note: If you hate a thing other people love merely because other people love it, then you are not gaining any freedom or building any intelligence).

Allow for a certain amount of snottiness in general, because artists are misfits in American culture and occasionally need a certain amount of snottiness just to survive their mostly moneyless, vulnerable lives that are looked upon with universal suspicion. Plainly, your work has to make sense and also has to be irreducibly mysterious in some (even slight) way. If you understand it completely, it may not be worth doing.

As for fashion, wear what you actually want to wear; fuck trends, because it won't matter anyway. If your work is amazing, you are an amazing artist, even if you dress like a goth. (But must you?)"

Have a happy Monday!