Inside the Artist’s Studio / Attack of the Journal

Issue No. 136

AN ARTIST TOURS THE SPACES OF 24 FELLOW ARTISTS, THEN MAKES ART INSPIRED BY HIS VISITS

Inside the Artist’s Studio
by Joe Fig
Princeton Architectural Press
2015, 256 pages, 7.2 x 9.5 x 1 inches (softcover)

Buy on Amazon

I’m a gigantic snoop. I love to peruse people’s bookshelves, rifle through the magazines on their toilet tank, look at their media Likes on Facebook, etc. I am endlessly fascinated by people and the media, tools, and ideas that inspire them. I also like workshops and the unique way in which people set up and use their spaces. These interests converge to great effect in artist and author Joe Fig’s Inside the Artist’s Studio.

Given my nosey proclivities, I have read a number of similar collections of artist studio tour books. This book has a slightly more satisfying weight to it. The questions Fig asks are more interesting and far ranging, from childhood memories to working techniques to each artist’s working “creed.” And the photographs he takes are especially lovely, artful, and create a distinct mood that reflects each artist.

The really special dimension to this book is Joe Fig’s artwork. Fig is known for being an artist whose subjects are often art, artists, and art spaces. In this book, after interviewing and photographing such artists as Ellen Altfest, Byron Kim, Laurie Simmons, Adam Cvijanovic, Tara Donovan, and Roxy Paine (24 artists in all), Fig creates a piece of art inspired by that artist, their studio, and their work. The subject of each piece is the artist’s studio. All of this works to create a surprisingly rich, intimate, and informative collection. – Gareth Branwyn

ATTACK OF THE JOURNAL – PART JOURNAL PART SKETCHBOOK AND A GREAT COMPANION TO THE STAR WARS JEDI ACADEMY SERIES

Attack of the Journal (Star Wars: Jedi Academy)
by Jeffrey Brown
Scholastic Inc.
2015, 112 pages, 5.8 x 8.4 x 0.6 inches

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When an author who writes books for grown-ups is successful at translating his voice into books for kids it’s a win-win. Jeffrey Brown, author of graphic novels such as Clumsy and Funny Misshapen Body has done just that with his series Star Wars Jedi Academy. These graphic novels follow Roan, a young Jedi fumbling his way through middle school’s version of the Jedi Arts. This latest installation, Attack of the Journal, is part activity book part sketchbook and a great accompaniment to the series. It features familiar characters from the books, but you don’t need to have read the actual novels to enjoy the journal. Unlike many character-based activity books for children, Attack of the Journal gives the reins over to the reader. Instead of preprinted mazes and simple seek and finds, Brown’s activities are open-ended and challenge readers to try drawing new things and to write their own stories.

The book is great for elementary-aged kids, but even younger can have fun with the “Draw Your Friends As Aliens” page or attempt a self-portrait. I found it’s a great way to practice letters and words with kids in a way that is fun for everyone. Even the fact that it’s a hardback makes whatever you create inside feel more important. Jeffrey Brown’s sense of humor and kind encouragement are felt in the journal activities, helping young authors and illustrators not take it too seriously if their “Create your own Lightsaber” page looks more like a Wookie. And be prepared to grab some extra paper – because I guarantee big kids (aka grown-ups) will want to take a crack at drawing the “Ewok pilot.” – Amy Lackpour

Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.

Hiring

Tools for Possibilities: issue no. 208

How to hire people

Hiring Smart!

Hire smart, your company wins; hire dumb, you die. People are the scarce resource in the new economy, but no one teaches employees how to hire people. Successful fast-growing companies have caught on. They now hire people who are good at hiring others. Between these book covers is a million dollars worth of hiring advice, the best anywhere. If you are in business, ignore at your peril. — KK

• You can’t spend too much time or effort on “hiring smart.” The alternative is to manage tough, which is much more time consuming.
• The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.
• Strategy No.3: Give an assignment before the interview. Ask the candidate to visit one of your stores, plants, campuses, offices, or Web pages before the interview. Then ask for the candidate’s observations.
• Strategy No.5: Read resumes in teams if possible. It’s helpful–and faster–to read the top candidates’ resumes in teams of three to five people. Teams that work well together are more accurate and insightful about potential employees than individuals are.
• Strategy No.6: Cast the widest net possible. Microsoft assumes that the best candidates are not looking for jobs. In fact, candidates who approach Microsoft are actually less attractive to the company.
• Strategy No.13: Ask all your questions at once. That’s right. Put all your initial questions on the table up front. This strategy accomplishes three things. First, in a manner of speaking, you pass the baton. You’ve asked the questions, now the candidate must respond. Performance depends upon the candidate, not selling yourself and the organization. Second, more importantly, this strategy directly confronts the most common problem in interviewing: not listening, and talking too much…Third, this technique forces you to listen. If there’s one practical tip you should try in your next interview, I suggest this one. Asking all your questions at once, and following up later in the interview, allows you to settle back and watch a candidate’s behavior as well as listen to his or her words.
• Strategy No. 15: Assign a mini-project to finalists. Three quarters of the way through the interview, give the candidate a task to perform. Not only does this demonstrate the candidate’s behavior–it also breaks up the monotony of most interviews.
• Strategy No. 32: Ask the references to call you back. Here is the simplest, most effective reference check that I know. It’s also fast and legal. Call references at what you assume will be their lunchtime–you want to reach an assistant or voice mail. If it’s voice mail, leave a simple message. If it’s an assistant, be sure that he or she understands the last sentence of your message. You say: “John (or Jane) Jones is a candidate for (the position) in our company. Your name has been given as a reference. Please call me back if the candidate was outstanding.”The results are both immediate and revealing. If the candidate is outstanding or excellent, I guarantee that eight out of ten people will respond quickly and want to help….However, if only two or three of the references selected by the candidate return your call, this message is also loud and clear. And yet:No derogatory information has been shared.No libelous statements have been made.No confidence or laws have been broken.
• Strategy No. 39: Invest in people, not ideas.
• Unfortunately, an employer’s ability to hear bad news about a potential employee is inversely proportional to the time spent courting that employee.

Personal outsourcing

Elance

Elance is a global marketplace for freelancers. You post a job you want done, and freelancers around the world will bid on it in a matter of hours. Once the price and deadline are agreed upon, the work will be delivered to you very rapidly. Because of its global nature, your costs may be very low.

Elance has a pool of 135,000 pros expert in programming, design, writing, and legal matters. People use them to design a logo, create marketing materials, tweak a database, code a website, create an iPhone app.

I’ve used Elance to outsource projects at least 8 times by now and have had fantastic results. I’ve been most surprised by the high quality and professional management, particulary from overseas workers. It’s indeed inexpensive, but also great work. For one scripting job I got estimates from US shops as high as $6,000; it would take months from specs to testing. We went on Elance, got a bid for $250 to do it manually (without scripts) and it was done perfectly in a week. I’ve used Elance for Photoshop work, to hire designers, artists, and proofers. A lot of the work on this book was done by free-lancers hired through Elance. You could start a company with them. In fact Kevin Rose hired an Elancer to code the first version of the now popular website Digg.

Elance’s escrow service holds the payment and protects both the work provider and you the employer. The site provides status updates on work done, and plenty of communication between the parties. Workers must pass a competency test to qualify to be listed. Some freelancers can also pass expertise tests in a mild form of certification, say for working on java or ajax, etc. Elance freelancers did about $200 million of work last year and less than 1% of the jobs had any kind of dispute, and most of those were self-resolved by the fact that the entire transaction correspondence is logged.

While I first went to Elance for cheap labor, I now also go to get jobs done in a hurry, or to find expertise I can’t find locally. (Fifty percent of Elancers live in North America.) If you have work, and you know what you want, this is a great service.

The real trick in using Elance, or its competitors like oDesk, is in being able to specify the deliverable you want without spending more time that it would take to do the project itself. This kind of outsourcing is best for bite-sized chunks of work. The more precise you can detail your job the better that Elance or the others will work for you. It’s not good for consulting, hand-holding, or mind-changing assignments. But it can be cheap enough that you can try lots of things. It costs you nothing to post a job on Elance.

The way this work is: If you accept a bid, you pay the amount agreed up front and the site places your fee in escrow. (You can pay with PayPal.) They pay the talent when you are satisfied the work is complete and good. This protects them and you. The site’s commission comes out of the talent side; The winning free-lancer will pay a 8.75% fee to Elance. (You don’t pay the site anything).

It works very well. BTW, the bidders are often small companies rather than just individuals. Fees I’ve paid for work have ranged from half to one tenth of what we might otherwise have to pay. And it is not just for coders. I hired a guy to run ethernet cable in our home, and others have found a videographer for their wedding, or a translator for their manual, etc. Some of the folks I have hired live in Turkey, or India, Argentina. Like any remote relationship, you get what you put into it.

It’s a great tool when you need to hire expertise.— KK

Tips for creating home workspaces

At Work at Home: Design Ideas for Your Home Workplace

Not all home-office work is typing at a keyboard. That’s why this home-office design book is heads above the others. Maybe you are a weaver, or a landscape architect, or antique toy restorer. When I had a chance to design my own home office attached to our house I found the clear advice, helpful design ideas and visual inspiration in this portfolio to be the best of the bunch. —KK

• Why do some of these spaces work and others fall short? I’ve reviewed hundreds of home workplaces, and I’ve concluded that those that are the most successful have three basic features in common. First, they help their occupants balance the two sides of their lives — work life and home life — in a way that is harmonious not just for them, but also for the people with whom they share their living and working space. Second, the workplace is well planned and well organized; it allows the user to work in a CEO environment — that is with Comfort, Efficiency, and Organization. Third, a successful home workplace has a personal spirit about it, which is a reflection of its occupant. It’s this personal spirit that stimulates home workers to do their best work.

Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

DesignPatentDaily / Origin Myth Map / Magnifying Desk Lamp

Recomendo - issue #532

Technical art treasure

This Instagram account – DesignPatentDaily – simply posts one ink drawing from a US patent every day. The drawings are stunningly beautiful: functional and elegant. Crisp line diagrams, no fluff. Print out and frame. Much prettier than most modern art. — KK

A Map of Origin Myths

Origin Myth Map is an interactive world map of the stories cultures have told about where the universe, Earth, and humanity came from. There are almost too many ways to navigate it — you can move through time, filter by themes, or follow the lineages and relationships between myths. Every creation archetype, from primordial waters and cosmic eggs to world trees, opens another path, so I think the best way to explore it is simply to follow your curiosity. — CD

Magnifying Desk Lamp

I don’t know why I didn’t get a real magnifying desk lamp a long time ago. Amazon has many different models available. This is the one I got. It has a large magnifying glass with an LED illumination ring. It comes with a heavyweight metal stand and a clamp. My wife uses it to make collages, and I use it to draw and practice my cursive penmanship. You can adjust the brightness and color temperature with the control attached to the power cord. It uses USB power and comes with an AC adapter. — MF

Speed clamp

Here is a cool tool that will appeal to maybe 1% of this audience. The Jorgensen Ratcheting Bar Clamp is a new style of bar clamp that ratchets tight and then quickly releases with one hand. You squeeze it to tighten and squeeze another part to release. It’s the fastest clamp I’ve seen. Great for tasks that require a lot of clamping and unclamping. Comes in 4, 8, and 12-inch bars. About $15 each. — KK

When buying high-quality, name-brand tools pays

On r/BuyItForLife, a Redditor said he’d snapped the blade on a pair of Fiskars loppers from around 2010. He filed a claim on Fiskars’ website, telling them he didn’t have his receipt from Lowe’s after 16 years. Fiskars sent him a shipping address for the broken loppers, and 10 days later a brand new pair showed up — an upgraded design, judging from his photos. Commenters shared experiences with other brand names that also honored replacements without a receipt. One person got Calphalon to replace scratched 15-year-old nonstick pans. Moen sent someone free replacement faucet cartridges. Philips replaced an out-of-warranty Hue-Lite strip. And someone got a replacement pair of sunglasses from Maui Jim. — MF

Meeting yourself without fixing

Peter McEwen wrote a generous contemplative guide to meeting and metabolizing difficult emotions. The essay is structured into pith, concise, and elaborate versions of the same practice, so it’s worth returning to over time. But if you only have time for one takeaway, it’s this: when a difficult emotion shows up, you don’t have to resolve it. You drop out of the story and into the actual sensation in your body, and you stay with it in small doses, even if it’s only a few seconds. Practiced over time, this small, kind act builds your capacity to let conflicting feelings sit side by side without needing to fix them. For me, I know an emotion has metabolized when there’s no charge left, and I feel open and spacious inside, not tense or clinging. — CD

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Book Freak #219: Aretha: From These Roots

Aretha Franklin on Faith, Music, and the Universal Need for Respect

Get Aretha: From These Roots

Aretha Franklin (1942-2018) began singing as a child in the 1950s at her father’s church in Detroit. Reverend C.L. Franklin became her manager when she was 12, so she could sing on the “gospel caravan” tour circuit. She transitioned to jazz, soul, and blues in 1960 when she was 18, recording “Today I Sing the Blues” for Columbia Records.

By 1967, she was at Atlantic Records, where she released dozens of hits, including “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You), “ “Baby I Love You,” “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” and her smash single “Respect” (a cover version of Otis Redding’s 1965 song, which sounded a lot different!)

Aretha: From These Roots traces her journey from child prodigy to “Queen of Soul.”

Core Principles

1. Your Roots Are Your Power

Aretha developed her voice in the gospel tradition at her father’s church. She never forgot her roots, even when singing pop and R&B songs. Your foundation can be a source of power that makes you stand out.

2. Respect Is a Universal Need

When Aretha performed “Respect,” it touched something universal. As she wrote, “It was the need of a nation, the need of the average man and woman in the street, the businessman, the mother, the fireman, the teacher — everyone wanted respect.”

3. Humility Is the Sign of Greatness

Of Sam Cooke, Aretha wrote: “Some men can sing, charm, and shine; some are easy with their good looks, others radiate confidence. Sam had all of this and more. Yet for all his abundant talent, he exuded simple humility, the sign of a great person. He treated everyone with respect.” Great people don’t have to remind other people that they are great.

4. Balance Your Worlds

Despite being a global icon for whom the red carpet was rolled out whenever she stepped off a plane, Aretha was a homebody who loved cooking, crocheting, and gardening. She balanced single motherhood with a demanding career, and her public persona with her private self. If you have different “sides” in your own life, you don’t need to choose one over another — learn to accept and enjoy parts of who you are.

Try It Now

1. Identify the roots of your gifts. How did your childhood experiences and influences shape who you are and what you are good at? How can you draw on them?
2. Notice when you or someone else is asking for respect. What do you or they need to do to earn it?
3. Think of someone you admire for their talent. Do they show humility? Is there a link between the two?
4. What parts of your life feel disconnected? What would it look like to accept all of them instead of choosing between them?

Quote

“It was the need of a nation, the need of the average man and woman in the street, the businessman, the mother, the fireman, the teacher—everyone wanted respect.”

Book Freak is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run Recomendo, the Cool Tools website, a YouTube channel and podcast, and other newsletters, including Recomendo Deals, Gar’s Tips & Tools, Nomadico, What’s in my NOW?, Tools for Possibilities, Books That Belong On Paper, and Book Freak.

Asia Travel Apps/Cool Subway Stations/Visiting Belarus

Nomadico issue #224

Apps for Asia

If you will be traveling in Asian countries, research the apps you’re going to need before you get there and set up a payment method in advance. This is especially true with rideshare apps since Uber is far from universal. You may need Bolt, Yandex Go, inDrive, Grab, Didi, MuvMi, MyCar, K-ride, or something else where you’re headed. Then Yandex Maps was the best for getting around Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan when we were there and in Seoul where I’m writing from this week, Google Maps is useless for walking and public transportation. We needed to use an app called Naver.

Touring Subways in the Stans

While Soviet Union era architecture is known for being functional but far from beautiful, the metro stations built during Soviet times often have attractive underground stations that follow a theme. I toured the one in Almaty’s central core, which took 20 years to finish after the Soviet Union collapsed, plus the one in Tashkent that’s larger and has been open longer. See more about the Almaty metro here, with some of my photos.

Visa-free Belarus

If you’re from Europe and have had isolated, dictator-led Belarus on your country check-off list, now’s the time to book your train ticket. That’s because passport holders from 38 European countries can visit visa-free through the end of the year. That doesn’t mean it will be easy though. See this balanced article on the real dangers and the real hassles of being a tourist in a very strange land.

Loosening TSA Rules at U.S. Airports

As we hit the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on NYC and DC, the Transportation Security Administration has been loosening up its rules. In July they dropped the requirement to take off your shoes in the security line and this week they announced that they will be testing a plan to let loved ones with TSA Pre-check into the gate area to meet arriving passengers. It’ll start with 13 airports first. Meanwhile, here are the airports with the fastest and slowest security lines (San Antonio under 4 minutes, JFK airport 23 minutes).

A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.

What’s in my NOW? — Mary Lucia Darst

issue #271

Mary Lucia Thao Darst is a filmmaker, writer, and musician. She holds a DPhil in Music from Oxford University and an MA from Columbia University. She is a writer with the Austrian Economics Center, has held three fellowships with the Moving Picture Institute, and is a classically-trained violist and songwriter-composer.

Mary’s substack / digital humanities project: www.oxforddawn.com.

PHYSICAL

• Wacom Intuos tablet. This is an old, and now discontinued, tablet that my Oxford college gave me for making the illustrations for my doctoral thesis. After I used it for that, I set it aside for several years. But then I started composing music again, and I realized that I could use the tablet and its pen to write music notation into my notation software in a more physically natural way than using a computer mouse. Because the tablet is discontinued, getting the drivers to work with my computer takes a bit of tweaking, but it’s all a learning experience.
• Richard Bassett’s book For God and Kaiser: The Imperial Austrian Army, 1619 – 1918. His book has been on my TBR for several years now. I’m finally getting around to it, after having read Bassett’s Last Days in Old Europe in the meantime.
• Audio Technica QuietPoint headphones. These headphones are old, and they’re in terrible shape cosmetically. They are in such bad shape that I’m not sharing a photo because I’m embarrassed by them. Because Audio Technica has discontinued the model, I can’t replace them. So I just keep repairing them. They’ve been a real workhorse set, surviving audition preparation, film sets, lots of travel, and even serving as adequate studio monitors.

DIGITAL

• Obsidian note-taking application. During my doctorate, I used Evernote since most people at my institution used it. Then I moved to Notion. However, recently, I had a bad experience of vendor lock-in, so I began moving my notes to Obsidian because I like that the underlying files are plain markdown, and I like the ability to link notes to each other.
• Nick Milo’s Linking Your Thinking YouTube channel. Once I realized I had to move almost ten years of notes from one application to another, I knew I had to take the time to learn how to use Obsidian before starting the migration. Milo’s channel has been invaluable for this. I haven’t taken any of his courses, but given the quality of his YouTube content, I’m open to doing so.

INVISIBLE

“Structure must be earned.”

Nick Milo quoted this in one of his videos. I don’t know where it came from, but I’ve been batting it around in my mind. I’m someone who tends toward making overly elaborate organizational structures, e.g. too many folders and sub-folders in my note-taking application, but then the structure is so over-engineered that I can’t find things when I need them. This quote has made me slow down and spend several days thinking of how I am using a note, document, music excerpt, etc. before filing it.

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What’s in my NOW? — Mary Lucia Darst