Happy Friday. I hope your spring weekend is full of laughter and light!
“Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light. Tragedy is the most ridiculous thing.”
-Frida Kahlo
I always suffer severe winter blues. This was a tough one: the polar vortex, moving, post-book publication blues etc. etc. It’s kind of incredible how the first day of spring affects me. I went to breakfast with my friend/talented photographer Tara Donne this morning. I walked about a mile to get to the restaurant. The sun was shining and I was looking around, instagramming a cool door, daydreaming etc. and then I noticed that I had a ridiculous grin on my face. I was just walking around smiling. It was strange and also great. It’s amazing that sometimes the littlest things can just lift the proverbial fog off you and change your perspective. I also love the Google animated doodle today. It’s too sweet. I’m in love with that little guy. Have you seen it? Did you watch it 11 times like me and then snap out of it and remind yourself that you’d meant to search for something?
I was beyond excited when I read this Times article revealing that graphic design baron Milton Glaser would be designing the upcoming season of Madmen‘s billboards and posters. I love that Matthew Weiner grew up admiring Glaser’s work. His sentiments perfectly describe why Glaser’s being hit up to create the illustrations: “he said he had long dreamed of Mr. Glaser’s having a hand in the show’s ads — not only because of his renown as the creator of the ubiquitous I <3 NY logo and other images, but also because he embodied the ethos of the era, as the clean-lined, clean-conscience advertising of the 1950s and early 1960s fractured, along with the culture, into something more chaotic, self-doubting and interesting.”
Nothing is more true to me than Glaser’s axiom “Art is Work”. His life and career are a testament to said philosophy.
Only Glaser could command such deference from a client, “I don’t like to talk to anybody because I always want to have my way in everything,” he said.
To which Mr. Weiner responded: “And I want to talk to everybody because I want my way.” But he added, “Basically, once we decided that it was going to be Milton, I just deferred to him.”
The Trippy ’60s, Courtesy of a Master: ‘Mad Men’ Enlists the Graphics Guru Milton Glaser is a great article with wonderful insights into Glaser’s mind. I suggest you click over and read it all and look for his work on busses and billboards next week. Can’t wait for the season to start.
Esh, some of these hurt to read. Not from the perspective of the artist but from the writer of the rejection. Can you imagine listening to Madonna and turning her away from your record label and then seeing what became of her career? Or saying “no thank you” to Andy Warhol as he tries to gift one of his drawings to your museum. Ouch. I’m sure these letters stung for the recipients but they also must have motivated the artists to keep pushing through. To me that’s the common denominator when you read success stories in the arts: Talent and fortitude.
via Distractify
Here’s an interesting story in photographs depicting the life of Vivian Kubrick, daughter of Stanley Kubrick prior to their estrangement. She posted the selection of photographs taken over the years as she worked scoring some of Kubrick’s films such as Full Metal Jacket and also just simply growing up his daughter. She basically joined the Church of Scientology and despite her family’s pleading was lost to them for many years. It has been suggested that Eyes Wide Shut was Stanley Kubrick’s “requiem for his lost daughter”. She did attend her father’s funeral with a Scientology handler.
via Dangerous Minds
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