Day 2 of Artist Colony Week kinda sucked. It rained. I was unmotivated and cold. But today I am starting fresh. I am turning off the Internet while and the weather has improved, so things should be better.
Some links I like today:

• My friend Troy, who is a graphic designer, wrote an interesting post on what it feels like to have a lot of creative ideas all at once.
• Keri Smith wrote a blog entry that gets at what I’ve been doing lately, namely that I’m trying to stop looking at my work as a commodity and simply do the work for work’s sake.
• Finally, I like the art show Lisa Congdon is doing with her sister Stephanie Congdon at the Doe Gallery in San Francisco. The show is mixed-media art surrounding the concept of the forest, so there are stuffed animals and mushrooms, collages of trees and pine cones, things like that. It’s called “Lovely, Dark, and Deep.” Check out Lisa’s Flickr gallery of her work in the show.

Will Ferrell has a little skit on Funny or Die that made me laugh. Terrible landlord!

I love what Keri Smith is doing over on her Wish Jar Journal. In considering the number of brand she uses in her daily life, she started covering up some of the products in her house with skins that she created herself. For example, here’s her toothpaste:

As she puts it:

I wanted to consider what my house might look like with no visable brand names on packaging. This got me thinking of various methods to have products blend into my environment in a fluid way, either by simulating something that I find aesthetically pleasing, or by somehow integrating them into my psyche (ie. making them practical or necessary.)

I really like this idea. It made me look around my own house and consider all the brands I look at on a daily basis without even realizing it. It’s amazing how integrated advertisements are in our lives. Most of us don’t even question their existence anymore. Anyway, I would love to no longer look at flashy headache-y brand advertisements on a daily basis. I even started copying Keri and printed out something to cover my Advil jar with, but then realized I was out of tape.

However! I will get some tape soon, and then, look out sneaky brands!

Other branded things Keri altered:

Her Cereal Box

Her Lotion, Mouthwash, and Soap

A Pack of Gum

Peanuts

Her Dish Soap

Awhile back, I read an article comparing two kinds of artistic talent. One was the people who achieve great art at a young age and then go onto self-destruct or fizzle out. Think of someone like F. Scott Fitzgerald, who wrote several brilliant novels as a young man and then got increasingly dried out (and drunk) until he died at age 44.

The alternative to that are artists who mature first and then achieve great success. Think, for example, of Mark Twain, who was 32 before he wrote anything good and 49 before he published his masterpiece, Huckleberry Finn. These artists tend have both longer lives and careers.

At this point, I’ve given up all hope of being one of those young geniuses. Even when I was a 22-year-old longing for fame and glory, in my more honest moments, I had to admit that I probably didn’t have the skill or self-confidence to be a superstar writer. But I, like every writer alive, still wished for it. Ambition is an ugly, ugly thing, my friends.

Turns out, I may be better off with the way things are. The Village Voice interviewed Ned Vizzini, who published three books between ages 15 and 23. Then the pressures of that major book contract got to him and he had a nervous breakdown.

He thought about committing suicide and checked himself into a psychiatric hospital in November 2004 for five days. For Vizzini, there was too much to live up to. “Having a book published so young means you aren’t made to rely on the charm, guts, and social skills that artists need,” he says. “You’ve been delivered what everyone’s been going for.”

Whew. Dodged a bullet there.

Link swiped from Bookslut.

Word Pirates have another interview up. This time it’s with Creative Nonfiction, one of my favorite literary journals. From their website:

Creative Nonfiction heightens the whole concept and idea of essay writing. It allows a writer to employ the diligence of a reporter, the shifting voices and viewpoints of a novelist, the refined wordplay of a poet and the analytical modes of the essayist.