Aphorisms for young artists

A meditation on Twitter as a medium for practice. @garrybarker3

Aphorisms for young artists is an attempt to make sense of Twitter as a medium to work within. I have spent the last 40 years working in an art college passing on my thoughts and suggestions as to how young artists might develop their practices, I have therefore decided to use this experience as a resource and am making up short aphorisms relating to the various issues I have come across over the years. The more I write the more they become like poetry.

113: It’s only after you’ve lost the struggle with life that you’re free to make art.

At some point these thoughts will be collected together but so far they have just been used to fill the 365 spaces that are found in yearly calendars. The gaps that are usually reserved for birthdays and holidays, being filled by condensed thoughts, designed to lighten the mood or set the teeth for the coming day. The random nature of their appearance on this page being a way of sampling their flavour, you will quickly find out if they are to your taste.

1841: There are always powerful social forces at work, no matter how trivial they may initially appear to be.

84: All great draftsmen have at some point drawn a line in the sand.

1762: Use the rules of something other than art to drive your practice.