freedom of expression

There is a little article in last weeks' New Yorker entitled "Studio Visit - Sachs and Co." about a West Village artist named Tom Sachs. He is called a do-it-yourself sculptor, and his projects have included moon rocks, wooden shotguns, and a life-sized replica of a Bosendorfer grand piano. He first got famous from making a concentration camp in a Prada hatbox. . . .
Conceptual art interests me a great deal, but it is part of a very narrow world of connections and networking and who-you-know that I have the good sense (and lack of correct background) never to aspire to.
I do enjoy reading about those rarified few who make it in that strange world, and reading about his studio with it's numerous staff and big budget art work did inspire me.
I am pretty sure I will ever have a staff to help me make my art, and I don't think I will ever have a West Village studio, or shows at the Lever House, or be written about in the New Yorker, but some of his ideas are wonderful and worth thinking about for even the small scale collage artist:
"Never draw what you can trace, never trace what you can scan, never scan what you can photocopy."

Collage artists should keep that in mind.
It's really about you making and saying whatever you want to make and say. It really is NOT about pleasing anyone else. We have to SO unlearn the "Don't Color Out of the Lines" behavior that was drilled into us in kindergarten.
and here is the page inspired by part of his Glue Gun Manifesto:




Here is the whole piece from the New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/04/14/080414ta_talk_collins