good morning Hank it's Tuesday new
temporary background because this is the
new temporary headquarters of the art
assignment my wife Sara's YouTube
channel with PBS Digital Studios which
reminds me that Sara's book you are an
artist comes out a week from today
the finished copies just arrived and it
is such a beautiful book I am so excited
Sarah is a wondrously unsentimental
person unlike her husband and so I hope
she will forgive me this but when I met
Sara 17 years ago she was working at a
gallery and even then she had a special
brilliance for writing in a way that was
simultaneously accessible and
intellectually rigorous which is really
hard and for a year before we started
dating we wrote each other emails like
hundreds of pages of emails about how
and why art can matter about the books
we read and the movies we saw about what
happened to us that day and how we felt
about it
we have many books that are important to
us but by far the most important book in
our library is this book that Sara made
for me that contains all of those emails
and I remember being awed by how Sara
could find language for deeply abstract
and complex experiences and to be honest
I'm still a little awed by it in those
days I was revising the novel that would
become Looking for Alaska and I remember
saying to Sara once that I was trying to
be a writer or that I'd like to be a
writer or something and she said well
your writing so you're a writer and that
idea is central to the book Sara has
written all these years later because
the truth is art making is not optional
for humans and it's not reserved only
for certain kinds of humans we've made
art during every crisis amid every kind
of deprivation I mean we were painting
on walls before we could make walls we
made art before we domesticated animals
or planted crops and to quote the title
of Sara's book you are an artist if you
make art any kind of art at any time and
that's what I really love about Sara's
book it humanizes art it shows where
artists really get their ideas which is
not from on high but from regular life a
kid brings home a paper weaving from
kindergarten and the artist thinks
that's interesting by the way Alice and
I made that one together or an artist is
journaling and realizes there's not
really that much difference between
writing lines and drawing them the ideas
don't come from having an extraordinary
kind of life they come from paying an
extraordinary kind of attention
to life and the art assignments in
Sara's book encourage and cultivate that
in me and they remind me that in the end
art can be whatever we create for and
with each other and so you don't need
fancy art supplies to respond to the
prompts in the book because it's not
about how to use clay or graphite or
paint or whatever it's about how to use
that far more important resource of your
attention and then via clay or graphite
or paint or old magazines or your phone
or your dinner it's about how paying
that special kind of attention can help
us to find meaning or cooler still help
us to create meaning it's a great book
and I hope you enjoy it but wait you say
John I can't afford a book there's
catastrophe everywhere I know I'm sorry
two responses one your local library may
have copies of you are an artist
available for free including electronic
and audio book versions and two
regardless you can still participate in
the meaning making magic that is the art
assignment via the glory of YouTube many
of the assignments in the book started
with YouTube videos I will link to a
playlist below it is hard to feel
unambiguously happy or hopeful about
anything right now every celebration is
tinged with sadness from birthday
parties to book releases and there is no
getting around that
for instance Sara's virtual book tour
which begins next week will not be the
book tour she had long imagined but it
will still be and it will still be
wonderful and that feels somehow
appropriate to a book that is about
working with what you have and finding
ways to build meaning together so Sara
unambiguous congratulations and Hank
I'll see you on Friday