Art with Jo

Editor's Note: Today is a very special day on the IWS Blog kids. Our very good friend, the insanely talented artist Jo Seaquist has agreed to do a guest post! We thank her and hope she will come back and post again soon.


Hello friends of Jay and Matt-Man! I was super excited when Jay invited me to do a guest post because I’m such a big fan of their social work and hot goodness. Thanks Guys, it’s an honor!

Jay suggested I talk about my life as an artist, but I feel that would be best expressed through a combination of puppet theatre and fire. So instead I thought it’d be fun to share some art tips & tricks. Then you can get started being an artist too, or just impress and alienate people at social gatherings.

Making Art.

Making art can be hard. But the Modernists made it look easy, and talked about it in complex, incomprehensible ways, and it was a big hit.
Tip #4: Refer to yourself and your art as modern. Also avant-garde, experimental, and visionary.
Trick #7: Throw some paint down. Give it a totally unrelated title.

The Anatomy of Clean: yesterday showering.

Variation: Photograph an object. Give it an unrelated title. Even better is an unrelated title that seems to be related.

sex shower go

Disassociation.

Artists tend not to think like normal people. If you’re well-adjusted you can get around this by picking any random thought-phrase-adjective-gerund and using that to title your creation. Warnings are Useless.

Trick #33: Stay awake for two days. Around Hour 30 you’ll get a rush and suspect you’re having the Best Thoughts Ever. This isn’t true. But these thoughts make great titles. Out of sandwiches this is the end.

Meaning.

What does it all mean? This is an essential question for artists. In fact, I’ve asked it at least five times since starting this post. If you’re asking it now, you might already be on the artist’s path. Are there unicorns, swirls of color, and airbrushed misty-things around you? If so, that’s the wrong path. Give yourself a hard slap and try again. Pain is an artist’s friend, so slapping yourself at any point can be useful.

Slapping someone else is inconvenient because you might get arrested, but also useful because jails are interesting. I’m making this Tip #87.

Tip #9: The meaning behind your work should be personal, problematic, and ideally painful, embarrassing, or ironic. It’s genius if you can hit all of them at once.
Trick #6: Exploit the suckyness in your life. Your toxic garbage = creative treasures.

Let’s try it.

Person: What was your inspiration?
You: We all take showers. We suffer and get left by neurotic lying whores and try to move on.
Person: So it’s about how we’re all alike?
You: It’s about our literal and figurative nakedness during the act of becoming clean, and how often this daily gesture prompts us to think about shame…what we can’t wash away.
Person: Wow. That’s….SO TRUE.
You: (Say nothing. Smoke or drink or think about sad puppies.)
(Tip #42: Be present while somewhere else, like Jesus. It’s intriguing. This really worked for Jesus.)
Person: You’re a genius.

Next up is how to handle those awkward moments with naked models. Do you know what I mean? Like when they start crying uncontrollably because, well, they’re hungry.

Oh darn, we’re out of time. Time is a not-for-hire harlot.
(Trick #21 Be astonishing.)

You should go make stuff. And if you start looking like this, you've totally got it.
xo jo