PHILANTHROPY FACTORY

This tumblr features content from our main blog as well as extras of stuff we're watching, reading, looking at, listening to, thinking about.

[austinkleon]

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Keep Going.

[austinkleon]

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Rainer Maria Rilke (via austinkleon)

[austinkleon]

I am seized by two contradictory feelings: there is so much beauty in the world it is incredible that we are ever miserable for a moment; there is so much shit in the world that it is incredible we are ever happy for a moment.

Geoff Dyer (via austinkleon)

[philanthropyfactory]

(via Reverse Racism)

[nevver]

Stop, in the name of (heart-shaped traffic lights, Iceland).

[philanthropyfactory]

Borderless Lullabies is a complication of 20 songs & spoken-word pieces, with 100% of proceeds benefiting Kids In Need of Defense, a nonprofit that partners with pro-bono attorney at law firms and law schools to represent unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children.

Alexa add Borderless Lullabies to the Philanthropy Factory playlist!

(via Swiss-Miss)

[austinkleon]

A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life raft and a festival. They are cathedrals of the mind; hospitals of the soul; theme parks of the imagination. On a cold, rainy island, they are the only sheltered public spaces where you are not a consumer, but a citizen, instead. A human with a brain and a heart and a desire to be uplifted, rather than a customer with a credit card and an inchoate “need” for “stuff.” A mall—the shops—are places where your money makes the wealthy wealthier. But a library is where the wealthy’s taxes pay for you to become a little more extraordinary, instead. A satisfying reversal. A balancing of the power.

Caitlin Moran (via austinkleon)

[nevver]

Guns

[austinkleon]

A few weeks ago I gave a new talk at Bond in San Francisco. It’s a list of 10 things that have helped me stay creative in such chaotic times:

Every day is Groundhog Day

Build a bliss station

Forget the noun, do the verb

Make gifts

The ordinary + extra attention = the extraordinary

Art is for life (not the other way around)

You are allowed to change your mind

When in doubt, tidy up

The demons hate fresh air

Spend time on something that will outlast them

I really loved giving this talk. (And, as I’ve hinted, it is a preview of my next book.) If you’ve been struggling too, hopefully you’ll find something helpful in it. Please share it with anybody you think could use it. And if you want to keep up with me, subscribe to my newsletter.

[austinkleon]

Peanuts nailing it

[austinkleon]

Such a great movie.

[p-e-a-c]

[philanthropyfactory]

(via)

[moma]

“Free Nelson Mandela” (1987)

On #MandelaDay, marking 99 years since the birth of Nelson Mandela, we reflect on a remarkable life and all that it inspired. David Hammons’s “Free Nelson Mandela” stencil was spray-painted on both indoor and outdoor sites while Mandela was still in prison after more than twenty years. The stencil was then sprayed on torn billboard papers to create this print. … [Stencil on versos of torn and layered billboard papers. John B. Turner Fund. © 2017 David Hammons.]

[moma]

Counternarratives

“I immediately thought objectivity got the paper into trouble to a certain extent.”

Today, The New York Times features one of its boldest critics, artist Alexandra Bell. Bell reproduces articles from the publication and offers suggestions to negate language that perpetuates racial prejudices, and proposes more equitable narratives. Don’t miss the chance to see the installation of two works from Alexandra Bell’s “Counternarratives” series, on view now in MoMA PS1’s courtyard through December 11. Watch Bell’s recent presentation at #MoMAPS1’s “Radical Edits” program: mo.ma/counternarratives. … Image Credit: Alexandra Bell, “A Teenager with Promise,” 2017, Inkjet print on newsprint.

[moma]

How to make Xerox transfer art | IN THE STUDIO

Black and white Xerox posters were a major part of the 1970s counterculture aesthetic. Artist and graphic designer Marlene Weisman guest hosts a special Club 57 takeover edition of IN THE STUDIO and demonstrates how to transfer the ink from Xerox prints to a new sheet of paper to create collages, posters, and other works of art using the same pre-Photoshop technique that she used in the 1970s and ‘80s.

[nevver]

Veronica Dearly (because)

[nevver]

March For Our Lives