More Than a Rock

Forget Vision25

Each man must look to himself to teach him the meaning of life. It is not something discovered: it is something molded.

—Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Photographer Jay Maisel, when asked for advice about how to make more interesting photographs, famously responded, “Become a more interesting person.” It is the kind of one-liner retort we all wish we could come up with on the spot, but Maisel actually touches on something deeper. It seems self-evident that interesting artists make interesting art; but there are two related and more important propositions implied here: that one can willfully become a different person, and that one can control the kind of person they become.

With this in mind, I recently read accounts by artists proclaiming ...