Things Worth Sharing with Jason Page
Boo Boxes, Snuffle Breaks, and all manner of fun
Allow me to introduce you to my friend Jason Page (not to be confused with my husband Jason who also has pretty hair). He’s an illustration professor at Willem de Kooning Art school in Rotterdam, he runs a weird and wonderful golf newsletter and apparel company called Normal Sport, and I met him after he won a design competition in college and his prize was an internship at the big fun fashion brand I was working at at the time. He also has a newsletter that I adore called Ding Dong.
Hey Haley,
Waaaazuuuup from a very misty fall Amsterdam evening.
Where I’m writing from. I’ve always loved the title of Raymond Carver’s short story Where I’m Calling From so I wanted to give a glimpse of my work station.
I’m sipping on a tea called 7 Groene Kostbaarheden (7 Green Treasures) from our favorite tea place, De Pelikaan (in biz since 1816). It’s a mix of 5 green teas, like a mad hatter would make it, with the slogan “Sometimes you just need a little more of everything! That feels like a good subtitle for how my newsletters go.
I’m drinking it out of a mug that says RUIGOORD 25 YEARS OF ENCHANTMENT. Ruigoord is a magical artist village here in Amsterdam that hosts our favorite music festival Landjuweel. Lots of freedom, everyone makes a party together. They just put out a documentary about how they fought (and beat!) industrial developments to stay for 25 years.
The mug is sitting on top of a booklet of Bruce Nauman’s neon work “The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths“ in front of this RING THE BELL Phillies glass by Kees Holterman on top of a Jane Elliott blue eyes brown eyes coaster. This is a lot of information. I like to keep my desk full so I can zoom out on the overlapping layers.
I’m wearing:
Hat: A bootleg Alexander Calder hat by Nate Harris on top of Far West (Kitty Crowther & Peter Elliott), Katy and The Big Snow Plow (AMAZING by Virigina Lee Burton) which someone rebound and added a bunch of blank pages inside for kids to doodle on (genius!), and my dusty epson GT 15000 scanner (a workhorse).
Sweatshirt: This new cozy sweatshirt from my golf co. Normal Sport featuring our sheep logo named Norman. I’m gladly turning into my dad wearing his company logo on everything.
T-shirt: Neil Young x Robert Crumb Fritz the Cat shirt by China Cat Clothing. They’ve got great reprints and original shirts from the 60’s-90’s.
Here’s how I look in the shirt courtesy of my niece & nephew Kirby & Felix.
In 2018 I declared my studio a NO PHONE ZONE, which sometimes works. What has worked is putting my phone in time out in a cardboard holder that I see as a boo box in hell. Bad phone. I can highly recommend making (or getting your kid) to make a boo box.
TYFYS Andy Rementer When I think about the 60’s and how much I hate my phone, technology, modern life, etc. I think “Andy Rementer probably Techno Tuesday’d this.”
Books books books One of my favorite parts about teaching (illustration at Willem de Kooning art school in Rotterdam) is digging for references. A bit like making a newsletter, I love how pulling one thread leads you to another. This week we were working with dynamic storyboarding and I shared some pages from Watchmen (Alan Moore and Dave Gibson), Black Hole (Charles Burnes), FUTURE (Tomi Musturi) and Nancy (Ernie Bushmiller). I love the multi-layered states in these pages.
I was curious if Charles Burns is still living in Philly (he is!) which led me to this Guardian interview about Final Cut, where I learned that his wife Susan Moore sadly passed away two years ago, which led me to looking up her paintings and reading about the powerful legacy she left in the Philly art scene and teaching at the Tyler School of Art.
*Sidenote from Haley: Elliott’s teacher last year was Charles and Susan’s daughter! Philly is a very small beautiful world.
I was thinking about her this Saturday when I was at Karel Martens ‘Unbound’ exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. He’s the grandfather of Dutch graphic design and at 86 he’s still puttering around printing and playing in his studio. He was just chilling in the exhibition wearing this sweater and talking to anyone. What really knocked my socks off were two moments from this video of him futzing in his studio interspersed with interviews from his students. These two parts are gold:
When his student talked about how Karel addressed everyone in emails with Dear friends. I’ve borrowed it for my own student emails, which feels a bit weird at first, but I like what it says about the hierarchy of teaching.
Art making is the result of curiosity.
Sidenote This week Lotje (my wife) said that Watchmen was illustrated by Mel Gibson and then later she called Big Thief Big Toe. She also just got her work The Permutable Snackbar, which is an AI-populated digital snack bar in the metaverse, published in Madeline Schwartzman’s rad new book Alive! What a beautiful mind.
More Old Art Men I’m loving Spring Cannot Be Cancelled by David Hockney & Martin Gayford. I can’t get enough of their books! Just too old pals chatting about art in plain and eye opening ways. I find it so inspiring to see old artists as curious as ever. A Bigger Message is also fantastic.
I realized that it’ll be sad when David Hockney dies, sad like when anyone dies, but it won’t be too sad because 1. He will be very old when he goes and 2. He’ll have left so much incredible work into the world. What a life and what a treat to constantly be surprised by what he has made. Like this painting…
Contre-jour in the French Style – Against the day dans le style francais (1974)
Snuffle Break I took a break from writing this newsletter to snuffle (great Dutch word for sniffing around thrift stores) a flea market and picked up this frog jug from St. Clement. It’s made with majolica, which is apparently perfectly suited to make wild ceramics like these..
Dog Guy Can Paint I’m digging William Wegman Paintings. They’re big complex pathworks with photographs.
Well written music to write to: Right now I’m listening/writing to Double Infinity album by Big Thief. This first line from Incomprehensible was the first of many to hit home: “I’m afraid of getting older, that’s what I’ve learned to say”. It feels familiar. I turned 35 this year, which I’ve heard is an age where old-ness ratchets up. And I’m feeling it! My pants don’t fit, my hair’s getting thinner, and I see my parents [in-law] getting older too, but when I hear these closing lines I think “so what?!”
“Wrinkle like the river, sweeten like the dew…
How can beauty that is livin’ be anything but true?.”
How good is that?! How Could I Have Known is beautiful too. Some moments sound like Stevie Nicks singing Wild At Heart backstage. The whole album is gold. And they’re playing in Philly on Oct. 22nd for all you Philly Pholks!
Graphic novel from my local comic book shop Lambiek: Girl Giant by Cato Douwes Dekker. Apparently she’s been bringing diy comic books to the shop for a while, and she just turned 18! It’s chock-full of the self driven irreverent energy that I try to encourage in my students (and myself).
Recipes by the NYTimes
Vietnamese garlic noodles - Delicious but not great if you have a lot of close conversations planned.
Chicken and Rice Soup - The perfect feel good meal for folks with and without a NYTimes cooking subscription.
Pee & Pushups This “get pumped plan” has stayed a secret since the summer of 2010 when I perfected it at the Urban Outfitters HQ at the Navy Yard in Philly (also when I met Haley). The office had big bathrooms which, I don’t know why, I immediately thought “I could workout in here.” So during that summer I drank tons of water throughout the workday so I had a good excuse to go to my toilet gym and knock out some push ups. Somehow this routine has stuck around for 15 years. I can highly recommend it if you’re looking to get jacked and/or hydrated.
I learned later that what I was doing is called a trigger step, which I now have many of in my studio. Like putting my phone in a cardboard boo box in order to focus on a rambling newsletter that finishes with a potty push up plan. It really did have a little more than everything. I enjoyed it, I hope you did too! Thank you Haley for letting me rip and for keeping the newsletter flame burning with all of the heart-filled newsletters you put in the world!
Yay! Thanks Jason! If you liked this post heart it. If it made you think of something worth sharing tell me in the comments.
You can find more Jason Page here: