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Make Your Own Rabbit Hole

A site about recovering creativity

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Rabbit Hole is about recovering creativity. Read essays, interviews, reviews on the art of writing, illustrating, film and more.

Make Your Own Rabbit Hole
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January 16, 2016

Wabi-Sabi: The beauty of broken and unfinished things

January 16, 2016/ Ant Gray
Wabi-Sabi: The beauty of broken and unfinished things

Wabi-sabi is a concept that lies at the heart of Japanese culture—an idea that places great value on incompleteness and imperfection.

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January 16, 2016/ Ant Gray/
Art and creativity, Perfectionism
Wabi-sabi, Japan, Art, Culture, Sen no Rikyu, Wabi-cha, Perfectionism, kintsugi, Alain de Botton
August 09, 2015

Remembering How to Play

August 09, 2015/ Ant Gray
Remembering How to Play

Play is essential to creativity. This issue is about remembering how to do it.

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August 09, 2015/ Ant Gray/
Art and creativity, Perfectionism, Writers and writing
Anaïs Nin, Askesian Society, Child development, Creativity, Kurt Vonnegut, Luke Howard, Meteorology, Play, Tom Waits
July 26, 2015

Ten Tiny Tasks: How to kick-start any creative project

July 26, 2015/ Ant Gray
Ten Tiny Tasks: How to kick-start any creative project

Got a project you’ve always been meaning to start but felt it was all too hard? This issue is for you.

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July 26, 2015/ Ant Gray/
365 Artist dates, Art and creativity, Perfectionism
Julia Cameron, Lao Tzu, The Artist's Way
July 05, 2015

Make art like nobody's watching

July 05, 2015/ Ant Gray
Make art like nobody's watching

All about having time to play, and making stuff for yourself first before showing others.

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July 05, 2015/ Ant Gray/
Adventures in psychoanalysis, Art and creativity, Perfectionism, Writers and writing
D-W- Winnicott, Penrose triangle, Psychoanalysis, The True Self and the False Self, Tom Waits
June 07, 2015

How can I be you, Louise Bourgeois?

June 07, 2015/ Ant Gray
How can I be you, Louise Bourgeois?

Part one of double issue that looks at the amazing work of French-American artist and sculptor, Louise Bourgeois.

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June 07, 2015/ Ant Gray/
365 Artist dates, Art and creativity, Perfectionism
"Daily Rituals" (Book), "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", "Kitchen Confidential" (Book), "Steal Like an Artist" (Book), "The Great Gatsby", ''Insomnia Drawings'', Anthony Bourdain, Arsène Houssaye, Austin Kleon, F- Scott Fitzgerald, Hunter S- Thompson, Louise Bourgeois, Mason Currey, T- S- Eliot
May 23, 2015

Bukowski's advice

May 23, 2015/ Ant Gray
Bukowski's advice

Reading Charles Bukowski’s work confirms my sneaking suspicion that art is not as hard as I make it.

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May 23, 2015/ Ant Gray/
Art and creativity, Perfectionism, Writers and writing
"Notes of a Dirty Old Man" (Book), "so you want to be a writer?" (Poem), "writers block" (Poem), Charles Bukowski, Linda Bukowski, William Packard
March 22, 2015

Twenty-five "Issues"

March 22, 2015/ Ant Gray
Twenty-five "Issues"

After twenty-four issues, I thought I should figure out exactly why I’m doing this.

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March 22, 2015/ Ant Gray/
Art and creativity, Perfectionism, Writers and writing
Austin Kleon, “The Laugh of the Medusa”, Colin Marshall, Hélène Cixous, Ira Glass, Show Your Work (book), This American Life, Tom Waits says
February 15, 2015

Why you, Schopenhauer and my dad think everything you do sucks

February 15, 2015/ Ant Gray
Why you, Schopenhauer and my dad think everything you do sucks

Why does your life suck sometimes? This Rabbit Hole looks to my Dad and one of the most pessimistic people in Western philosophy for answers.

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February 15, 2015/ Ant Gray/
Art and creativity, Perfectionism, Writers and writing
Arthur Schopenhauer, Bertrand Russell, On the Pain and Suffering of the World, Psychology
January 28, 2015

David Lynch and the suffocating rubber clown suit of negativity

January 28, 2015/ Ant Gray
David Lynch and the suffocating rubber clown suit of negativity

Why is David Lynch so creative?  As far as I can tell, it all has something to do with catching fish and not listening to clowns.

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January 28, 2015/ Ant Gray/
Art and creativity, Films and filmmaking, Perfectionism
Catching the Big Fish, Chris Rodley, Clowns, David Lynch, Depression, Directors, Ernest Becker, It, Lynch on Lynch, Meditation, Mr Jelly, Pennywise, Perfectionism, Psychoville, Stephen King
January 02, 2015

Ta done! The Ten-minute Artist

January 02, 2015/ Ant Gray
Ta done! The Ten-minute Artist

Why I decided to give into my neuroses and give up writing to-do lists.

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January 02, 2015/ Ant Gray/
Art and creativity, Perfectionism, Writers and writing
Perfectionism, To do lists
November 23, 2014

If Lego has taught me anything…

November 23, 2014/ Ant Gray
If Lego has taught me anything…

For some of us Lego is more than a set of blocks—it’s a creative block-busting manifesto.

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November 23, 2014/ Ant Gray/
Art and creativity, Perfectionism, Writers and writing
Anne Lamott, Inception, internal critic, Lego, Roland Barthes
June 04, 2014

Tales of an Imperfectionist

June 04, 2014/ Ant Gray
Tales of an Imperfectionist

Though people may pride themselves on being a perfectionist in job interviews and at work, the reality of being a perfectionist blows.

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June 04, 2014/ Ant Gray/
Perfectionism, Writers and writing
Academic writing, Perfectionism, Thesis writing, Writing
December 20, 2013

Writing involves giving up

December 20, 2013/ Ant Gray
Writing involves giving up

This is where I started. My very first Rabbit Hole.

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December 20, 2013/ Ant Gray/
Perfectionism, Writers and writing
J-M- Coetzee, Perfectionism, Thesis writing, Tim Winton, William Kentridge, Writing

Recently on Rabbit Hole...
The Pleasure and Pedagogy of Reading with Kids
The Pleasure and Pedagogy of Reading with Kids

Recently, I was looking for something about reading to kids, and I happened across an educational theorist from New Zealand with some really great ideas about teaching and learning, which made a few things fall into place about being a parent too.

Slow down, Stand back, Paint one detail at a time
Slow down, Stand back, Paint one detail at a time

Painter Tracey Read talks about spending four weeks painting and drawing her way around Italy.

Bush-Bathing in the Australian Uncanny
Bush-Bathing in the Australian Uncanny

Lia McKnight is a Perth-based artist who seamlessly moves between drawing, textiles, installation and sculpture. McKnight’s beautifully strange, yet eerily familiar works confuse the boundaries between the ‘natural’ and the ‘personal’—an idea that she and eleven other artists explore in a new group show at the Fremantle Arts Centre.

In praise of dripping taps and other unfinished thi...
In praise of dripping taps and other unfinished thi...

Mum’s recurring complaint is that dad never finishes anything. There’s a half-built brick barbecue at the end of the garden that in twenty years has never seen a hotplate, let alone a sausage or steak. It was the same too with the model train layout he built for me as a kid, which never sported truck nor track. But I didn’t realise till now that not finishing things could be a good thing, a helpful trick to keep your creativity on track.

How to write the perfect ending (that you may have already written)
How to write the perfect ending (that you may have already written)

More difficult than knowing where to begin is knowing when to stop. Pieces of writing we’re working on. Bad relationships. Eating. But when it comes to finding the best ending for a creative work, the perfect solution might be right under our noses.

A holiday at home: Adventures of a sedentary traveller
A holiday at home: Adventures of a sedentary traveller

Can’t afford an expensive holiday overseas? Take some advice from an eighteen century writer, soldier  and artist under house arrest and go on a magical sight-seeing tour of your very own home.

Artists, private masochism and public shame
Artists, private masochism and public shame

To be an artist, constantly risking your self-esteem by putting things out there in the world, requires a certain level of masochism. But how can that masochism be harnessed for good?

Oblique strategies for artists with acute dilemmas
Oblique strategies for artists with acute dilemmas

Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt developed a series of cards to help artists break through their creative blocks and take risks in their work.

This Mixtape Kills Fascists: Music and Rebellion in the Era of Trump
This Mixtape Kills Fascists: Music and Rebellion in the Era of Trump

We can only hope that the resurgence of the extreme right in America inspires an equally strong counterculture. In the era of Trump, only punk can save us now.

The Teacher as Class Clown
The Teacher as Class Clown

Author H.G. Wells had some great advice for writers, which is equally good advice for teachers too.

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Make Your Own Rabbit Hole

Make Your Own Rabbit Hole is about recovering creativity. Read essays, interviews, reviews and much more on writing, art, film and all things creative.

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