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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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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
May 17, 2015

Zombie Projects

May 17, 2015/ Ant Gray
Zombie Projects

I’ve got an apocalypse worth of unfinished projects. But rather than keeping hold of them, I’m wondering if I need to mourn them a little and then put them, and me, out of our misery.

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May 17, 2015/ Ant Gray/
A Radio Show on Paper, Art and creativity, Writers and writing
"Alabama" (Song), "John Dies at the End" (Novel), 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, Arthur Quiller-Couch, David Wong, George Harrison, John Coltrane, John Lennon, Martin Luther King, Max Brooks, R-D- Laing, The Beatles, Writing, Zombies
May 03, 2015

Pareidolia: Two Memories of Death

May 03, 2015/ Ant Gray
Pareidolia: Two Memories of Death

A short piece about budgies, death and a giant rabbit that lives on the moon.

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May 03, 2015/ Ant Gray/
365 Artist dates, Art and creativity
"Aubade" (Poem), "Draw, "Print Like the Great Artists" (Book), "The Smile of the Flamboyant Wings" (Painting), André Masson, Apollo 11, Automatic Drawing, Joan Miró, Marion Denchars, Michael Collins, Paint, Pareidolia, Phillip Larkin
April 25, 2015

Kraftifacts: If Post-it notes have taught me anything...

April 25, 2015/ Ant Gray
Kraftifacts: If Post-it notes have taught me anything...

For those of you with a fetish for stationery.

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April 25, 2015/ Ant Gray/
Art and creativity, Writers and writing
3M, Art Fry, David Nicholls, Idelle Weber, Lego, Post-it notes, Robert Smith, Spencer Silver, The Cure
April 17, 2015

Chicken Hypnosis

April 17, 2015/ Ant Gray
Chicken Hypnosis

About Maurice Sendak, Edgar Allen Poe and, of course, chicken hypnosis. (Sort of.)

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April 17, 2015/ Ant Gray/
Art and creativity, Writers and writing
Bob Dylan, chicken hypnosis, Edgar Allan Poe, Edmund Bergler, John Lennon, Maurice Sendak, Wind in the Willows
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
March 08, 2015

Three Thoughts on Thinking

March 08, 2015/ Ant Gray
Three Thoughts on Thinking

For this Rabbit Hole, I decided to write something to prompt me to use all them fancy intelligences I’ve been hearing so much about.

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March 08, 2015/ Ant Gray/
Art and creativity
Edward de Bono, Frames of Mind, Howard Gardner, Problem-solving, Six Thinking Hats, Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Thinking
February 22, 2015

All the pretty morning birds are telling you to PISS OFF!

February 22, 2015/ Ant Gray
All the pretty morning birds are telling you to PISS OFF!

I woke up one morning and this crazy title came to me. Surprisingly, it turned out to be true.

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February 22, 2015/ Ant Gray/
Art and creativity, Writers and writing
Anaïs Nin, Australia, Australian birds, birds, birdsong, D-H- Lawrence, F- Norman Robinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, John Milton, Kangaroo (novel), koalas, magpies, nightingales, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Nightingale (poem), Tim Low, Woodlark (poem), woodlarks
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 24, 2015

Five things you might not know about David Lynch

January 24, 2015/ Ant Gray
Five things you might not know about David Lynch

Not just a film and TV director, Lynch has also created some amazing little-known shorts, photography, and even a cartoon strip.

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January 24, 2015/ Ant Gray/
Art and creativity, Films and filmmaking, Photographers and photomaking
Blue Velvet, David Lynch, Eraserhead, George Lucas, Lumière Brothers, Mell Brooks, Premonition Following An Evil Deed, Return of the Jedi, Star Wars, The Angriest Dog in the World, The Elephant Man, Wookies
January 15, 2015

365 Artist Dates: Two

January 15, 2015/ Ant Gray
365 Artist Dates: Two

To be creative every day, you need to find things that are simple, fun and quick.

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January 15, 2015/ Ant Gray/
365 Artist dates, Art and creativity, Films and filmmaking, Photographers and photomaking, Writers and writing
Artist date, Collage, Edward Hirsch, Edward Steichen, Glad Wrap, How to read a poem, Julia Cameron, Paul Valéry, Robert Graves, The Artist's Way
January 07, 2015

365 Artist dates

January 07, 2015/ Ant Gray
365 Artist dates

This year, rather than let other pressures dictate how I spend my time, I thought I’d try an experiment. Well, not one—365 of them.

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January 07, 2015/ Ant Gray/
365 Artist dates, Art and creativity, Music and musicmaking, Photographers and photomaking, Writers and writing
Artist date, Children's play, Julia Cameron, Lego, Pes, Photography, Play, Show your work, The Artist's Way, Writing
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
December 16, 2014

Get off my lawn!: What Clint Eastwood taught me about leadership

December 16, 2014/ Ant Gray
Get off my lawn!: What Clint Eastwood taught me about leadership

When it comes to creativity and leadership, there are so many things to learn from Clint Eastwood—here are two.

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December 16, 2014/ Ant Gray/
Art and creativity, Films and filmmaking
Big Lebowski, Charlie Chaplin, Clint Eastwood, Directing, Directors, Eastwood, Inside the Actor's Studio, Leadership, Michael Haneke, Mike Goodridge, Paul Smith, Shelley Duvall, Stanley Kubrick, Steve Campanelli, Walter Sobchak
December 07, 2014

Painted Black

December 07, 2014/ Ant Gray
Painted Black

Are kids unnecessarily singled out as black sheep?

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December 07, 2014/ Ant Gray/
Art and creativity
Children's drawings, Gulbro-Leavitt and Schimmerl, Ken Robinson, Paint it Black, Play-Doh, Rolling Stones
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
July 04, 2014

Dress-up, Artists

July 04, 2014/ Ant Gray
Dress-up, Artists

Sometimes, creatively, what you do on the outside is more important than what’s on the inside.

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July 04, 2014/ Ant Gray/
365 Artist dates, A Radio Show on Paper, Art and creativity, Music and musicmaking
Anaïs Nin, Cinderella, Don Draper, Eddie Izzard, PJ Harvey
May 19, 2014

Scrapbooking, Silence, Slint

May 19, 2014/ Ant Gray
Scrapbooking, Silence, Slint

This Rabbit Hole is about scrapbooking, poetry and post-punk indie-rock.

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May 19, 2014/ Ant Gray/
Art and creativity, Music and musicmaking
e-e- cummings, poetry, Scrapbooking, Slint, War of the Worlds, William S- Burroughs
February 21, 2014

Getting along with your internal critic

February 21, 2014/ Ant Gray
Getting along with your internal critic

Internal critic be damned. What about an ‘internal tutor’ instead?

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February 21, 2014/ Ant Gray/
Art and creativity
Drawing, internal critic, Jake Spicer, motivation, Writing
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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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