Donald Judd and I at 23:12, 23/12/2015

I was reading about American artist Donald Judd in Apartamento. And I realised this. 

With all the hype about "craft" and "making", and the general ease with which we customise, create, mass produce and distribute with the digital media, there's so much noise to get distracted by and lost in.

Donald Judd lived with his objects in space, these cumbersome boxy things. And his ranches. The arid land. The angular boulder walls that do nothing but stand in space. 

Since I was a teenager I always made books. Picture books. Word books. There was the typewriter, water colour, and transfer type. The photocopy machine at times. Ring binders, thread and needle. Cloth and cardboard, glue and duct tape. Fancy paper and paper made fancy. 

The name Donald Judd sounded familiar. But really, I've never really seen his art before. He died in 1994. 

I wondered how it happened that I stopped making books. The last handmade book was Kidnap Bob in 2005 perhaps. And of course there was Goodbye Time in 2012 with J's design, but it wasn't handmade. Maybe what happened was that I got calculative. I started to think about why, who, and how. And it got complex. 

Donald Judd left a whole lot of land, ranches and houses - and debt - to his children. The article in Apartamento was an interview with them, their memories growing up on these ranches, and what they were doing with the houses now.

J says that I just like to do and do, and not think. My realisation or revelation from Donald Judd's life is this: it's not about not thinking, it's about not calculating. It was more enjoyable just making the books. It's ok to just create.

So friends, that's what I want to share with you as the year draws to a close. Everything is really quite simple when you create with what you have, and not think too much about what you don't have. And most of the time, you have plenty.