I’m starting to wonder if the process isthe art. What do you mean by that? Maybe the photographing, the writing—maybe the tangible forms of the work are only the receipts of something much more important. What do you mean by that? I’m not exactly sure yet. But I’m paying close attention.

“I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatsoever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me; it is a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got a hold of for the momen... See more

The real practice of the artist is a way of being in the world. I always had assumed that it was, it was about doing things a certain way is what an artist was. But it’s more than that. Yes, there is an aspect of it that’s about doing things a particular way and in a considered way. But the only way to do things in a considered way is to live in a

... See more

“It’s the Italian tradition of dining as a discussion,” the German author Hans von Trotha commented over dessert. At Santa Maddalena, unhurried meals, served with Monti’s century of stories and the camaraderie of table-side banter, break up the workday. The retreat functions like a sleepaway camp for great writers, its ritual group meals and hoursl... See more

There’s also something to be said about collating and curating in the slow writing process—facts, knowledge, smells, descriptions, stories, passport stamps, headlines—until the collection becomes part of the transformation process. Through acute and critical attention, away from the drive of production, toward the singularity of studying a branch, ... See more

There are a lot of benefits to being good at that narration. Describe your “calling” convincingly and you've defined a new game that others want to watch and play. But it’s a catch-22: if you spend all your time constantly sketching (probably quickly outdated) pictures of your thinking on the bigger questions we’ve all been tasked with answering, y... See more

We don’t build community .

We build containers where community has a chance to emerge.

Inherently, we could never judge someone’s taste on a single choice. Every person embodies 100s of choices, and we incorporate all of this information in understanding the person. In the times when the choices all work together to clarify the sensibility, this is known as congruence .

Without congruence, there cannot be good taste. (And a lot of bad... See more

Nothing looks the way I thought it would look. Some of it has been more delightful than I expected, much of it has been more heartbreaking than I ever planned for — or thought I could survive. Yet here I am, living out the story that I am, at best, co-creating in collaboration with mysterious and invisible forces. It has been, at every turn, intere... See more