I wrote a book! š£
Where do I start?
I am immensely excited/nervous/proud to share that I have written my first book! Itās called The Ultimate Art Museum and will be published by Phaidon this September in English, French, and Spanish. You can pre-order it now and save 20% using the code PHAIDON20 on their website.*
It takes the format of a museum-in-a-book, with three wings journeying through 300+ images and 40,000 years of world art history. It was written with young readers in mind but will be genuinely enjoyable for curious art lovers of any age.
Now itās story timeā¦
When I was a broke art history student doing my BA at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, I visited the Denver Art Museum on one of their free days. After walking the galleries, I stopped in the gift shop and saw a massive black-and-white tome titled 30,000 Years of Art. Actually, it wasnāt entirely black-and-whiteāthere was a little green stripe at the bottom that said āPHAIDON.ā If memory serves me well, that book was $50, which was a lot of money for me back then, but I had to have it. I splashed out on that beautiful book and it had pride of place on a table in my tiny studio apartment. Now, more than 10 years later, I will soon have my own book with this prestigious publisher, and the possibility of that journey would never have occurred to me back then. Incredible.
(Pictured: A photo from 2008 showing my copy of 30,000 Years of Art on a table alongside another book and some glasses I didnāt look good in.)
In creating The Ultimate Art Museum, I spent many (many, many, many) months thinking, planning, researching, and writing. It was quite the undertaking and I already know it will be one of the top honours and highlights of my career to have done this project. I hope that people of different backgrounds will be able to see themselves in it, and itās my wish that it will encourage more young people to take an interest in art. Iām so grateful to the incredible Phaidon team for trusting me with this fun and beautiful concept.
In the coming months, Iāll share fun content around the book, but for now, itās just a relief to be able to tell you that it exists. IT EXISTS. And you can preorder it now with a discount at the link below.* Use the code PHAIDON20.
*The book will be available in the UK, Europe, and the US at the usual book outlets, but I suggest ordering directly from Phaidonāmake sure the site is set to your country.
Light Housekeeping
For my previous newsletter, I tried to create a jazzy MailChimp version with a fancy template. In looking at the stats, it seems that you guys prefer the Substack format by a long shot. Message received. Iām back on plain-olā Substack, friends.
Object Videos
Are you confident youāre caught up with my latest Object videos? Like the one about the sexy meaning of eggs? Or the one about manbabies in Medieval paintings? What about the one that shares the story of NASAās art program? Stay on top of these, folks. Thereās a quiz later. (There is not.)
Hereās a random thing that happenedā¦
I recently restored my abysmal front door and shared the process on my Instagram Stories. A surprising amount of people messaged me to tell me they were following along and āinvestedā in the project. Even some neighbours Iāve never spoken to shouted their support as they walked by me scraping away a century of grime and varnish. Due to how much fun you guys seemed to have with it, Iāve saved those Stories to my Instagram page. If you havenāt seen it, you can take a look. If you have seen itā¦ I dunno.. watch it again, if you like.
Donāt forget about the book. Pre-order that thang.