Words To Live By

As Huck 45 nears the end of its shelf life we skim back through the pages of one of our favourite issues to date – lovingly curated by Californian documentarian and artist Ed Templeton – and pause to reflect on the many wise words dropped by the coterie of artists, photographers and creative entrepreneurs that the Tempster brought together in a bid to inspire you.

Ed Templeton
Artist

Keep Playing
“I’ve always been an artist. Everyone is an artist until they stop playing. That’s all it is. Art is just play… It could be as simple as a doodle. It’s just communication, but most people grow out of it. Every kid draws. Why don’t we just continue to do it when we’re adults?”

Lee Kaplan
Founder, Arcana Books on the Arts

Treasure Print
“[My granddad] gave me this kind of inherent love for books as vessels and repositories of cultural knowledge. These are like sacred objects. They need to be treated properly, handled with respect.”

Ashley Macomber
Artist

Question Everything
“In the modern world, it’s fascinating how there’s equality in certain ways, more so than ever before, while at the same time there are fake eyelashes and fake faces and hair extensions. It’s so grotesque to me physically, and I am trying to figure out why that is.”

Dan Murphy
Artist

DIY For Life
“I don’t need to be ‘a punk’ or ‘a skater’ or anything. I don’t need any title. It’s about constantly evolving and bringing with you a confidence and self-reliance. You have to trust yourself and know that you can do things, like fixing up a house or whatever on your own. If you really think you are punk or DIY, you can’t just sit around and think you know it. You’ve got to put it to the test every day.”

Clint Woodside
Photographer, Deadbeat Club

Start A Club
“It’s fun to help other people get stuff out and help to build a community of good photographers. It’s positive reinforcement, you know what I mean? It’s keeping people stoked on the fact they’re doing stuff and giving them an excuse to keep doing what they’re doing.”

Ashley Thayer
Artisan

On Building A Sustainable Future
“You can’t care how long it takes, just that it’s not compromised.”

Deanna Templeton
Photographer

Connect With Your Subject
“When I’m taking portraits of people, I don’t feel like the glass is in between us. I feel like it’s a connection between us, not a disconnection.”

Dennis McGrath
Photographer

Tell Stories
“I just take photos to make things. I have a hard time thinking of myself as an artist. I just think I’m a regular person who takes pictures. I mean, I’ve got over twenty years of photos and ephemera and all kinds of crazy shit. I look at what I do as experimental storytelling more than anything. I guess you could consider that artistic. It’s all about a point of view.”

Joseph Allen Shea
Curator, Gallerie Allen / Gallery A.S.

On Working With Brands (aka Never Compromise)
Selling out is an old term, I don’t think it has any relevance. [I prefer to call it]’selling out appropriately’. I think it’s really about compromise and making sure that there is almost none. I spend a great deal of time finding out what brands really want, not just what they say they want. It’s about managing expectations. When it works, it works beautifully; you get what you want, they get what they want, and there’s no meeting in the middle. Because somewhere in the middle is neither person getting what they want.”

Una Kim
Founder, Keep Shoes

Start Up
“I couldn’t find what I wanted so I made it.”

Kevin Christy
Artist and Comedian

Eat Shit (And Prosper)
“What I really liked about [stand-up comedy] was that I was so terrible that I realised it was going to take me a tremendously long time to get good at it. There was something appealing to that; I was going to have to earn every bit of success.”

Kevin Barnett
Skateboarding Filmmaker

Embrace Fear
“With any artistic pursuit, there’s an inherent need to not fear failure. For any accomplishment, you’re going to have to accept the risk of, ‘I could fall flat on my face.’ And I think that acceptance is the last phase before you say, ‘Fuck it, I’ve got to go do this.’”

Ray Potes
Photographer and Hamburger Eyes Publisher

Channel Boredom
“In suburbia, when you get into something, you get way into it… In the city, there are a lot of distractions and there is so much going on all the time. Living in suburbia, I had more time and was bored. With that boredom, I found something to work on.”

Tobin Yelland
Photographer

Foster Freedom
“I would encourage my kids to make choices for themselves. And hopefully not make life choices out of fear, like, ‘I have to do this because I have to be stable.’”

Daniel Arnold
Photographer

Chronicle Life
“[Ed Templeton and Ray Potes used this tagline at a recent Hamburger Eyes group show:] ‘The Continuing Story of Life on Earth.’ I read that and I was like, ‘Oh, that is perfect’. That is the perfect encapsulation of what I feel like I’m doing, and people that I’m interested in are doing, and I think that’s what Ed’s doing. I feel we’re both finding the weird nuggets of what’s around us every day and cobbling it into this narrative and in that way I feel like we’re on a similar path.”

To learn more about the artists, photographers and creative entrepreneurs handpicked by Ed Templeton, pick up Huck 45 while stocks last. 

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