Dec 20, 2009
At Home With Jenny Holzer, the Artist - List - NYTimes.com When inspiration struck: I moved to New York in the 1970s and started writing when I was at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. The epiphany for me was that I wasn’t a writer, and I had to do something with these texts. I put them in the streets as posters. I did a lot of skulking around downtown with a bucket of wheat paste and a roll of posters late at night and would occasionally get caught. Her doppelganger: There’s someone pretending to be me on Twitter. At least they’re using my stuff. I wouldn’t tweet. I like when my work is anonymous and public. Reason she stopped writing: I stopped using my own words in my work around 2001. I’m a half-baked writer at best and find the process painful, and I wanted to be able to include a greater range of subjects and emotions and all those good things than I could muster. In short, I like the art part better. Evening routine: Eat a frozen organic pizza. Maybe watch a “Law & Order” rerun. “Law & Order” reruns are important to country folk. It keeps the city close. I go to bed around 1-ish. Work routine: I work almost all the time; if I don’t work, I become anxious. About the only thing I do when I am home that isn’t work is a barn check, to make sure the horses aren’t stuck in corners. The horses are relaxed and happy to see me. I come bearing hay. Work she’d take back: How about everything I have done to a certain extent? I disappoint myself routinely. If you are an artist and you are honest, you are never good enough. Favorite line of the moment: “The future is stupid.” More questions and house pics here. (via austinkleon)

At Home With Jenny Holzer, the Artist - List - NYTimes.com

When inspiration struck: I moved to New York in the 1970s and started writing when I was at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. The epiphany for me was that I wasn’t a writer, and I had to do something with these texts. I put them in the streets as posters. I did a lot of skulking around downtown with a bucket of wheat paste and a roll of posters late at night and would occasionally get caught.

Her doppelganger: There’s someone pretending to be me on Twitter. At least they’re using my stuff. I wouldn’t tweet. I like when my work is anonymous and public.

Reason she stopped writing: I stopped using my own words in my work around 2001. I’m a half-baked writer at best and find the process painful, and I wanted to be able to include a greater range of subjects and emotions and all those good things than I could muster. In short, I like the art part better.

Evening routine: Eat a frozen organic pizza. Maybe watch a “Law & Order” rerun. “Law & Order” reruns are important to country folk. It keeps the city close. I go to bed around 1-ish.

Work routine: I work almost all the time; if I don’t work, I become anxious. About the only thing I do when I am home that isn’t work is a barn check, to make sure the horses aren’t stuck in corners. The horses are relaxed and happy to see me. I come bearing hay.

Work she’d take back: How about everything I have done to a certain extent? I disappoint myself routinely. If you are an artist and you are honest, you are never good enough.

Favorite line of the moment: “The future is stupid.”

More questions and house pics here.

(via austinkleon)

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