Become a pinstripe poet

“While my classmates were reading their textbooks, I drew in the margin.” Rauschenberg took education into his own hands. You should do the same.

Books gave van Gogh clarity in the midst of his chaotic life. Now scientists understand why.

What does it take to manage a virtuoso like John Coltrane… or Bill Evans… or Herbie Hancock? Ask Miles Davis. He led them all.

Artists aren’t renowned for their mental wellness. And Philip Guston bore greater traumas than most. But he persevered, eventually accepting himself for who he was.

“I always say I was the first knowledge worker whose job was threatened by a machine.” And how did you come back, Garry?

Zephaniah lived many lives: poet, activist, actor, vegan, martial artist, Rastafarian. But he lived them all as himself.

Where did Picasso’s genius come from? Other people? Two portraits, painted 26 years apart, drag us into the centre of the artist’s tumultuous relationships.

There are two ways to be a wealthy poet. You can be born rich, like Lord Byron. Or earn a living like T.S. Eliot, who hunched over a desk in the City of London.

“I live every day as if it were the last.” You sure did, Keith Haring. You left colourful, boogying figures on the walls.

A gun doesn’t make a hunter. And having a Leica camera with a 50mm lens won’t turn me into Henri Cartier-Bresson. I lack the killer instinct. (For now.)