📚 April 2023

On re-reading and my Springless year

“Each time I do a still life, I get very excited and realize that there are a thousand things here I can see! Which of them shall I choose? The more I look and think about it, the more I see. These simple little things are unbelievably rich. A lot of people have forgotten that. But you can remind them.” — David Hockney, Spring Cannot Be Cancelled

Books I brought from London to Auckland

I look at the book sitting on the shelf I brought with me from London to Auckland, one of my favourite ones, one I have learned so much from: Spring Cannot Be Cancelled by Martin Gayford and David Hockney, and I think with irony that mine, in a way, has been, and that instead of the beginning of Spring in April, we will be walking towards another Autumn. And that my Spring has been cancelled - or postponed, if one chooses to look at it with an optimistic lens - and I will have to wait another half a year to see the blossoms again.

I’ll remember this year as my Springless Year. People keep saying how horrible winter will be in Auckland: ”wet and cold”. Not very different from London, then. In any case, it is just a season, and like everything, it will pass. Plus, I am excited to celebrate my birthday in Spring for the second time in my life. I need to see the silver linings.

“People just don’t notice the spring sometimes” (David Hockney)

There is a pattern I have been noticing in myself: I devour books. This is not new to me, though, I love reading, but I have come to realise that much of the great stuff I read about I am likely to forget in the next months if I don’t pause, review and reflect on it.

This is why re-reading is such a great tool, as it is drawing the same subject over and over again to see more. That quote above from Hockney summarises it well: “The more I look and think about it, the more I see”.

There are many ways to re-read books, but these are some techniques I use:

• Re-read the whole book

  I do this yearly with very special books such as The Little Prince and every time I read it there is a new discovery. It is interesting how the process of re-reading at different moments in time layers the interpretation of the story with my own memories and emotions at that time.

• Re-read highlighted notes and marked pages

  I tend to do this regularly even while I am still reading that specific book or with books I’ve read recently I want to reflect on it in more detail to retain key information. I go back to previous chapters to review some notes and I also usually go back to my favourite books to re-read quotes on marked pages.

• Re-read a whole specific chapter or section, diving into the concepts in more detail

  Some of the books I’ve recently read are quite actionable, with practical creativity exercises I read through but don’t immediately perform. I am going back to some of them specifically to test these assignments and ideas.

I keep looking at Hockney’s cheeky and cheerful expression on the cover of the book Spring Cannot Be Cancelled (he has it all figured out, hasn’t he?) and decide I will re-read it (entirely, of course) at some point in the following months, maybe in the next arrival of Spring, which will coincide with September here in the South Hemisphere.

Other books I am keen on re-reading and exploring deeper are the recent Creativity, Inc. and Hundertwasser’s books and writings. The latter is a recent discovery and will talk about him and his artwork and philosophies in more detail in the next post.

Happy reading! (and for those in the North Hemisphere, happy Spring! :) 📚✨

Ana

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📚 What I’m reading in April 2023:

• Hundertwasser. For Future by Hundertwasser himself and Pierre Restany and Carolin Wurfel as contributors is a collection of his provoking and ahead-of-time thoughts and manifestos on sustainable design and the environment.

• Der Unbekannte Hundertwasser (The Yet Unknown Hundertwasser) is a compilation of all his works and writings on the different disciplines he practiced.

• Ganbatte! The Japanese Art of Always Moving Forward by Albert Liebermann. I am a huge fan of Japanese art and culture and all their philosophies on living. This book found me in the beautiful Unity Books bookstore in Auckland’s CBD.

• A Whack on the Side of the Head by Roger von Oech. This was a fantastic recommendation from ChatGPT when I asked this AI about the best books written on creativity with lots of actionable advice.

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Thanks so much for reading!

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All images © Ana Vila