Blog / 2024 / Sticking to It
August 21, 2024
There’s definitely a frivolous air about them—a kind of “stickers are for kids” feeling—but the art I send out to my monthly sticker club through Patreon is more than that. For one thing, I don’t just send out stickers of my art, but also magnets and postcards. For another, I send out stickers like this one.
It’s a design I first created earlier this year, in order to illustrate a blog post about a small win for the Constitution, which describes how my town came to officially celebrate a religious holiday that isn’t Christian.
“Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
But this James Baldwin quote is a good one to stick in a prominent place all the time, especially if you understand its original context.
It first appeared in “As Much Truth as One Can Bear,” an essay published in The New York Times in 1962. And, despite the way these words are often used, Baldwin’s quote doesn’t come from a text about social justice. Instead, the full essay is a love letter to artists as well as a guide for art lovers on how to understand writers and all kinds of creatives. In “As Much Truth as One Can Bear,” Baldwin acknowledges the difficulties of making art by unpacking the thankless work of bringing some of the harder truths about our society to light.
“Writers are extremely important people in a country, whether or not the country knows it. The multiple truths about a people are revealed by that people’s artists—that is what the artists are for.”
Art matters. Even if too many people see it as a luxury that’s not a part of their lives. Even if there’s not enough public funding for it.
And the seventyish people who have been a part of my sticker club at any given time—some of them for the full five years it’s existed and all of them giving an average of $15 a month—know that. It’s why I made this glitter sticker for them and why I’ll be sending it out to all sticker club members at the beginning of September.
The glittery version of this image is only available through Patreon, but, if you want this design in your life in some other form besides a sticker, there are t-shirts and mugs and things for sale on Redbubble!
Maybe this post made you think of something you want to share with me? Or perhaps you have a question about my art? I’d love to hear from you!
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