“The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world.”

— from The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

“There’s nothing as significant as a human face. Nor as eloquent. We can never really know another person, except by our first glance at him. Because, in that glance, we know everything. Even though we’re not always wise enough to unravel the knowledge.”

— from The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

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“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. It is real.. It is possible.. It’s yours.”

— from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

“Psychoanalysis is often about turning our ghosts into ancestors, even for patients who have not lost loved ones to death. We are often haunted by important relationships from the past that influence us unconsciously in the present. As we work them through, they go from haunting us to becoming simply part of our history.”

— from The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge

URBAN SKETCHERS SINGAPORE

This inaugural compendium of sketches documents the escapades of the locally based Urban Sketchers Singapore group while reflecting on urban context and city planning through the eyes of a diverse group of artists and sketch hobbyists.

Anchored by the work of the earliest members, the book aims to represent the island city-state through a varied selection of sketches that show off the wide spectrum of skill, techniques and experience found amongst the urban sketchers of Singapore.

(This title is available for sale on our online store !)

101 THINGS TO LEARN IN ART SCHOOL
by Kit White

Lessons, demonstrations, definitions, and tips on what to expect in art school, what it means to make art, and how to think like an artist.

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”№ 1 : Art can be anything.

It is not defined by medium or the means of its production, but by a collective sense that it belongs to a category of experience we have come to know as ‘art.’”

(This title is available for sale on our online store !)

“And when things get tough, this is what you should do: Make good art. I’m serious. Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? Make good art. IRS on your trail? Make good art. Cat exploded? Make good art. Someone on the Internet thinks what you’re doing is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before? Make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, eventually time will take the sting away, and that doesn’t even matter. Do what only you can do best: Make good art. Make it on the bad days, make it on the good days, too.”

— from Neil Gaiman’s ‘Make Good Art’ speech

FLOATING ON A MALAYAN BREEZE
by Sudir Thomas Vadaketh

What happens after a country splits apart ? Forty-seven years ago Singapore separated from Malaysia. Since then, the two countries have developed along their own paths. Malaysia has given preference to the majority Malay Muslims—the bumiputera, or sons of the soil. Singapore, meanwhile, has tried to build a meritocracy—ostensibly colour-blind, yet more encouraging perhaps to some Singaporeans than to others. How have these policies affected ordinary people ? How do these two divergent nations now see each other and the world around them ?

Seeking answers to these questions, two Singaporeans set off to cycle around Peninsular Malaysia, armed with a tent, two pairs of clothes and a daily budget of three US dollars each. They spent 30 days on the road, cycling through every Malaysian state, and chatting with hundreds of Malaysians. Not satisfied, they then move on to interview many more people in Malaysia and Singapore. What they found are two countries that have developed economically but are still struggling to find their souls.

“Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay ? Getting happy.”

— from On Writing by Stephen King

“In a relationship, one mind revises another; one heart changes its partner. This astounding legacy of our combined status as mammals and neural beings is limbic revision: the power to remodel the emotional parts of the people we love, as our Attractors activate certain limbic pathways, and the brain’s inexorable memory mechanism reinforces them.

Who we are and who we become depends, in part, on whom we love.”

— from A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis