perhaps the best David Foster Wallace quote

"What the really good artists do is they're entirely themselves, they've got their own vision, their own way of fracturing reality, and if it's authentic and true, you will feel it in your nerve endings."

i think about this quote often, particularly in the context DFW originally placed it in during his 1997 Charlie Rose interview. the notion of making something "avant-garde" almost definitionally rejects the idea of a lineage or artistic tradition. it's not subversive to follow in the footsteps of something subversive. (see the endless line of Basquiat clones you'll find on short form platforms). i think there's almost nothing more important for the contemporary artist, working in any medium, than developing a true artistic perspective. one that lights something in your own nerve endings. that's the essence of it, i think.

the irony in quoting an older, highly successful artist here to make this point isn't lost on me.

-12/28/25