‘You should have an idea, but it should be a vague idea’ – Picasso

1. Stop working while there’s still water in the well. Leave a place to start tomorrow
2. Always have at least one piece going that uses cheap materials: house paint, craft paper, crayons, cardboard. It’s liberating, intuitive and someday it will give restorers and conservators something to do
3. Appreciate your enemies. If someone hates your work they’re paying attention
4. If you try to be trendy you’re already too late. Do what you are
5. Make all moves provisional and partial
6. All artists who ever lived are not only still alive but still working
7. Shop for art in thrift stores and yard sales. Train your eye to see work, not ‘worth’
8. Just because an artist is famous doesn’t mean it’s her fault. Some people are just unlucky
9. There is no single ‘art world’; there are thousands
10. Don’t expect people to get your jokes
11. Art has no ‘history’. There is no linear progression. All art exists in the present, all at once 
12. Work in multiple media at the same time. They inform each other
13. When you visit a gallery or museum, go directly to the center of each room and look for something that calls you. Don’t follow the walls reading the labels
14. Just because an artist is great doesn’t mean every work is good. Some of their work sucks – just like some of yours
15. Reveal your process, that’s what people really want to see
16. Once you leave art school no one cares if you ever make another picture – many will secretly prefer that you don’t. You might as well do what you really want to do
17. Beware of ‘art lovers’ – they usually don’t
18. Work on at least 5 or 6 pieces at once
19. Don’t be precious. If you’re struggling with a picture to save one part, get rid of that part – it’s warping the rest. If you do it again you’ll do it better
20. Just because an artist is famous doesn’t mean you have to like his work
21. Gestation can take a lifetime
22. Memory is the mother of the Muses
23. Trust yourself – especially if you don’t know why you are going in some new direction. There’s a reason
24. Being an artist is just another way of learning who you are
25. Your studio is a tool. Arrange it for your process. When your work changes your studio should change too 
26. Read the comments and look for insight
27. Never read the comments
28. The trick to painting is knowing when to stop. Stay alert – your exit could come up at any moment
29. Don’t judge your own work by what you see in galleries or museums. That work is there for hundreds of reasons that have nothing to do with you or what you do
30. Make the move you must make. When you run out of things you must do, you’re done
31. Pricing: flip through numbers in your head until a bell rings. Don’t sell it for less
32. When you hear that someone’s late work is a ‘decline’, pay particularly close attention. Sometimes it’s true (Picasso), sometimes it’s not (DeKooning)
33. If you aren’t having bad days you aren’t trying hard enough
34. Let things cool off. Some pictures take days, some take years. If you still haven’t destroyed it in 10 years it’s probably finished as is 
35. Never repeat yourself
36. Repeat yourself whenever you want
37. You don’t need people to love your work. You need people to criticize, talk about and buy it
38. Don’t expect too much from your friends. You’re on your own
39. You’ll often get more out of hanging around with carpenters, welders and physicists than you’ll get hanging around with artists 
40. All work has a natural audience. Find them
41. Don’t sell your seed corn
42. You can’t cram everything into one piece
43. No matter what anyone tries to tell you, it is a competition
44. If you make 150 quick drawings of faces you’ll learn a lot. 1000 is even better
45. If you’ve said all you have to say by the 9th piece, forcing yourself to take a series to 15 is sheer tedium. Kill it. You can always come back to it later 
46. Clean your brushes and put your tools away at the end of the day. Clean your studio once a week
47. Match the scale of your tools to the scale of the work
48. You need to know other artists, especially the artists who need to know you
49. Plan your work, work your plan. Reverse engineer your calendar
50. Galleries are like icebergs. What’s visible is the least important part. How the pictures got on the wall is the most important: friendships, social networks, love affairs, feuds, history and yes – money. A gallery is the visible protrusion of a social world
51. If you aren’t at least slightly afraid that you suck, it’s too easy
52. Nobody really looks at work by a ‘genius’
53. Never envy. Ever
54. The single most important thing – find one good critic, whose opinion you trust and who will tell you what she really thinks 
55. Good luck