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Mona Lisa - Small Talk
Your weekly art takeaway
Mona L
August 04, 2024
Aug 04 | Issue 02
ML - Welcome to Mona Lisa. A weekly newsletter for artists with timeless quotes, ideas and light bites for curious & wandering minds.
Accept that any piece of criticism might have a grain of truth to it […] Maybe it’s that you’re ahead of your time […] Or maybe the piece that caught the critic’s eye was an experiment they didn’t know how to process. Or maybe you haven’t yet found a way to make your work speak to the people you’re trying to reach. That’s on you. Take it in; don’t blow it out of proportion; then get back to work. I always tell anyone criticizing me, “You could be right.” It has a nice double edge…
Little thoughts
🎨 Pharrell Williams proposes that they bring back the fine arts competition to the 2028 Olympic games.
🟢 Why Brat Green isn’t a real pigment.
🤓 Amateurs have a goal. Professionals have a system.
Mona’s notes
I think that I am fairly good at making small talk. However it’s fair to say that it is often viewed as a negative thing - mundane and mind-numbingly exhausting, insincere, shallow… weather and work chat 😪 Bashing small talk is guaranteed to get people talking about how much they dislike it too…cue meta-small talk.
Question is, don’t all relationships begin with small talk at some point? Isn’t small talk simply a way to connect - however briefly - in a world where we rarely look up from our phones? When we say that we don’t like small talk, are we saying that we don’t wish to connect with strangers? Or are we implying that it is somehow beneath us?
Every story, every incident, every bit of conversation is raw material for me.
Private views and networking events are hot-beds for small talk. I decided to view them as somewhat of a sport. From the curious lack of chickpeas in China to how truly accurate the weather app is at predicting rain to the minute, these sound bites challenge me to flex my creativity in conversation. What is the difference between small talk and the seemingly random information generated by my Instagram feed? I suppose it is humane connection - that I am required to absorb and respond with something more considered than a swipe or an emoji ❤️ It breeds connectivity in a charming and fleeting manner. A verbal handshake or star-jump.
Standing in front of a work of art at gallery events, I am discovering that one of the nicest ways to strike up rewarding small talk has been to simply ask: “So..what do you think?”
Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.
With love -
Mona x
“Listen to the sound of the earth turning” - Yoko Ono, Grapefruit 🌍
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