Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevensis an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He first came to wider recognition with the 2000 album, A Sun Came, which was released on the Asthmatic Kitty label he co-founded with his stepfather. He is perhaps best known for his 2005 album, Illinois, which hit number one on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart, and for the single "Chicago" from that album...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth1 July 1975
CountryUnited States of America
book knitting littles
I don't really have a domestic inclination. Even my apartment has a semblance of a storage facility. It's just stacks, there are no bookshelves, just books and piles of stamp collections and weird little sewing and knitting projects.
abstraction
I like residing in abstraction.
moving exercise thinking
I have a lot of friends who have hula-hoops, it's like a mixture of dance and athletics and exercise, meditation. It's a healthy hobby I think. I can do a few tricks, I can hoop from my neck and shoulders, and I can do a few moves, a few tricks! I can walk through the hoop whilst it's spinning. I feel like there's definitely an interest in promoting the hula-hoop as an important pastime!
night hands tuesday
Tuesday night at the Bible study we lift our hands and pray over your body, but nothing ever happens.
men known
I’ve never known a man who loved me.
objectivity designer graphic
I've always been a visual person, I'm formerly a graphic designer. I've always seen myself as an observer. I like to maintain objectivity and don't get too intimately involved in my subjects.
suffering individual spite
I quickly learned that you don't have to be incarcerated by suffering, and that, in spite of the dysfunctional nature of your family, you are an individual in full possession of your life.
giving
When I live, I'll give it all I've got.
song believe play
I'm not beholden to the public, and neither are the public beholden to me or my songs. I'm very much of a populist on those terms, I believe that the song is no longer mine anyway. I like to process the dispossession that happens when you play something live. I don't have a clue as to how these songs are going to plan out, whether they're going to be on a record. I don't know yet.
moving stories brilliant
There is nothing more incredible and moving and appealing than good music, and it cannot always be reduced to a story, to exposition. It's so much more abstract and brilliant.
artist parent honor
I'm being explicit about really horrifying experiences in my life, but my hope has always been to be responsible as an artist and to avoid indulging in my misery, or to come off as an exhibitionist. I don't want to make the listener complicit in my vulnerable prose poem of depression, I just want to honor the experience. I'm not the victim here, and I'm not seeking other peoples' sympathy. I don't blame my parents, they did the best they could.
believe love-is mutual-respect
Love is unconditional and incomprehensible. And I believe it's possible to love absent of mutual respect.
writing blood years
Perhaps we have failed as human beings. Perhaps we have embarrassed ourselves to the natural world. We have been rigorous and willful in all the wrong ways. But it doesn't have to be this way. Maybe you don't want to deal with (marching), the permanent marker and poster board. But try something else. Carry someone's groceries. Chat with the custodian in your office building. Donate blood. Live in Rwanda for a year. Write letters to the Department of Buildings. Learn to knit. It is only going to get better from here on out.
thinking just-being boring
I'm terrified of just being myself because I think it's boring. I know who I really am and I think it's boring.