Mottos & Manifesto

Tape this inside your own sketchbook.

The five sketchbook rules

Taped inside Jamal’s sketchbook in fading marker, quoted here verbatim (from the fiction):

1. The grind is the gift.
2. Draw it before you say it.
3. Nobody’s coming — that’s good news. It means it’s yours.
4. Leave every wall better than you found it.
5. Crown up. Head high. Keep walking.

The Upstairs Manifesto

Painted on the studio’s back wall by Rosa, dictated by Jamal at 2 a.m.:

We are the kids the city drew in the margins, and we are drawing ourselves back into the center. We don’t wait for permission. We don’t wait for funding. We don’t wait for the grid. A blank wall is an invitation. A closed door is a draft. A “no” is a sketch, not a verdict. We show up. We draw first. We leave every wall — and every person — better than we found them. The Docks made us. We are making the Docks back. Crown up. Head high. Keep walking.

Mottos of the block

Short lines the neighborhood has adopted, all fictional:

• “Forward, somehow.” — the unofficial city motto, under the overpass.
• “Earn wall.” — Jamal to Kid Comet; now the studio’s admissions policy.
• “The second chair is my therapist’s office.” — Jamal on Big Tone’s barbershop.
• “Ninety slides, nine drawings.” — the night Jamal out-drew the developers.

The full playbook behind these lines is the Ambition Guide. The short fiction they come from is in Stories.

Source notes: Fictional mottos and manifesto, written for this fan guide.