Art and Fear

This is as close to an art/design bible as you can get. Empowering, emphatic, challenging, and brutally honest. I'll read this book once a year probably for the rest of my life. It gave clarity to thoughts that have been rattling around my head for years. It gave me hope for things I'd long since considered to be ‘the way things are'. And it spoke confidence into my being as it dwells in an industry and thought world which is often ambiguous and, at it's worst, perilous. I can't wait to dive deeper into some of the parts I underlined and give time to some thoughts I had along the way.

As always, each reading offers a new round of thoughtful questions, and the reassurance that I don't toil alone. A comforting, beautiful book.

I found an audio copy of this book at my library and started reading it when I saw it on a recommended list for writers recently.

Oh my. Is it ever a fabulous book for writers?!

I wrote down a lot of quotes from the book to save and read again:

“This book is about making art. Ordinary art. Ordinary art means something like: all art not made by Mozart. After all, art is rarely made by Mozart-like people - essentially (statistically speaking) there aren't any people like that. But while geniuses may get made once-a-century or so, good art gets made all the time. Making art is a common and intimately human activity, filled with all the perils (and rewards) that accompany any worthwhile effort. The difficulties artmakers face are not remote and heroic, but universal and familiar.”

“Art is made by ordinary people. Creatures having only virtues can hardly be imagined making art. It's difficult to picture the Virgin Mary painting landscapes. Or Batman throwing pots. The flawless creature wouldn't need to make art.”

“The only work really worth doing – the only work you can do convincingly – is the work that focuses on the things you care about.”

“The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot -albeit a perfect one - to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes - the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.”

“Those who would make art might begin by reflecting on the fate of those who preceded them: most who began, quit. To survive as an artist requires confronting these troubles. Basically, those who continue to make art are those who have learned how to continue - or more precisely, have learned how to not quit.”

“The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your artwork that soars. One of the basic and difficult lessons every artist must learn is that even the failed pieces are essential.”

“The truth is that the piece of art which seems so profoundly right in its finished state may earlier have been only inches or seconds away from total collapse. Art is like beginning a sentence before you know its ending. The risks are obvious; you may never get to the end of the sentence at all - or having gotten there, you may not have said anything. This is probably not a good idea in public speaking, but it's an excellent idea in making art.”

“A brief digression in which the authors attempt to answer (or deflect) an objection:
Q: Aren't you ignoring the fact that people differ radically in their abilities?
A: No.
Q: But if people differ, and each of them were to make their best work, would not the more gifted make better work, and the less gifted, less?
A: Yes. And wouldn't that be a nice planet to live on?”

There are many, many more quotable quotes.

I think I'm going to listen to this again.

i read this 1.5 times, because i approached it for the first 50 pages as a standard self-help book and was looking for bolded phrases and Action Items and end-of-chapter exercises. it isn't that, but if you read it slowly and thoughtfully (it's only 100 pages) and, if you're like me, with a pen and paper in hand, there are some really valuable insights in here.

This book is just brilliant. There is a chapter on art schools which has changes the way I think about a lot of things.

I would rate this 10 stars if I could. Highly, highly recommend for any friends creating art in any form—this book is a crystal clear reference about “the way art gets made, the reasons it often doesn't get made, and the nature of the difficulties that cause so many artists to give up along the way.” Totally unpretentious. Funny and concise, to boot. I will be returning to this book often.