What Are You Reading ? Recommended Books Part #2
For artists and creatives seeking inspiration and guidance, a myriad of enriching reads awaits. Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon is a gem that encourages embracing influence and fostering creativity by drawing from diverse sources. For those navigating the tumultuous waters of the creative process, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic offers a refreshing perspective on facing fears and embracing curiosity. The War of Art by Steven Pressfield serves as a rallying cry against procrastination and self-doubt, urging readers to conquer resistance and unlock their creative potential. Additionally, here are several more choices from our NEW community. These books stand as uplifting glimmers of wisdom, guiding artists and creatives along their unique paths of expression and discovery.
Our first book is recommended by both Lia Rothstein and myself Soosen Dunholter.
The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life’s Work At 72 by Molly Peacock
A beautifully written tour de force from an internationally acclaimed poet, The Paper Garden is at once a biography of an extraordinary eighteenth-century woman and a fascinating meditation on late-life creativity.
Mary Granville Pendarves Delany (1700-1788) was the witty, beautiful, and talented daughter of a minor branch of a powerful family. Married off at seventeen to a sixty-one-year-old drunken squire to improve the family fortunes, then widowed by twenty-five, she would spurn many suitors over the next twenty years, including the charismatic Lord Baltimore, but she also refused to retire to a quiet, pensioned existence. She cultivated a wide circle of friends, including Handel and Jonathan Swift. She also painted, she stitched, she observed, as she swirled in the outskirts of the Georgian court. In mid-life, she finally found love, and married again.
When visiting London several years ago I was fortunate enough to see four of Mrs. Delany’s original extraordinarily detailed floral collages at the British Museum. What a treat!!
Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to Seem
by Briana Bosker. A Terrific Read offered by Ruth Sack If you are interested in the Art Scene in New York City, this is the book for you. It is written by a young journalist who wished to understand the artwork she saw all around her as well as the machinations that brought the art to her attention. The book’s first section is a hilarious, perhaps cynical review of the gallery world as Bianca attached herself to a successful gallerist. I was laughing out loud at times. The author ended up assisting an artist she admires and gradually learned to really look at art. She eventually worked as a guard at the Guggenheim and really began to understand how to look at art – FOR HOURS. She learned a great deal about art and shared some useful lessons. I highly recommend this recently published book.
For Dona Mara Friedman Cold Wax Medium: Techniques, Concepts & Conversations by Jerry McLaughlin and Rebecca Crowell – is a veritable bible for artists who have an interest in this medium. Having studied with these 2 authors who are dedicated painters, she hears their voices as she reads through so many of the how-to’s. It clearly describes many uses for this versatile medium.
Nancy Whitcomb visited The Morgan Library in NYC and the RISD Museum exhibit of Shazia Sikander’s work. She loved her work and looks forward to learning more about her. The Pakistani-born, New York-based artist unites traditional approaches with contemporary concerns to create an iconography of her own. Her intricately detailed works are often on a large scale and sometimes painted directly onto walls or on canvases stained with tea. Her book is titled Shahzia Sikander: Extraordinary Realities.
A favorite art book of Lola Baltzell is Patrick Heron by Mel Gooding. “He lived from 1920-1999. I don’t recall how I came across him, but even as I look through the pages today, I feel inspired by his use of color and looseness. His later works have a white background. I find that very exciting”.
Stephanie Roberts-Camello said that she had so many favorite art books as well as novels, it was difficult to choose one. She decided to hi-light a woman artist, one of her heroine’s, Elizabeth Murray. Elizabeth Murray’s paintings and sculptural panels curated by Robert Storr, is a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2005. The image plates start with her early paintings and drawings of minimalism in the early 70’s and her abstracted everyday objects. It’s fascinating to go through and see how her work evolves from the fractured images on irregular angled canvases into her jaw dropping paintings on dimensional organic shaped canvases that a carpenter had to construct. Her colors, her shapes, her sense of humor all shine through and inspire Stephanie when she sits down and looks through this book.
Thanks for all these new ideas. As a book lover I am old fashioned in that I like to hold a real book in my hands, the digital books don’t do it for me.
I feel the same way Dona!
Fine line up of books I need to check out! Thank you for all the book ideas!
Looks like some great suggestions. I’m going to see if any of these are available as audio books. Might be nice to listen to in the studio!
I like that idea!