Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

This book is one that I will return to again and again like a mantra. I'm so happy that it is available in audio now. I can listen to it driving back and forth to the day job - the job that allows me to buy any art supplies I need but keeps me too busy to remember where my studio is and too tire to go there when I do remember.

"The hardest part of artmaking is living your life in such a way that your work gets done, over and over..."

No. This performance would be my first for him.

"It is easier to paint in the angel's feet to another's master-work than to discover where the angels live within yourself."

I've read Art & Fear two or three times over the last several years. My paperback copy is worn and underlined. It's a book I go back to when I get stuck in my art. Yesterday, I was looking for my copy, couldn't find it and turned to Audible. I was thrilled to find it here! The prose is sometimes beautiful and sometimes sarcastic. The writers don't take themselves too seriously. That being said, they never fail offer the encouragement I need when I start doubting my artistic integrity.

I really enjoyed this meditation on what it means to be an artist and to make art. The authors try not to have it be specific to one type of art and are generally successful. While I found the section on art school interesting it was not particularly useful to me for the making of art. The book is a good encouragement to create the art you have the desire to make.

The performance was excellent. A very good and engaging reader. This book could have come across as dry or tedious but Arthur Morely brings the book to life.

If you create any kind of art I recommend this book.

I was assigned this book in art class. I was a little turned off because the title isn't very inspiring, but I ended up really liking it because it describes an artist's daily life so well. It reminds me about what's important about being an artist--the simple, humble task of going into your studio day after day--rather than inflating the artist's life into some grandiose thing that it's not. It also reminds me that there are other artists out there. It's pretty inspiring after all.

The content of the book is perfect! I whish I was a writer so I could adequately express how this book has impacted my life. I have been bound by fear and many other issues that the author writes about, that I was frozen. I could not work, paint, sing, play my cello. After the first chapter I was cleaning off my work table and got back to work! Thank you so much!
This book has truly changed my life!

Every moment.

Thank you, Thank you!!

Very Insightful Book

The example give of quantity over quality

Yes

Arthur Morey is a great narrator

I read this book a few years ago and thought I would get a refresher by listening to the audiobook. Although I love the information it is one of those books you have to read. If you are an artist or want to be, I highly suggest this book. But read it, because it will give you more time to let what they are telling you really sink in.

encouraging, enlightening, reaffirming.

encouragement in a language that creatives all speak, musicians, visual artists, dancers, culinary artists, sculptors, it speaks to all of us in our language. It provides a path out of frustration and the option of quitting the creative process.

Solid and soothing.

I teach art and this book consolidates what i have been trying to say for years
That is -- just get in and do it

nope. I don't think they have anything useful to offer me.

This was more of a self-help book for people who aren't sure if they are artists. The authors assumed that fear prevents artists from making art. I disagree. I think fear prevents not-quite-artists from becoming artists. Artists make art.

I thought this was going to to be an art history book or a contemporary criticism book about society's reaction to confrontational art and art that breaks the rules. Either that or it would be about artists like Goya depicting fear, death, and horror in art.

sure. he was fine.

it might be on Lifetime. or an old fuzzy VHS at the library that no one checks out. For just two easy payments of 9.99 you too can be an artist. Take our free drawing test.

sorry aspiring artists, but you can become a real artist if you make art. you have to just do it, you don't need to listen to this audiobook.

Yes, I can listen to this inspirational self portrait any time I need it, and spend the time painting that I would be reading!

It spoke to thoughts that I have often.