How to Be an Artist - Hardcover

Saltz, Jerry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593086465 ISBN 13: 9780593086469

Publisher: Riverhead Books, 2020

Synopsis

Instant New York Times Bestseller

"Inspiration leaps off the pages from Jerry Saltz''s new book on creativity. . . . This book is for the artist or non-artist, for the person who gets plain English, for the person who understands that practical talk can coax out the mystical messages that lie underneath." —Steve Martin

Art has the power to change our lives. For many, becoming an artist is a lifelong dream. But how to make it happen? In How to Be an Artist, Jerry Saltz, one of the art world’s most celebrated and passionate voices, offers an indispensable handbook for creative people of all kinds.

From the first sparks of inspiration—and how to pursue them without giving in to self-doubt—Saltz offers invaluable insight into what really matters to emerging artists: originality, persistence, a balance between knowledge and intuition, and that most precious of qualities, self-belief. Brimming with rules, prompts, and practical tips, How to Be an Artist gives artists new ways to break through creative blocks, get the most from materials, navigate career challenges, and above all find joy in the work.

Teeming with full-color artwork from visionaries ancient and modern, this beautiful and useful book will help artists of all kinds—painters, photographers, writers, performers—realize their dreams.

About this title

About the Author

Jerry Saltz is the senior art critic at New York magazine and its entertainment site Vulture. The winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism, he has lectured at MoMA, the Guggenheim, the Whitney, and many other museums, and at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and elsewhere. Saltz lives in New York.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Step One: You Are a Total Amateur
Five lessons before you even get started.
 
Lesson 1: Don’t Be Embarrassed

 
I get it. Making art can be humiliating, terrifying, leave you feeling foul, exposed, like getting naked in front of someone else for the first time. You often reveal things about yourself that others may find appalling, weird, boring, or stupid. People may think you’re abnormal or a hack. Fine. When I work, I feel sick to my stomach with thoughts like None of this is any good. It makes no sense. But art doesn’t have to make sense. It doesn’t even need to be good. So don’t worry about being smart and let go of being “good.”

Lesson 2: “Tell your own story and you will be interesting.” — Louise Bourgeois
 
Amen, Louise. Don’t be reined in by other people’s definitions of skill or beauty or be boxed in by what is supposedly high or low. Don’t stay in your own lane. Drawing within the lines is for babies; making things add up and be right is for accountants. Proficiency and dexterity are only as good as what you do with them. But also remember that just because it’s your story, that doesn’t mean you’re entitled to an audience. You have to earn that. Don’t try to do it with a big single project. Take baby steps. And be happy with baby steps.
 
Lesson 3: Feel Free to Imitate
 
We all start as copycats, people who make pastiches of other people’s work. Fine! Do that. However, when you do this, focus, start to feel the sense of possibility in making all these things your own — even when the ideas, tools, and moves come from other artists. Whenever you make anything, think of yourself as entering a gigantic stadium filled with ideas, avenues, ways, means, and materials. And possibilities. Make these things yours. This is your house now.
 
Lesson 4: Art Is Not About Understanding. Or Mastery.
 
It is about doing and experience.
 
No one asks what Mozart means. Or an Indian raga or the little tripping dance of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to “Cheek to Cheek” in Top Hat. Forget about making things that are understood. I don’t know what Abba means, but I love it. Imagination is your creed; sentimentality and lack of feeling your foe. All art comes from love — love of doing something.

Lesson 5: Work, Work, Work
 
Sister Corita Kent said, “The only rule is work. If you work, it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all the time who eventually catch onto things.”
 
I have tried every way in the world to stop work-block or fear of working, of failure. There is only one method that works: work. And keep working.
 
Every artist and writer I know claims to work in their sleep. I do all the time. Jasper Johns famously said, “One night I dreamed that I painted a large American flag, and the next morning I got up and I went out and bought the materials to begin it.” How many times have you been given a whole career in your dreams and not heeded it? It doesn’t matter how scared you are; everyone is scared. Work. Work is the only thing that takes the curse of fear away.

Edition details

• Publisher: Riverhead Books
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0593086465
• ISBN 13: 9780593086469
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 129