Reviews

The kind of books you read instead of making art lol. But seriously, I discovered this book from reading the negative reviews of The War of Art, which I've read a few times trying to motivate myself when I'm procrastinating. Ya know, to get over that dreaded resistance we artists face.

I read Art & Fear in the face of a big client project I was about to work on. Procrastinating, feeling dread, fear, anxiety. Even though it was an awesome client and opportunity for me to make something cool and get paid, I still felt a lot of negative emotions before starting.

This book served its purpose, to get me to accept the fact that it's okay to feel these uncomfortable feelings as an artist. And instead of trying to push through them and discipline ourselves to work harder, it leaves room to acknowledge the complexities of what artmaking actually is and why we do it.

I would listen to this before I'd work on my project and it'd help me get in the mood to do the work and once I started, my creative and OCD brain would take over and I'd finish the piece. Turns out a big reason for not starting is because once I start, it's hard to stop. I get glued to my computer screen and forget to eat or listen to my body. Hours pass and my neck hurts from being hunched over my drawing tablet or I'm feeling a compulsive need to finish what I started because I know starting again will be difficult. So yeah, I'm not perfect at this.

While this book helps me procrastinate, it's paradoxically helps me stop procrastinating and get to work feeling just a bit better about things than before.

I only give three stars because I found the second half a bit boring and not applicable to my situation.