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A review by pdxpagemaster
Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by Ted Orland, David Bayles
fast-paced
5.0
“As a maker of art you are custodian of issues larger than self…making art allows, indeed guarantees, that you declare yourself. Art is contact, and your work necessarily reveals the nature of that contact. In making art you declare what is important.”
For being initially written in 1993, this book doesn’t miss.
I came back to this text 10 years after first initially reading it as an undergraduate theatre and dance student. Now a decade into my professional artist life, so much of what Bayles & Orland write still resonate with my own relationship to art and art-making.
Some of the work shows how it is dated, but only very briefly. Their willingness to address things like cultural appropriation by white artists is particularly resonant today.
It was nice to read a fresh copy with new knowledges, and laugh again at the perils, but to also feel encouraged in my own need to create and be creative.
For being initially written in 1993, this book doesn’t miss.
I came back to this text 10 years after first initially reading it as an undergraduate theatre and dance student. Now a decade into my professional artist life, so much of what Bayles & Orland write still resonate with my own relationship to art and art-making.
Some of the work shows how it is dated, but only very briefly. Their willingness to address things like cultural appropriation by white artists is particularly resonant today.
It was nice to read a fresh copy with new knowledges, and laugh again at the perils, but to also feel encouraged in my own need to create and be creative.