The Art Life: On Creativity and Career

The Art Life: On Creativity and Career is a collection of solicited and selected texts that address the philosophical and practical issues that affect art-making and the marketplace. It brings together visual artists, curators, dealers, writers, musicians, architects, actors, and educators, who speak to their internal motivations, influences and processes, and to their external engagements with community, audience, career and success. Many of the contributors have taken part in exhibitions and public programs at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center from 2007 to the present, and others have been included to represent provocative historical and contemporary viewpoints by a range of influential figures. The texts are taken from lectures, interviews, published statements, websites and email exchanges, and are joined by images of artists in the midst of creating or installing, as well as completed art works. The analytic and inspirational entries address the fact that a life in the arts can be simultaneously rewarding, frustrating, doubt-filled, joyful and uncertain. And yet, thousands of artists persist every day, motivated by a private insistency and the promise of satisfaction and recognition. Each is attempting to combine their creative life with a thriving career, and this publication provides various “words of wisdom” which can serve to inspire, challenge and reassure them. As painter Franz Kline said, “The real thing about creating is to have the capacity to be embarrassed.” The composite nature of The Art Life is meant to posit that each creative individual must find the necessary information and materials to best establish their unique voice. The book is as much found as written, a heady mix of opinions and questions that can be used in classrooms and studios by artists of all ages.