Art & Fear cover art

Art & Fear

Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

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Art & Fear

By: David Bayles, Ted Orland
Narrated by: Arthur Morey
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About this listen

What is your art really about? Where is it going? What stands in the way of getting it there? These are questions that matter, questions that recur at each stage of artistic development - and they are the source for this volume of wonderfully incisive commentary.

Art & Fear explores the way art gets made, the reasons it often doesn't get made, and the nature of the difficulties that cause so many artists to give up along the way. This is a book about what it feels like to sit in your studio or classroom, at your wheel or keyboard, easel or camera, trying to do the work you need to do. It is about committing your future to your own hands, placing free will above predestination, choice above chance. It is about finding your own work.

©1993 David Bayles and Ted Orland (P)2012 Tantor Art Education Higher & Continuing Education Selling Art Online
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Recommend to me by Alyssa Monks, this book clearly states what I can never seem to express!
Life and soul affirming!! Thank you!!

A must for every artist!!

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the book was interesting but too short for the subject he was talking about,the book goes on to talk about the struggles of being an artist

loved it but too short

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This book is a true awakening for any artist. A recognition of why we would stop making what we want to make, and logic to drive us to continue making it.

Understanding and Doubt

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My average ratings is subjective. I know ratings always are but this is a well written book with a lot of truth but I found it so dry – partly in the narrating. Regardless it could use a little more humour. It certainly didn’t make me want to write more songs and pick my paint brush again and keep putting work out despite my putting out a good looking selfie that took a second getting far more attention than something I worked on for days or months or years; and keep working against the twin foes of indifference and internal and perceived external criticism until periods of eventual paralysis. It did however explain all this fear and dissatisfaction very well - why I and so many others are still paying off an education that made us lose all interest in creating Art, associating it with poverty and disrespect and to be associated with a post modernist paradigm you might have no interest in encouraging.
May I direct listeners to Steven Pressfield’s – The War of Art – either as a companion or an alternative if you picked up Art & Fear for the same reasons I did, or just keep chipping away till you find your voice again.

Art & Fear

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