Boy, I wish I liked this more than I did.
I read Art & Fear back in university on a whim, just kind of breezing through it, and it had an enormous impact on me. I credit a lot of my current process and the acceptance of not not producing much of anything after finishing a project to the book. I decided to come back to it a) in the context of writing instead of music and b) in a more analytical fashion than just kind of plowing through it over a weekend, and it didn’t have nearly the same kick to it that I remember.
That’s not to say that the information in it is bad or in any way not useful! There’s a few good sections on perfection (I notably underlined the phrase “mistaking perfection for precision”), dry spells vs. annihilation of the self, and talent vs. skill. I was net positive on the content, overall.
I think I just struggled with the structure and tone of the book. I don’t mind a tone that is casual and conversational, but in a lot of places, this felt like a loose collection of thoughts; some of them glossed over too quickly, and some pounded into the dirt.
I bring this up because I think it really got in the way of me taking as much away from the book as I expected I would, given how neat I thought it would be as an exercise.
To the point, though, here are the things that were particularly applicable as I read through this time:
- I’ve been struggling a lot with impostor syndrome of late. My new job is not as easy as I expected. My writing continually feels like it’s falling short of what I’d like it to be. I don’t know how I got into this program and as much as I try to convince myself that I’m actually a master of disguise and acting who fooled the school into admitting me, it just doesn’t always work. I know that I got the job and admission to Cornell on at least some of my own merits, but convincing the less rational mind of this has been a chore. The book addresses a lot in terms of validation and rejection (notably rejection by the self or by imagined critics) that has, if nothing else, named my fears.
- There’s a good bit about trusting one’s materials/medium. Art is malleable. We are malleable. The materials are just the materials, though, and the medium is just the medium. We can use them in unique ways (say, by abusing footnotes or through concrete text, or by figuring out how to do pop-over notes in a browser as I did for Limerent Object). One can try and trust in art, but art is fickle. Ditto inspiration. Even process can fall apart and fail one.
- The section on artmaking in academia (both from the student and teacher side) was enlightening as it put words to some of what I’ve already noticed: having some structure to work can add a lot to the work itself. The quiet admonition that academia produces more ex-artists than it does artists was sobering, though, and my thoughts about getting into teaching are going to take careful consideration.
I’ve recommended this book to several of my friends and will doubtless recommend it to more. It’s simple, easy to digest, and contains a lot of good advice on what actually goes into making art. My opinion of it has cooled somewhat, and I don’t think I’d recommend it to be read in a serious fashion such as for annotations, but for folks kvetching in the writers’ guild chat, I’ll still toss it out there.