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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
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English
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HOW TO BE AN ARTIST

Jerry Saltz

Irreverent and inspiring advice for awakening your creative potential, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic.
Jerry Saltz is one of the most influential--and popular--culture writers working today. As the witty and passionate chief art critic for New York magazine, he is approached constantly by artists both amateur and professional, asking him for advice: How do I get started? How do I get better? Is what I'm doing even art at all? They want to know, in short, how to be an artist.

Now, expanding on his viral cover story for New York magazine--and drawing on his decades of immersion in the art world--Jerry Saltz has the answers. HOW TO BE AN ARTIST is an indispensable book of practical inspiration for creative people of all kinds. Brimming with dozens of brand new rules, prompts, exercises, and tips (Tell Your Own Story and You Will Be Interesting; Imagination Is More Important than Knowledge; Make Art for Now, Not for the Future; and Finish the Damn Thing!) designed to break through creative blocks, ignite motivation, conquer bad habits, and help artists of all kinds--painters, photographers, writers, performers--realize their dreams.

Jerry Saltz is the senior art critic at New York magazine and its entertainment site Vulture. He is the winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism, and a 2019 National Magazine Award. A frequent guest lecturer, he has spoken at the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, the Whitney Museum, and many others, and has appeared at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, the Rhode Island School of Design, Art Institute of Chicago, and elsewhere.
Available products
Book

Published 2020-03-17 by Riverhead

Book

Published 2020-03-17 by Riverhead

Comments

Inspiration leaps off the pages from Jerry Saltz's new book on creativity. One wants to say he's revealing secrets, but really, he's revealing intuitionintuition formed from decades of thinking about art. This book is for the artist or non-artist, for the person who gets plain English, for the person who understands that practical talk can coax out the mystical messages that lie underneath.

What is an artist? If most things make you bored or sad, but creating things makes you feel better, that's a sign that Fate is ushering you over to a tiny, rickety chair with a sign overhead that says, Hey, you. You might be an artist. The challenge then is, how to be a better artist. And Jerry Saltz is right: The truest answer is work. Practice. Make mistakes. Tear it up. Do it again. Get better. Keep going.

Ah! How to Be an Artist is such a fun and juicy read for artists of all kinds. 'Artists are cats,' he says - such a simple but brilliant description of the artist's relationship to the world. I read this and thought, I guess I am a real artist!

Being an artist is a lonely pursuit - twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for the rest of your life. Most of the time it hurts. This book will help the pain.

I was so moved by Jerry Saltz's incredible new book, How to Be an Artist... Deep and beautiful insights into how humans create.

Feeling creatively stymied? Get over it, says this Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic. Read more...

I am so blown away by the astonishing simplicity of what Jerry Saltz succeeds at - the act of naming what it means to be an artist. The way he hands away the keys, offering these tips to anyone, is an inspiring move, because it takes the tools of the literal masters and offers them to whoever wants them. Any reader would be lucky to escape their self-doubt to indulge in this straightforward, funny, and delightful guide.

An inspiring guide to making your art, putting it out into the world, and dealing with the consequences. I found a lot to steal here, and you will too.

In How to Be an Artist, Jerry Saltz is so right-on it scares me.

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