The Art Spirit: Notes, Articles, Fragments of Letters and Talks to Students, Bearing on the Concept and Technique of Picture Making, the Study of Art Generally, and on Appreciation (Icon Editions) Review

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(More customer reviews)My friend who was an artist gave me this book to read. Now it is one of the few that I carry around at all times. Robert Henri saw that there is no division between art and life. To be an artist, or trully alive for that matter, one has to experience life to his fullest. This means finding yourself and the people/things/and way of living that inspire you. When beauty strikes you so, and your full of love and joy it is hard not to do things beautifully. Henri tells us to find that beauty within us and the rest will follow. And one of the most enjoying things I found about this book was that the authors personality is very bright in every sentence. It made the book a great read. To enjoy this book, you need not to know art but to know life.

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Letters to a Young Artist: Straight-up Advice on Making a Life in the Arts-For Actors, Performers, Writers, and Artists of Every Kind Review

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While all young people embarking on careers could probably use some good sound advice, one cannot help but think that those hoping for a stage career are especially in need of encouragement, warnings, and practical guidance. That is precisely what actress/playwright Anna Deavere Smith delivers in her book, which borrows its format from Rilke's Letters To A Young Poet.
Smith has an exciting career, having won two Obies, two Tony nominations, a MacArthur "genius" fellowship, and a Pulitzer Prize nomination. Now, Director of the Institute on the Arts and Civic dialogue and a New York University professor, she has seen her share of disappointment and joy. All of this she shares candidly, expressively as she narrates the good, the bad, and the rewards of "life upon the wicked stage."
Much of what she has to say is simply common sense, such as reminding us that good ideas are abundant but turning these ideas into reality takes determination and concentrated effort. Smith warns of procrastination, and the down side of fame. She provides hints for boosting confidence, acquiring a presence.
Rather than being a plain vanilla how-to book, Smith alternates her advice with stories from her own life, sometimes funny, at other times sad. It's a winning mix that makes for entertaining and enlightening listening.
- Gail Cooke

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Art and Design in Photoshop: How to simulate just about anything from great works of art to urban graffiti Review

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(More customer reviews)There are plenty of beginner guides to Photoshop, and even a few dozen decent intermediate books. But, sooner or later, you reach a point when you're asking yourself, "What's next?" This book provides the answer. It's filled with techniques and ideas that will have anyone who's mastered the basics of Photoshop creating works of art. If you want to go beyond the simple tools of correction, compositing, and image repair, start here.

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The Philosophy of Andy Warhol : (From A to B and Back Again) Review

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(More customer reviews)Seriously, at a certain point when I was around 18 or 19, this was my Bible, or my Little Red Book - I and a handful of friends (Warhol died at about the same time) took every syllable here very, very seriously.
This is kinda funny to me now, but it's a great book still, a truly unique cultural artifact. Warhol - as always maintains the trademark deadpan aloofness here, which had a few odd purposes beyond simply looking cool: there were rare instances when he'd drop his guard and a hint of social relevance would enter the frame, which did run contrary to most of what Warhol did, here especially. Doing so would turn art into something didactic, and - as a joke doesn't work if you have to explain the punch line, art flops if you have to lead your viewers, or readers, by the hand into your meaning. Thus Warhol's stylish glibness and affected cool served a brilliant purpose - it made demands of everyone who came into contact with it.
Here we have Warhol's epigrams - spread out like some artboy approximation of 'Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung,' all about equally quotable, useless, devoid of literary merit, yet (unlike the leaden and ideologically bankrupt Chairman) also stylish and memorable, even at their most zoned out.
The other great method behind Warhol's facades is here as well - the same impulse that turned canned soup into the artworks of a once very, very poor 2nd-generation immigrant's child (if you were going hungry, Campell's soup would in fact become, and possibly remain, a beautiful thing, and we all know that beautiful things are and always will be one of the most fitting of subjects for art). These cryptic sayings and jottings all seem constructed to get us all to see the small stuff for what it is, and learn to appreciate it for that.
Warhol was like Elvis - all things to all people. And about as maddening, contradictory and semiotically intriguing as Elvis. This slim little book is one of his strangest and most magnificent achievements.
-David Alston

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