I’ve been faithfully watching movies about art/artists and checking them off the list.  Screenshot of the latest seen and added to the list?  Helvetica.  (Also the typeface of choice for true nature, ahem.) So good.

+ The Art Spirit by Robert Henri

I’ve written and spoken about this book many times before, and there is good reason. This compilation of letters, notes and lectures to the Robert Henri’s students are loosely organized by technical advice, inspiration and teachings that I come back to again and again. A favorite aspect of this book is how I can turn to any page and just jump in. I can’t help but feel like he was somehow a mentor of mine when I growing up… I found a paperback edition when I was around 15 at a used book store and it’s been dogeared and referenced ever since.  No artist should be without this one! (On a side note, I’ve also noticed the my reactions to his paintings I’ve been fortunate enough to see at museums strike a very personal chord with me, the same feeling I’ve had before when seeing art professor’s works in galleries have on me.  Since this book is all in text, it was much like being taught at school, without ever seeing the professor’s personal work but learning from their style and being schooled in everything they could pass on to me.  Then: seeing everything come together in their vision on the wall, understanding how every brushstroke from their hand came onto the canvas for the first time… you understand that work more intensly, more intimatly, it’s a a non visual language that you understand from that mentor relationship.)

+ The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharp

I know a book is worthy of teaching me something great when instead of just sitting down and plugging through it, I reach for my notebook and pen and cannot stop taking notes through the length of it.  There is an impression (stereotype?) out there that artists, because of their independent nature and willingness to change up the rules, don’t work well or are unreliable and flightly, etc. Though I know that holds up for some, Twyla proves in a stern fashion that there is a great discipline to craft, and it takes more than luck or talent to fulfill that potential.  This one will whip you into shape!

+ Trust the Process: An Artist’s Guide to Letting Go

If you are going through a rough patch, creatively speaking. If you are lacking confidence. If you are not sure what step is next. If you doubt that you should even start on the path of being an artist. If you don’t know where or why to begin. This is the book for you, truly a favorite.  (Hey, you might even avoid some psychotherapy picking this one up.)

+ Walking in This World by Julia Cameron

I read this so long ago, but had to include it in my list because I remember so many lightbulbs going off over my head while reading it.  It was like a bouquet of wattage floating over my red hair, but I know I need to go back and reread it to recall exactly what it was.  Most any Julia Cameron book will bring the artist to a good place in my opinion, and she certainly has a lot to choose from.  I’ve read most of her books, but this one in particular is special because it inspired the theme to my blog from one little line, “When we express our creativity, we are a conduit for the great creator to explore, express, and expand it’s divine nature and our own. We are like songbirds. When one of us gives voice to our true nature, it is contagious and others soon give tongue as well.” (Bold added so ya’d notice the name there, grin.) I have tried to live by that since those words sunk in years ago, it’s become the spine in my work and I love to feel my enthusiasm build when I hear it flowing in my mind.

What about you, do you have some favorite encouraging books for artists? I’d love to hear your recommendations!

+ Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

Lisa suggested this one as one of her favorites and I have to agree, there’s a reason it’s popular among artists! Go grab a copy if you haven’t had the chance to read it, it’s a slim little collection of letters, but you might want to take your time and savor it.

Thiebaud is one of my favorite painters, if for some reason you aren’t familiar with his work, I found a few videos that highlight some of the reasons I think he takes the cake…

The documentary Who Does She Think She Is? will have a screening tonight at Seattle’s SIFF Cinema. A film that asks the question—“Can women be artists and mothers and wives?” —and answers with a resounding “Yes!”

I’m crossing them off if I’ve seen them and updating this list as I go… Am I leaving any out, do you have any suggestions?

Pollock
Goya’s Ghosts Man, that Spanish inquisition was creepy!
Lust For Life (I started this once, but don’t remember finishing it…)
Camille Claude
Girl With a Pearl Earring Chevalier’s other novels were far more captivating compared to this bestseller, which bored me just like the movie. Had it’s “pretty” moments though…
The Da Vinci Code
The Mystery of Picasso
Sketches of Frank Gehry (This has been in my netflix for a while…)
The Horse’s Mouth
Incognito
Miss Potter Heartwarming, adorable, sweet. Loved it!
I Shot Andy Warhol
Klimt
Basquiat
Downtown 81 Ugh. Skipped through most of it was so horrible, dubbed, just bad. Which made it even kind of funny, for about two minutes.
Vincent and Theo
Art School Confidential
The Agony and the Ecstasy
Surviving Picasso
Wolf at the Door
The Rebel
David Hockney: Double Portrait
How to Steal a Million I cannot tell you how many times I’ve actually seen this, it’s one of my favorites!
Caravaggio
Modigliani
Artemisia
F is for Fake
Frida
Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? Feisty Teri cracks me up, really had me think about provenance and the so called experts.
My Kid Could Paint That Inspiration or manipulation? A great documentary, a not so great parent pushing the “artist.”
Crumb
In the Realms of the Unreal
How To Draw a Bunny
Love Is the Devil
Factory Girl
Fur
Great Expectations
Joan Miro – Theatre Of Dreams
Great Women Artists: Georgia O’Keeffe
Richard Tuttle: Never Not an Artist
Artists of the 20th Century series
Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light
Robert Rauschenberg: Inventive Genius
(American Masters: The Artists Series)
The Impressionists
Art City
Matisse/Picasso
Rothko’s Rooms
Chihuly: Gardens and Glass
The Way Things Go
The Cool School
Contacts
Who Gets to Call it Art?
Marc Jacobs & Louis Vuitton
Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye
William Eggleston in the Real World
The Rape of Europa
Max Ernst
Contacts volumes 1, 2 and 3
Alfred Stieglitz: The Eloquent Eye
The Way Things Go
Chilhuly: Gardens and Glass
I.M. Pei
My Architect: A Son’s Journey
What About Style?: Alex Katz
Paul Klee: The Silence of the Angel
Rothko’s Rooms
Matisse/Picasso: Twin Giants of Modern Art
Art City volumes 1, 2 and 3
Inspirations
Hockney at the Tate
The Impressionists volume 1, 2
Robert Rauschenberg: Man at Work
Richard Tuttle: Never Not an Artist
The Face: Jesus in Art
Jackson Pollock: Love and Death
Norman Rockwell: An American Portrait
Sister Wendy (series)
Juan Miro: Constellations
D.I.Y. or Die
Mona Lisa Smile
American Splendor
The Thomas Crown Affair 1968, 1999
At Close Range
Alice Neel
Line King: The Al Hirschfeld Story
Rivers and Tides
Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision
Beautiful Losers
Art:21, on pbs
Ansel Adams (documentary, also on PBS)
Helvetica

last night i attended a lecture by kazuyo sejima, one half of the groundbreaking toyko based architectural firm, SANAA.

+ sejima by annie leibovitz

with her small stature, kazuyo was barely visible over the podium and all dressed in black. i noticed with a smile that we were both wearing glossy black boots. with little introduction or conclusion at the end, she jumped right in with an unbelievably deep voice, describing her various works projected onto a giant screen. she only paused from time to time to find the right word in english. the next day she would be flying to paris at six in the morning and i wondered if she knew how excited we all were to hear her speak.

the highlight was seeing the sketches and models of their unfinished projects – like flower house: where the client’s wish is for “not a house with a garden, but a garden with a house.” (ohhhh!) always concerned with the spacial relation between the outside of their structures as much as the inside, what excites me about sanna’s architecture is how they embrace real problems and complexities within deceptively simple appearances. i think art like this speaks to me the most. nothing to add, nothing to take away.

while explaining her design process for the glass pavilion created for the toledo museum of art it just seemed impossible to understand unless actually experienced. depending on the weather, or the position and movements of your body and location within the building, the curved glass walls can be transparent, or opaque… and something new happens with the structure. reflections of the trees behind you are before you, scenery of the artificial comes through with the natural. like another dimension. places like this, you just really have to be there, walk through and out and around. places like this are works of art themselves. i haven’t felt this stirred up about architecture since experiencing the MAC by oscar niemeyer.

it was a packed house and as the crowds filled out of the hall i felt a satisfaction and pleasure that comes with being in the presence of a great mind. the wind was chilly, but it was a beautiful clear night in seattle. pulling my trench a little tighter around me and headed towards my car, i wistfully added sanaa’s rabbit chair to my dream list of things too lovely not to have. too bad you can only find them in japan.

too good that seattle is the closest american city to asia…

finally made it to the malba! (museo de latinoamericano de buenos aires) saw a diego rivera, frida kahlo (self portrait with monkey and parrot) and discovered some new latin artists to research. lots of interesting works and a different mood than my usual hang out at the bellas artes museum. the building itself is gorgeous, loads of natural light pours in from a three story wall of windows… i love the contemporary lines and open space. next time i will have to hit the cafe when i’m done. (and the shop again.)

a few months ago, the incredibly talented julia sent me some of her original artwork all the way from madrid- i am so lucky! her gocco prints are some of the best i’ve ever seen – the patterns are so detailed and they even have a metallic sheen! her ever popular moleskine girls are a must see, i’m just so tickled to be illustrated among the series:

she also has one of the coolest websites ever. you can find some of the prints seen here and more adorable work at her shop.
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ad reinhardt.

just one of the great things at the US ambassador’s house in uruguay.