The Artist's Way [Hardcover]

Julia Cameron (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 18, 2002

A stunning gift edition of the powerful bestselling book on creativity.

The Artist’s Way is one of the bestselling gift books of all time. Beautifully packaged with a slipcase and ribbon, this tenth anniversary gift edition is the ideal gift for loved ones engaged in creative lives.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Award-winning writer Julia Cameron is the author of seventeen books, fiction and nonfiction, including The Artist's Way, The Vein of Gold, and The Right to Write, her bestselling works on the creative process. A novelist, playwright, songwriter and poet, she has extensive credits in theater, film, and television. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Tarcher; 10th edition (March 18, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585421472
• ISBN-13: 978-1585421473
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (221 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,207 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #22 in Books > Arts & Photography > Individual Artists
  • #42 in Books > Self-Help > Creativity
  • #100 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Spirituality > Inspirational

More About the Author

Julia Cameron has been an active artist for more than thirty years. She is the author of twenty-eight books, fiction and nonfiction, including her bestselling works on the creative process: The Artist's Way, Walking in This World, Finding Water, and The Writing Diet. A novelist, playwright, songwriter, and poet, she has multiple credits in theater, film, and television.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

249 of 265 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Yes and no, September 22, 2004

By 

Bonnie McClure (Birmingham, AL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity [10th Anniversary Edition] (Paperback)

Funny, most of the reviews on this book are either ecstatic or disgusted. I see both sides. True, this woman DOES think she has reached it and knows absolutely everything; she tries to put the artistic process (for any artist, amateur or professional, in any medium) in a box; she tries to deny that being an artist has to involve any real work; she teaches you to be selfish; and she is awfully repetitive. THAT SAID, a few of her individual ideas are so epiphanic (is that a word?) that if you come to any one of them for the first time, you will have got more than your money's worth. Though the whole thing IS a bit wishy-washy and new-agey, and though some things she thinks are awfully vital just don't seem that huge to me, some of her points nevertheless can't be missed. It goes on an individual basis--some people really need some of this stuff, others have seen it before. Some of the exercises will show you something, some will seem silly. Give it a try, tailor it to your own needs. The people who will get the most out of this book are the many "silent poets" who have always wanted to try their hand at drawing or dancing or singing but who haven't because they've been afraid of failing or of looking silly. Those with a happy, fulfilling artistic life will roll their eyes over it-but they should realize it is written specifically for people who are dealing with a major block. It's only fair to consider it with that particular audience in mind.

115 of 123 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An intensive self-examination course, May 19, 2003

By 

Nosferatu (Albuquerque, NM United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity [10th Anniversary Edition] (Paperback)

This 229-page book is actually a course to free your creativity. The entire course is based upon the principle that the artist must have faith to be creative. It is the author's conviction that the Creator encourages creativity in all people.

The book is broken down into twelve weekly lessons. There are several miscellaneous sections. Each weekly lesson has tasks and exercises to be completed. Sidebars provide quotes and tidbits of information to uplift the soul. The divisions of the manual are as follow:

In the introduction, the author explains how she began teaching and eventually developed her seminars and lectures into a book.

Spiritual Electricity: The Basic Principles defines the ten spiritual principles, gives directions for using this course, and tells the reader what to expect from the course.

The Basic Tools introduces the two primary tools of the course: the morning pages and the artist date. The morning pages are three handwritten pages, penned in stream-of-consciousness, without looking back at the previous pages. The artist date is time set aside to be spent with your inner artist. There is even a creativity contract.

Week 1: Recovering a Sense of Safety deals with realizing what negative beliefs and hurts from the past are blocking or restricting your creativity and replacing them with positive affirmations.

Week 2: Recovering a Sense of Identity begins with a section called "Going Sane." It deals with the people you surround yourself with in life and how they exert negative influence over your creativity.

Week 3: Recovering a Sense of Power leaps right into anger management, shame, and dealing with criticism. It examines how most people are afraid that there is a God watching everything we do.

Week 4: Recovering a Sense of Integrity is about learning to distinguish between the mask you wear for the public and your real inner feelings. There are exercises in learning what you really want from life and in sensory deprivation.

Week 5: Recovering a Sense of Possibility begins with the following sentence: "One of the chief barriers to accepting God's generosity is our limited notion of what we are in fact able to accomplish." This lesson teaches us to break through those barriers.

Week 6: Recovering a Sense of Abundance will have you tossing out clothing and gathering rocks. It teaches us that there is abundance in our lives and that our creativity requires its own portion of luxury.

Week 7: Recovering a Sense of Connection covers jealousy, perfectionism, risk, and learning to listen to our inner artist.

Week 8: Recovering a Sense of Strength teaches us to turn loss into gain by metabolizing the pain into energy. There is an exercise to help the artist break out of the early patterning; to overcome the negativity of childhood.

Week 9: Recovering a Sense of Compassion deals with avoiding self-defeat and learning to logically deal with fears.

Week 10: Recovering a Sense of Self-Protection enlightens us about the spiritual demons we create to battle our creativity: workaholism, fame, competition, and drought.

Week 11: Recovering a Sense of Autonomy focuses on how to handle success, how to nurture the inner artist, and the connection between nurturing the inner artist and self-respect.

Week 12: Recovering a Sense of Faith reminds us of the pitfalls to our creativity and helps us learn to have faith.

The book ends with sections on questions and answers, creativity clusters, and forming a sacred circle.

Every artist should own a copy of this book and utilize it religiously! It is the kind of manual that can be used over and over again for continual growth. I highly recommend it and feel it is a vital tool for personal creative expansion.

65 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hokey -- but it works!, November 4, 2003

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity [10th Anniversary Edition] (Paperback)

Every time I pick up this book, I'm put off by the author's style -- it's so full of cutesy affectations, dumb little puns, and hokey metaphors repeated too many times -- the bad habits that good writing teachers steer their students away from. So it's hard for me to trust this person as a teacher of art-making, if writing is supposed to be her own art form and she does it so sloppily. Nevertheless, her course WORKS! Her style may rub you the wrong way, but the content is very effective. In the three years since I first read it and started doing the exercises, it's turned my creative life around, with astonishing results. So thank you, Julia Cameron, cutesy-wootsey prose and all.