Customer Reviews

Daybook: The Journey of an Artist

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In one of the greatest meditations on the artistic life ever written, Anne Truitt completes the trilogy of journals she began in 1979. In "Prospect" she discusses the joys of parenthood and grandparenthood, the perils of old age, and the way artists work. Each page is rich with insights and thought. Simply the best book I've read in five years. Her art is great, but it is for these books that Anne Truitt will be remembered, taking a place among diarists of historical significance.

I cannot say enough good things about this special book, which I discovered at an independent bookstore (and am forever grateful for that!) ... For anyone who is a fan of well-written journals and diaries, including those of May Sarton and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, this book will be a real treasure. I couldn't put it down, and consider it one of the best books on being an artist that I have ever read.

I should add that it would be especially comforting and inspiring for women who want to be artists (or writers) yet still maintain close, loving families and home life. For many women today, it is an "either or" proposition, but I love the way Anne Truitt shows how her domestic life informs and balances her art. This viewpoint give us all courage if we want to attempt the same lifestyle. Truitt raised three children on her own, and made her mark as an artist -- and a wonderful writer as well. What an inspiration for us all.

I wanted to share what May Sarton said about this book:
"It has been an immense pleasure to read a journal so deep, succinct, and illuminating. The style is pared down and elegant as her sculpture appears to be as she writes about it. How rare to find an artist who can talk about her craft as she does!" (At Seventy - May Sarton)

Her journals are so incredible ~ I first stumbled across her at a thrift shop and immediately went to find anything else she had written. She says things I didn't know I needed said.

This is part of a fascinating diary of an important American artist who was a woman. She tries to describe how her vocation as an artist and her life as a woman, wife and mother intersect, producing a unique way both of experiencing the world and making art. Her writing feels honest. She has no patience for the mythical image of the artist. "Artist" is simply a name for a basic part of who she was, one that implies unique abilities, needs, frustrations and satisfactions. I've never read a book that made the experience of being an artist so real. The only thing missing is pictures of her works, but their nature makes them difficult if not impossible to reproduce effectively.