Customer Reviews

How to Avoid Making Art

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As a published writer/poet, I find that sometimes I get bogged down with the mundane: paying bills, worrying about my job, in short: procrastination. When I finally turned on my computer to work on my manuscript, I found my mind wandering in all directions except on my story. So, I turned it off and did something else.
However, after reading Ms. Cameron's The Artist's Way, I have changed my life completely and for the better. I still give some of my time to the mundane, but I also work on my writing as soon as I think about it, thereby allowing my mind to work on it when the thought is fresh.
How To Not Make Art is a delightful book I found recently and I think will become part of my purse/backpack necessities along with my blank journals and book I am reading for the day. This book offers the "swift kick" for anyone who find themselves allowing other matters or people to crowd out their creative side. Situations like this are too easy to slide into and slightly harder to get out of. But, with patience and fortitude, the wall can be broken and the creative will flow again.
If you find yourself bogged down and not able to do anything creative, pick up this book and read it through, giving each cartoon their time to absorb. I found myself nodding in agreement with many of them, knowing them to be too true.
Highly recommended!

This is a book of cartoons with captions that are the myriad excuses for why we
sometimes put off our creative work. Funny and useful. Another GREAT one by
her that's serious is The Right to Write.

This book spoke to me; as a writer and artist, I can talk myself out of creating, and this book confronts the reader with all the excuses. The whimsical drawings and insightful remarks inspire me to go to my studio and make art. I pick it up any time self-doubt surfaces, and I plan to buy copies for my friends who write and paint.

Oh, come on - you know you do it, too. You tell yourself you're going to write that novel, or paint that picture, or learn that song, but somehow you end up doing anything and everything else. With humorous illustrations, this book shows artists how they themselves are their own worst enemies when it comes to actually creating art... and reminds us all that avoiding something is not the way to get anything done.

I love this little book. I found it after reading The Artist's Way, and like how it illustrates, simply, all the negative things we say and do that keep us from making art. It captures and shows the absurdity of self-imposed creative blocks -- letting me laugh at myself and see how unreasonable my inner-critic and self-saboteur can be. This book helps put my creative blocks into perspective. Afterwards, it is easier to get down to just doing the work.

The Artist by his/her very definition is a sensitive soul whose ability to have a rich inner life allows the creative spirit endless resource to expression. HOWEVER, that same sensitivity is prone to avoidance when one faces a destiny so great they fear themselves. The solution is to create drama in your life rather than in fiction novels. This takes many forms such as caretaking, codependance, etc ... anything to distract you from destiny. This latest Cameron cartoon renditin is comical and delivers a ironic warning on the perils of avoiding your art.

from book blogger Margaret Yang writingslices.wordpress.com

In this little book of one-panel cartoons, self-help queen Julia Cameron takes advice for artists and turns it on its head. HOW TO AVOID MAKING ART is beyond ironic. It's a hilarious list of advice for would-be artists, "teaching" them how to get in their own way. With captions like "tell yourself you can only work in absolute quiet," or "talk about it so you don't have to do it," every writer will probably identify with these cartoons.

Here are some of my favorites: "Demand 15 hours of free time to create, so you can ignore the 15 minutes you've got."

"Tell yourself you can't afford art supplies. Buy five expensive cappuccinos while you discuss this with friends."

"Let your studio accumulate enough clutter that work becomes impossible there."

"Ask a lot of people their opinion of your plan."

I love the way Cameron pokes fun at the absurdity of self-imposed blocks. By pretending to take them absolutely seriously, she deflates them completely. After all, if you can laugh at your own limitations, you're halfway to overcoming them. But it wasn't all fun and games. Like any good satire, the truth is buried just below the surface. More than once, I winced as I saw myself in the pages of HOW TO AVOID MAKING ART.

The drawings (by Cameron's daughter, Elizabeth) aren't the greatest--black and white sketches of people with dog's heads. But I don't think the pictures are the point. They do an adequate job of illustrating Cameron's witty one-liners (which are the point).

This book would be a great gift for a fellow writer, or for yourself. It's probably a better use of your money than that fifth cappuccino.

I am a fan of Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way" and think it to be one of the most valuable references an artist or writer can own. There are times when the spirit needs to explore what is ailing. After reading reviews I was ready to be entertained and further enlightened by this book. My gosh, after looking through it I couldn't help but think there'd been a mistake. This didn't seem like it came from the same author. While I can go for sophomoric humor as well as the next person, this was all that and less. I hope Julia will take this one back to the drawing board and come out with a whole new and improved version. The cartoons are kind of weird and the captions are flat. Was there anything to take away from this? Yes. I just wasted the cost of a book that might be worth keeping.. Maybe this one will find it's audience at the Goodwill store.

I took this book to my tutoring session, where a very bored Naisa wanted to leave early. When I offered her this book to read, some out loud, she perked up. Kids are often bored. She asked to borrow it, so I said YES. On the last day, she did not have it with her, so I told her it was a gift.

Julia Cameron says we are creative but we so often say not. The Artist's Way, her first book, kicked this excuse in to touch with its guide to defeating inner demons and rewarding creative angels. In a nutshell, write a morning journal on anything for three pages to ambush your inner critic and go out alone weekly to any artistic event to refresh your imagination. It works...honest! An Art Exhibition got me thinking about writing in these ways.

* A picture with images falling out and in...so why not a story of characters and events that fall in and out of the main plot

* Victorian prints mixed with photographic images and unnaturalistic stencils combine to create eerie and disturbing images... so create a story by taking a random handful of images cut from magazines as a starting point

* Pictures of ordinary objects made macabre... have images in the story at odds with the readers expectation, make the corpse of a women erotic, the murder comedic

Don't get it? Then read How to Avoid Making Art (or Anything Else You Enjoy) which attacks those inner demons with witty cartoons. Recognize any of these...

*Read all the forwarded emails from your friends instead of writing your novel

*Choose someone feels their dreams and goals are more important then yours

*Understand no circumstances make any art just for fun

Play and creativity follows is what she wants you to accept. Writing or painting class are still needed to learn the tricks of the trade but your imagination is already waiting to burst out.