Customer Reviews

A Lesser Day

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I attended Andrea Scrima's reading at KGB , in New York City. I went to see what all the stir was about rippling through the artist community re: Andrea Scrima. The place was packed with standing room only, with fans of Scrima, transfixed by her artist's mind'e eye. Could not put down "A Lesser Day," a close in view of this young artist's life.

"A Lesser Day," is such a heart-felt, moving, and personal journey of an artist, from an emotional point of view, as well as, the artist's day-to-day life. The big, the little, the challenges, the struggles, the triumphs! Beautifully written, I just loved this book, as it moves back and forth between time and people to capture the inner and outer details of one's life.

Scrima's book was like nothing else I've read: Her device of using place as the beginning of each memory, shifting between Berlin and New York. Sentences that don't answer all your questions, but create more questions. Precise observations that take considerable time in her head space of the details of her studio, the neighborhood, sparing us nothing when recounting the light, architecture, dirt, mood, weather, psychological states, shifting relationships - all in fragments so richly detailed, it's like seeing the trees clearly in the shifting forest. This is a beautiful book about the life of an artist who lives for making art as if her life depended on it. And it does.

Thoughts, desires, longings, observations, revealed through a poetic narrative which is told in bits and pieces---this is the imagist's journey one takes with the author of 'A Lesser Day', Andrea Scrima. 'A Lesser Day', exposes a piercing vision for detail and nuance, coupled with an incisive narrative that forms a picture revealed through fragments. Ms. Scrima, elevates the ordinary and shows us that in our mundane, ordinary moments, meaning is revealed, `marked' and lived. I found myself unable to read this book when my mind was occupied, for it requires silence to take in her astute observations, descriptions, and discoveries much in the same way that art demands of its' viewer. Or vice versa---when I needed a respite from my own hectic life, I found this book to be a welcome retreat. We look at a painting, but if we don't linger and let it tell us its story we miss what it has to offer. Ms. Scrima's book is much like looking at art. The longer I read it, the more I needed to be with this book, and its quiet, pensive narrative. The physical book itself is small, a little larger than a prayer book, which underscores the meditative quality that is expressed in its narrative. I have finished it, and yet feel I need to read it again, simply because the text is rich with images that underscore the beauty that is often overlooked when one speeds by.

A young artist's world as it actually existed, as opposed to a glamorized or idealistic version. This book is the antithesis of the cliched way artists are often depicted by the general media. The story is presented in context of the everyday studio life with an intimate back story that brings an unexpected conclusion.