Messy Thrilling Life: The Art of Figuring Out How to Live [Paperback]

Sabrina Ward Harrison (Author), Laurie Wagner (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 31, 2004

“This is not a story about foiled plans and what’s the use of trying anyway. This is precisely a story about making things–making stories, making plans, making lists, and making love–in the face of the inevitable messiness we will encounter.”
–from the Foreword by Laurie Wagner

Sabrina Ward Harrison, creator of the stunning visual memoirs Spilling Open and Brave on the Rocks, now shares her vibrant new work, which continues her personal journey of growth and discovery. Through striking multimedia collages and prose that is raw and touching and refreshingly authentic, Sabrina explores aspirations, dreams, and commitment–and brings herself to the threshold of true independence.

In the summer of 2001, Sabrina moved from California to New York City, the place where, she felt, any serious artist must eventually wind up. The city struck her as exhilarating and daunting, a brilliant assault on the senses, a concrete landscape of hope and failure. Three months later the horror of September 11 unfolded a few blocks away. Like the rest of the world, Sabrina began to look outside herself with a new clarity and urgency. And on the horizon appeared a man who looked like The One–friend, lover, life partner. With this relationship came larger, more complicated and unanswerable questions: Am I ready for marriage? Where does a career fit in? Does love mean losing my self? Does permanent mean forever? What will I never know about where I’m going if I don’t go?

Harrison reflects on her journey from starry-eyed innocent to responsible adult and expresses it with dazzling visuals and candid insights in Messy Thrilling Life. It is a singular book sure to resonate with readers who have laughed, wept, and grown along with her.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

"This is not a story about foiled plans and what's the use of trying anyway. This is precisely a story about making things–making stories, making plans, making lists, and making love–in the face of the inevitable messiness we will encounter."
–from the Foreword by Laurie Wagner

Sabrina Ward Harrison, creator of the stunning visual memoirs Spilling Open and Brave on the Rocks, now shares her vibrant new work, which continues her personal journey of growth and discovery. Through striking multimedia collages and prose that is raw and touching and refreshingly authentic, Sabrina explores aspirations, dreams, and commitment–and brings herself to the threshold of true independence.

In the summer of 2001, Sabrina moved from California to New York City, the place where, she felt, any serious artist must eventually wind up. The city struck her as exhilarating and daunting, a brilliant assault on the senses, a concrete landscape of hope and failure. Three months later the horror of September 11 unfolded a few blocks away. Like the rest of the world, Sabrina began to look outside herself with a new clarity and urgency. And on the horizon appeared a man who looked like The One–friend, lover, life partner. With this relationship came larger, more complicated and unanswerable questions: Am I ready for marriage? Where does a career fit in? Does love mean losing my self? Does permanent mean forever? What will I never know about where I'm going if I don't go?

Harrison reflects on her journey from starry-eyed innocent to responsible adult and expresses it with dazzling visuals and candid insights in Messy Thrilling Life. It is a singular book sure to resonate with readers who have laughed, wept, and grown along with her.

About the Author

SABRINA WARD HARRISON was born in Canada and lives in Northern California. She is the author of Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself and Brave on the Rocks: If You Don’t Go, You Don’t See. She continues to teach her workshops on “The Art of Becoming Yourself” throughout the world.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Villard (August 31, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812967666
• ISBN-13: 978-0812967661
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 8.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #270,318 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but..., September 8, 2004

By 

Kate (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Messy Thrilling Life: The Art of Figuring Out How to Live (Paperback)

I feel really bad writing this, because Sabrina has been one of the biggest inspirations to me, and my copies of her previous works are dog-earred and completely pre-loved.

And I was utterly unbearably excited about this one. So I sat down with a nice rich hot chocolate and a spare hour..

The truth is though, I truly don't think this work is as good. Not to say I regret buying it or I wouldn't recommend it, but I suggest that people do not expect another 'Spilling Open.'

I feel like a lot of pages are wasted. There is a huge amount of photography, and some are truly beautiful works, but others are completely uninspiring and seem like page-fillers. What seems like endless pages of out-of-focus buildings and blocks of colours. This is particularly so with the first half of the book, though the second half does improve as she moves from New York.

Additionally, the other works contained a discernible story, or a gradual coming-of-age or at least, the progress of her life could be followed. This stops as quickly as it begins. The pages do not progress from each other and you get absolutely no sense of her and her common tribulations, which was what made the other books so divine. When she does write, the words are so close together and fumbled that it makes reading sentences somewhat difficult.

Sabrina seems to want to move into books of straight art rather than journals, and I am not suggesting that she revert to something that no longer appeals to her. Perhaps though, it should be remembered what was so appealing and original about the first books. If I wanted a book of photography, I could have found a million of those. If she wants to make an art or photography book, I just feel she shouldn't hide behind the guise of a journal, which this is really not.

It just seems very detached, far less intimate and colder than her previous works. Far less fumbling, but far far less appealing.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Reluctant Writer?, September 10, 2004

By 

Andie (Vancouver, BC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Messy Thrilling Life: The Art of Figuring Out How to Live (Paperback)

Was Sabrina depressed during the process of creating her third book? She was living in New York when 9/11 happened, which would dull anyone's creativity for a while, but add to that her insecurities in the city and the breakup with a seemingly kindred soul boyfriend and you get one sad book.

It also seems like she's holding back, like she just had to fulfill a book contract, so she only wrote the bare minimum about her life. At the same time there are passages of vulnerable honesty, and parts where her true "spilling" nature seeps out.

Much of the art stands on its own and I would enjoy looking at it in a gallery. As far as the photographs go, I was dissapointed with the duplicates in the same book and the fact that she included photos from her previous books. If every precious page should be a burst of fresh art, she seemed to be doing some recycling -- such as the three redundant photos of Laurie (the same Laurie Wagner who wrote the excellent forward, I presume? I'd love to read a journal by her!)

One thing about publishing your private thoughts is you have to accept that people will comment on your life. Sabrina, many of us fell in love with "Spilling Open" because you took us on a journey into your inner world, written without censor. Years have passed, things have changed, and your fans still want to go on that journey with you -- we want every Messy, Thrilling detail of your Life -- and sadly, this book did not achieve that.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I enjoyed it for the art, August 17, 2006

By 

Ellen Etc. (Northern California, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Messy Thrilling Life: The Art of Figuring Out How to Live (Paperback)

I never made it all the way through the other book of Ward's that I ran across, but with this one I've finally learned how to "read" them. While I admire her art and her collage style, her writing is more self-absorbed than can hold my interest for a book-length project. But that's a problem I have with a lot of visual artists whose work I love - writing is not their strong suit, and when they start "explaining" what they're doing in a picture, it becomes terribly clichéd. Ward avoids this by not obviously linking her images and her words, but as I gave myself permission to enjoy the luscious artistry without having to read all of the painted text, I took much more pleasure in the book. Now I'm looking forward to going back to her previous books with this same approach.