No More Secondhand Art [Paperback]

Peter London (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 18, 1989

This book is about using art as an instrument of personal transformation, enabling us to move from an inherited to a chosen state of being. Peter London offers inspiration and fresh ideas to artists, art students, and art teachers—as well as to people who think they can't draw a straight line but want to explore the joys of creative expression. Inside every person, he believes, there is an original, creative self that has been covered over by secondhand ideas, borrowed beliefs, and conditioned behavior. By freeing the capacity for visual expression—a natural human language possessed by everyone—we can awaken and release the full powers of that original self. Among the topics and exercises included are:

   •  How to increase the ability to visualize, fantasize, and dream
   •  Obstacles to the creative encounter and what to do about them
   •  Experimenting with art media as true mediators between imagination and expression
   •  Making masks to reveal the hidden self
   •  Painting with "forbidden" colors
   •  Arranging found objects as metaphors for one's life

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A joy to read. In a style both conversational and precise, London questions the conventional attitudes that form a barrier to keep art outside most people's lives. London shows us that making images is as natural as speech, as dreams."—Yoga Journal



"Passionate and insightful . . . A must-read for all artists, art students, and art teachers. But anyone who wants to explore their own inner dimensions of creativity can learn and profit from it."—Intuition

"Peter London is grounded in his approach to the visual arts and he communicates it beautifully. He gives a fresh vision to creativity."—Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within



"I am impressed—no, I am thrilled—by the courage and ripeness of his guidance toward creativity, how it can work, how it can be helped and hindered, how it can change everything."—M.C. Richards, author of Centering in Pottery, Poetry, and the Person



"His eloquent, at times poetic ruminations return the reader to some earlier state of grace that may have been damaged or neglected in the hurly-burly of teaching. London not only invites the reader on this journey to some unexplored recesses of the mind, but also provides very specific tasks to ease the passage of transition. Philosopher and artist though he may be, London's commitment as a teacher shines on every page."—Al Hurwitz, author of Gifted and Talented in Art and coauthor of Children and Their Art

From the Inside Flap

This book is about using art as an instrument of personal transformation, enabling us to move from an inherited to a chosen state of being.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 190 pages
• Publisher: Shambhala; 1 edition (November 18, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0877734828
• ISBN-13: 978-0877734826
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 0.6 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #707,552 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finding your artistic voice, July 20, 2000

By 

"[e-mail]" - See all my reviews

This review is from: No More Secondhand Art (Paperback)

I teach art to adults and when I saw this book in the stacks the title intrigued me immediately. It is easy to teach technique, but it is really difficult to help students find what they want to say with their art. Why should we all strive to make art that looks like Picasso, O'Keefe or Degas? Instead we must learn to trust and value what we each have to say as artists, thus "No More Secondhand Art". The twelve exercises described in the book are geared to helping students generate imagery that is uniquely personal and immediate. These "Creative Encounters" are best done in a group setting. I have watched numerous students who have participated in these exercises break forth into new territory and finally find a freedom of expression that had eluded them. This book was a revelation to me when I first discovered it, and it transformed my teaching.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars See the world and yourself with new eyes!, January 15, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: No More Secondhand Art (Paperback)

I don't know Peter London, but I would like to. He has the rare touch of originality that awakens the soul. His book's subject is painting, but he actually focuses on self-discovery. If you want to see your old world with new eyes, if you love originality, buy and read this book! Some authors write for fame, some for money; Peter London writes to reveal the deeps in humanity, and possesses an extraordinary prose style of surpassing beauty. Give your soul and spirit a treat, and read him

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No No Secon-Hand Art, January 31, 2005

By 

Katherine August - See all my reviews

This review is from: No More Secondhand Art (Paperback)

This is one of the most inspiring books you can read if you are an art student or just interested in art. Peter London tells the artists to go out and find themselves, make their own art, an experiment with encounter. Encounters are excises that are designed to help you know yourself and find out maybe unknown things about you. Since, he is an art therapist, the exercises are very creative and geared to giving you incite into how you can go out and create your own art based on what you have learned from encountrs with self.
This may be a very unique approach to art-making but it's a journey through your own soul and I believe you need to make that journey to make your artwokd say what you want it to say.
London's title is roughtly based on a book by Buckmaster Fuller, who wrote "No More Second-Hand God". Fuller states that if you want to know God, go out and find him for yourself. Don't just except whar yu've been told. That is someone else's experience. Peter London also suggest that other aqartist's work is about them, not about you. Go out and find yourself , then you will be able to communicate visually your unique fellings and deepest thought. Presuasive and inspiring,would recommend you pick it up today.