Customer Reviews

No More Secondhand Art

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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.

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

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.

I like the approach to understanding art as self expression and as a means of development. I think I began to understand something about why so-called serious modern art has meaning and importance. I also appreciated the down to earth suggestions for encouraging personal creative expression through art. Quite readeable on deep subjects. Philosophical.

I've read this book three times from cover to cover in the past ten years; every now and again for just certain sections. I wish every teacher taught with the respect and care that comes through in the words of this book; won't you try? It is an invaluable resource for the teacher; covering subjects such as setting up classroom environments, critiques, media, and even giving art experience ideas. If you listen carefully to his words you will be given precious pieces of knowledge for your classroom and your studio, from someone who undoubtedly practices and believes in what he knows to be good. It's that real; and that important.

Having studied with Peter London over the past ten years I can assure readers that as a teacher he lives what he writes. He embodies what every teacher should bring to students: careful listening, respectful attention, thoughtful questioning. His writings have won the deserved respect of his educator and artist colleagues nationwide. Treat yourself to a fine book.

-this is a good companion to it. He's a bit verbose occasionally but gives you difference insights on the same material. The "creative encounters" are exercises to increase creativity and can be used alone or with a group. This is an old book, but I'd seen it cited several times. Still well worth a read if you're interested in creativity and how to open people to being creative.

In Peter London's No More Secondhand Art: Awakening The Artist Within, he states, "We have learned to be embarrassed by our efforts. We have learned to feel so inept and disenfranchised from our own visual expressions that we simply cease doing it altogether." As a society, we have lost touch with our creative essence, a part of us that emerges from our most spiritual and pure existence. Our inner critic hisses at us as we try something new, some form of creative expression, and we shut down our inherent spiritual nature, a mechanism that allows us to bring magnificent creativity into the world while at the same time healing our souls.

Critical to London's examination is the creative process as a journey. So often, we are wrapped up in the end product, in production and efficiency, and we forget to enjoy the journey along the way. London would argue that creativity and artistic expression are about the journey. What results as an end product is simply the culmination of the most important part of the experience. Through well-defined strategies, London encourages his readers to step outside of the normal way of viewing the world and to see things in a new light. Let the mind guide the hand, he advises, as you allow your visual imagination to guide you in artistic endeavors. Too often, we look too structurally or literally and try to reproduce exactly what we see. London suggests we relax and play, he says lighten up and lose yourself in the creative process.

Fascinating is London's take on abstractionism versus realism. He explains, "I would have you consider the view that all art is abstract as much as all art is representational." Although we make look at a realistic piece of art and interpret it as exact imagery, it is, in fact, an abstract representation of how a particular image inspired and moved the artist. Also, he explains, abstract art can be representative of actual feelings, emotions, and objects. This section of the book is a good summation of the entire work: Think differently about artistic creativity, and you can produce unimaginable and beautiful works of art.

The "creative encounters" London describes are actual exercises he has designed that exemplify the concepts in the first half of the book. His exercises may seem strange to artists taught through traditional methods and include everything from painting with your eyes closed to designing and using masks to exploring the yin and yang in art by imitating both male and female forces during the creative process.

London prefers the term "media" to the use of the term "art supplies." "Media are those things that stand between imagination and expression, between the mind and the act, the hand and the canvas." By approaching art and creativity from a spiritual, meditative, and thoughtful realm, London believes what will ultimately result is the production of truly inspired original works of creative expression.

ANOTHER ART TEACHER HAD RECOMENDED THIS BOOK TO ME. I HELP TEACH HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS. I LOVE THE VARIETY OF LESSONS, THE IN DEPTH TEACHING AND EXAMPLES GIVEN. (THEIR ARE A FEW LESSONS THAT ARE TOO ADVANCED FOR SOME OF THE STUDENTS, BUT I MYSELF HAVE FUN WITH THOSE.)

The language and writing in this book is really bad. Have you ever read a book where the purpose of the book seemed to be a vehicle to show off a writers ability to use five dollar words which rarely say anything intelligible? The whole book could be condensed to a couple dozen pages. If you like rambling prose, this book might entertain you. The Author doesn't seem to understand art all that well either. He opens the book by explaining how he went to an art show held by an art school and he detested all the art there. If someone goes to an art show and doesn't understand what he sees there, you gotta wonder about everything that follows in this book. It's a bit torturous to read. I had to stop.