“How history’s greatest artists failed, floundered and made something brilliant anyway.”
The notion that famous artists were destined for greatness, somehow chosen or fated, and they they lead charmed lives is put under the microscope in this book. What the author explores is a less dramatic and more realistic truth: often artists are famous because they just kept going. Creating art of all kinds is less about talent, and often more about perseverance and a driving passion that means that the artist just keeps going. No matter what.
Ryan T Pozzi is a writer and essayist, and the founder of the Nebraska Writers Collective and the Apollon Art Space in Omaha. Each chapter in this book is about the story of the struggles of a different artist (not just painters, but writers, poets, musicians and all kinds of creative art). Their story is told, and the chapters all teach us some small lesson about keeping on going, in the face of different kinds of challenges. The book is broken up into sections that group them around similar concepts like Refusal As A Beginning or Survival As Art. Some chapters are poems by the author about the struggle of that artist. The book also includes some photographs of artworks mentioned in the book.
I enjoyed this book immensely. The author writes with ease and authority about his subject, and includes a lot of detail without being long winded or overwhelming. I found the little drops of his personal story very enigmatic and intriguing, and the included artists are all from very different walks of life, a very broad range of personalities, mediums, race and genders. It sets out to attack an important myth: that artists are made and not only born. He explores why they keep going, even as everything tells them to stop. He takes them off their pedastal that history puts them on and shows us their humanity and in the process, also shows us our own.
It’s a very philosophical and insightful. I love the detail and the way he really understands each artists life. He’s not just skimming the facts to make a point, but he tells us what their lives and circumstances felt like. He writes concisely, wrapping up each person’s struggle and art very articulately and sharply. It’s a pleasure to read something so incisive but which also is written in an impassioned way, an emotive way. It’s very good. In the end, while he sets out to show us that artists just keep going, in spite of floundering or facing set backs, what we also learn is that a lot of artists are misfits with an original view of life that they need to explore and express, and that that can make people in their own time very uncomfortable, while a later generation may embrace them. We’re so socialised to fit in, but artists have to take up space. The book reminds us that the world doesn’t gain anything from you playing it small. Often what is seen as our rough edges or being either too much or not enough is the very space we need to express creativity from. Sometimes that’s our truth and our creative signature. And sharing our creative work often helps others heal too or feel a sense of belonging or being seen.
I think the inclusion of some poetry breaks the book up in an interesting way. I think maybe I would have liked those chapters to be a narrative like the others, but I liked that it was a creative choice in a book about artists. I also liked the included photos, but I don’t think the variety of them was broad enough. There were five Georgia O’Keefes where one gets the point across, and the other artists only have one, some artists have none included. It felt a little unbalanced, though maybe they couldn’t get the rights to use others? I don’t know.
Either way, I enjoyed this one a lot and highly recommend it. It’s really well written and quite an inspiring read, and all the artists stories are so varied and interesting. And they all have in common that they just kept going. And we should too. I love that.
Read It If: you’ve ever been told you’re too much, ever felt like giving up, or if you feel the drive to create but feel like that’s for other, more talented people
Thank you to the author and to Bloomsbury for the copy of this book for review.
