Rating: 
Summary: A Good Read for Comfort and Motivation
Review: With pearls of wisdom gleaned from the writings of such as Conrad and Hippocrates, the authors offer artists (and would-be artists) advice and encouragement to follow a calling that is too frequently thought to be more appropriately a hobby. Though the reader addressed is one who aspires to art as a profession, much of what Bayles and Orland offer is as applicable to any undertaking: "Artmaking involves skills that can be learned. ... Even talent is rarely distinguishable, over the long run, from perseverance and lots of hard work." Liberal doses of unpleasant reality are well balanced with insight and reassurance. The sort of little book that one might keep about for an occasional dose of comfort and motivation.
Rating: 
Summary: Art & Fear Is As Good As It Gets.
Review: This is my favorite of self-help books of this general type! A real winner ... with observations on the perils (and rewards) of artmaking. The introduction includes the following: "This is a book about art. Ordinary art ... while geniuses may get made once-a-century or so, good art gets made all the time." The first chapter offers comments like, "Making art now means working in the face of uncertainty; it means living with doubt and contradiction, doing something no one much cares whether you do, and for which there may be neither audience nor reward." And, "Artmaking involves skills that can be learned." It just keeps getting better and better with each and every chapter. The back cover of the book states: "What is your art really about? Where is it going? What stands in the way of getting it there? These are questions that recur at each stage of artistic development - and they are the source for this volume of wonderfully incisive commentary." In my classes and workshops, I notice many people who are to one degree or another, blocked or immobilized by some type of fear. For my money, Art & Fear should be required reading for any art program, at any and all levels. I realize there are many other books which attempt to help people overcome blockage (immobilization). Even though other books may be recognized as "great" and are frequently found on most "recommended" lists, they seem to me - lacking in focus, honesty, reality and practicality. While other volumes may be well meaning, they seem more like pop psychology or yesteryear psychology. Not so with Art & Fear, which seems to get to the root of the problems better than any book of which I am currently aware. This is a fast, unpretentious read too. Cover to cover in one or two sittings (122 pages). My advice is to bring your highlighter pen and prepare for a wonderful eye opener. Off the top of my head and in my opinion (I assume that is why your are reading this), I'd say the authors are about on track 95% of the time! For me, that spells a real winner. A real jewel. A breath of fresh air! This is one of my "must have" books!
Rating:
Summary: Learning by Doing!
Review: Art & Fear is an easy book to rave about, but it is a particularly difficult book to write about. The authors have chosen their words so well, that it seems as if there ARE no other words with which to talk about this subject or this book. I'll try anyway, fully knowing that whatever I might say surely will not please me as much as what I have read in their pages. And this is part of the message of Art & Fear, one of the lessons to be learned - just do it and learn from it.
Art & Fear is an unpretentious little paperback, written by two lifelong friends who have been artists, as well as other things, for most of their lives. Both of them have their feet firmly rooted in the real world that we all live in (however high their ideas and ideals might fly), and both of them have keen insights into what enables individuals to produce good art and to continue to produce good art, and what stumbling blocks stop many individuals. These insights are of value to artists in any medium whatsoever, and are in fact likely to be of significant value to many individuals who don't think of themselves as artists at all. One doesn't need to be an artist to be struggling with goals that seem beyond your reach and a lack of appreciation from others; it's just a little more pervasive in the artmaking world.
Reading this book is like sitting down with the authors for a long and lively conversation. You'll learn something of them, and something of yourself, and good things are sure to come from it. I've actually found it too good to keep to myself - I'm on my 6th copy now, as I keep giving them away to friends!
Rating: 
Summary: This book is written by working artists, for working artists
Review: Art & Fear is a book about the way art gets made, the reasons it often does not get made, and about the difficulties that cause so many artists to give up along the way. The authors (David Bayles & Ted Orland) are both working artists, grappling daily with the problems of making art in the real world. The observations we make are drawn from personal experience, and relate more to the needs of fellow artists than to the interests of viewers. Do not mistake Art & Fear for a pop psychology self-help book -- we are not interested in freeing your inner child! This is a book about what it feels like to sit down at your wheel or keyboard, easel or camera, trying to do the work you need to do. Simply put, you have a choice between giving your art your best shot and risking that it will not make you happy, or not giving it your best shot and thereby GUARANTEEING that it will not make you happy. What we have tried to do is illuminate the obstacles you face, and offer some artistic strategies for getting past them. Art & Fear has never been advertised and was never reviewed by a major publication, but it has nonetheless become something of an underground classic in the three years since it was published. Our distributor says it has become required reading for at least a few hundred university art courses across the country. (One painting instructor told us that, over the course of the semester, she reads the entire book aloud to her drawing class as background input while they¹re at work in the classroom studio.) It is now in its seventh printing
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant and Wise
Review: Art and Fear is the best and most inspiring book I have read for the artist. It is affirming and realistic and hopeful. I am so grateful to have discovered it.
Rating:
Summary: ART & FEAR is a book you will wish you'd known about before.
Review: I read ART & FEAR in one sitting; I could not resist the gentle wisdom contained on almost every page. (My trusty highlighter was nearly emptied as I found much text that I wanted to reread and remember.) To any artist "stuck" in creative quicksand (whether it be fear, self-doubt, perfectionism -- whatever), the writers reach out a long and sturdy tree limb for you to grasp to pull yourself free and back onto solid ground. They don't just leave you standing there either, but provide you with the tools you'll need to find your own way home. One of the many quotes from ART & FEAR that I like is: "To make art is to sing with the human voice. To do this you must first learn that the only voice you need is the voice you already have." Other things I will say about ART & FEAR is that it is VERY thought provoking, thorough, insightful, and challenging with a few flourishes of humor. The information presented will apply to artists of all persuasions. I will very likely read ART & FEAR again and again and will probably find new gems with each read (either previously overlooked or not yet understood). Once read, you will want to lend ART & FEAR to your artist friends. I suggest you keep your copy and either recommend that they get their own, or, order one for them as a gift they will appreciate many times over. Finally, because I feel that I have received much from reading ART & FEAR, I send a heartfelt "thank you" to the authors, David Bayles & Ted Orland. I very much appreciate the authors' wish to share what they have learned (and especially for bringing their wish to fruition) with anyone that is interested and that they managed to provide me, someone quite unknown to them, with a real sense of being seen and understood (without ever feeling condescended to). Quite a gift! ART & FEAR is a book you will wish you'd known about before but you will be glad you managed to discover now. "When the student is ready the teacher will come."
Rating:
Summary: A pretty good read
Review: Art and Fear is a pretty good read and would definitely help someone who's just starting out in their artistic career. The authors make several great points and offer some sound advice, but the best way to deal with issues addressed in this book are through experience.
As an artist, I recognize my own tendencies to short-change my abilities, and this book will help someone who may not be aware of their own self-destructive tendencies to recognize the patterns. However, established artists and those who have survived any amount of critiques by professors, instructors, and fellow artists won't gain the full benefits of this book.
Rating:
Summary: An Unlikely Discovery
Review: I've read the other reviews.
Last Saturday, Lizzie (10) and I went to the art store with a gift certificate and she was heavily lobbying me for clay - which she got. In the meantime, this book was laying askew on a shelf. I picked it up as a diversion - and became captivated by it. The authors have assembled a distillate of their time and experience. And it resonates so well with mine. And the ideas they provide are not limited to art - they are also important to the modern applications of science which are becoming ever mre individually-oriented and therefore closer to art than perhaps science has ever been. Craft and art are merging.
I finished this book with the same feeling as I had when I read Walden. Utter simplicity, utter verity, utter thanks.
I'd like to meet these authors and enjoy a conversation with them.
Rating: 
Summary: This is an article turned into a book
Review: This book takes some simple ideas and beats you over the head with them over and over again trying to make them seem profound. It reminds of term papers you had to write, that had to be so many pages, so you word it up to fill the requirement. The helpfullness of this book isn't much and can be shortened down to an article. Not worth the money.
Rating:
Summary: Art and Fear
Review: I think these two words are almost synonymous at times...This is a quick read that confirms about 90% of what most artists and specifically, a beginning artist, likely experiences as he/she journeys through the challenges of becoming an artist and just creating art. I think that although many of the ideas in here leave you thinking, "Well, I already knew that...", for me, it was probably the first time I had really heard it from somewhere else besides a casual conversation. It offered a safe venue to validate and consider (in a more objective way) the hurdles that exist in artmaking. For me, it was a validation of many of the thoughts that swirl about my head and also has some true insights into the creative process and what was holding me back.
It does have a structure and offers quick thoughts on what you could do to improve or analyze your own process. However, thankfully I would not put this on the shelf and categorize it as a self-help book. (I abhore self help books...) I did not take it as evangelical or presumptive and thought that overall, it was presented in a biographical style where you could take the thoughts and experiences and apply them to your life as you saw fit. Some applied. Some did not. Nothing was a mandate and that is what I liked about it. Overall, I would certaingly recommend this book to the beginning artist or the lifelong dabbler who wants to be more serious and just needs a nudge of confidence.
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