Artist's Way

Rating:
Summary: Release your creativity
Review: There are only two books I recommend artists of any kind to read, Natalie Goldberd "Writing Down the Bones", and this book by Julia Cameron. I have read more how-to creativity/writing/journaling/artist books than my poor shelves can hold. I stopped buying them after this book.

I'm an avid journal keeper, it helps me free my mind. There are times, however, when my mind wants to remain locked. This book, complete with freeing exercises, changed all that. I keep the morning pages every day now and have little trouble with my creativity. This book was a god-send to a generation who finally realized that all things in life require some creativity and that unlocking it is the key to a healthy, fullfilled, and well-lived life.

I cannot recommend this book enough. I also recommend the companion "Morning Pages Journal", but only if you aren't sure where to begin. If you are certain you can pick up a blank notebook and begin following the advice she gives, then the journal isn't really necessary.

This is the book that every artist and journaler needs.

Rating:
Summary: I loved the artist's way
Review: Julia Cameron's book was so inspiring and encouraging. This book is for anyone who wants to recover their creativity. I learned that everyone's creative. She changed my beliefs of what's possible for me as an artist. She made a connection between spirituality and creativity which I had never previously considered. She helped to keep me from becoming a bocked writer with her artist's dates and with filling the well. Though it may seem silly the artist date is like a play date for yourself and Julia Cameron explains that as you take images out of your "well" you must keep "filling the well" with new images or the well will dry up. If the well dries up you can become a blocked artist. The artist recovery course is a total of twelve weeks. She shows the reader how to deal with rejection and disappointment. She has a few quotes on the suject such as one quoted by Blake Edwards, "...he concluded that creativity, not time, would best heal his creative wounds." She also offered a great piece of advice. When struck by loss or rejection as an artist instead of saying why me or what's the point, ask "what next?" The rough translation is,and I quote, "Don't let the bastards get you down." One of my favorite things about the book is that throughout the entire book she has inspiring and encouraging quotes on the sidelines of the pages. I loved reading them all. There's too much information to sum up the book up well in a review. You have to read the book, but one of my favorite questions she had was this one:

Question: "Do you know how old I'll be by the time I learn to really play the piano/act/paint/write a decent play?"

Answer: "...the same age you will be if you don't."

Rating:
Summary: This changed my life
Review: Whether that's a good thing for me or for you remains to be seen.

Seriously, at forty I was someone who thought he should have been a writer. Now I am a writer. I might've found my way eventually (although what were the chances that I would solve a problem I'd been wandering around for twenty-five years?) but Ms Cameron knew a method that was very effective for me.

Don't let the new-age rhetoric fool you. The center of this book is a rock-solid practical approach to becoming an artist in any field, even certified public accounting. If you're not comfortable with th mystic stuff, don't worry about it. Just try what she asks cause that's why you bought the book.

Rating:
Summary: Inspiring
Review: The Artist's Way is designed to help the most creatively repressed, damaged souls in the world. It assumes nothing and asks its readers to take charge of their own recovery effort. It helps artists examine their lives and better utilize the power of their imaginations.

If you think you're a hotshot artist, The Artist's Way can help you in ways that you hadn't thought to consider. While the entire program may not be right for everyone, simply answering the questions and doing the exercises are enough to help better define even well-toned creative muscles.

To get the full dose of artistic understanding and creative power, read How To Learn Anything Quickly by Ricki Linksman before you read The Artist's Way.

Rating:
Summary: If you're suffering any kind of artistic block, buy this now
Review: (And do the exercises. Trust me on this one.)

Rating:
Summary: This book changed my life
Review: I purchased this book about 3 years ago. I have read it continously the past 3 years. I have given it as gifts to numerous friends and family. I am not a professional artist by any means...I sell electronic components/widgets. For years I knew I wanted to get in touch with my "creative" side, but couldn't find the how to's or make the "time"..sorry excuses. Well, this book came into my life and I started following Ms. Cameron's exercises...A whole new world opened up for me. I started noticing simple things, like birds! Flowers blooming, sunlight reflecting on the pond down the street from where I live. And I followed her MUST DO instructions of keeping a Morning Journal. One must write LONG HAND 3 pages of stream of consciousness ramblings. You can write anything..it isn't an exercise in creative writing. It is a ritual of clearing your self out so you can allow NEW stuff to enter into your creative soul.
I recommend this book very highly to EVERYONE!
Artist, salesperson, auto mechanic, mother, teenager..everyone can benefit from this easy and enjoyable book to read.

Rating:
Summary: It's good, but it is ABRIDGED.
Review: This is not an unabridged reading of the Artist's Way Book. It is an author read abridgement and Julia Cameron herself opens the audiobook discussing the abridgement process she and her friends went through to boil the book down for this audiobook.
The material covered here is good and insightful, and that's why it still merits three stars. It's worth listening to, but you deserve to know what you're getting.

Rating:
Summary: This book is for EVERYBODY - including artists
Review: Julia Cameron has produced a masterpiece. By simple means she shares her invaluable experiences with the reader, and leads the us towards rediscovering the creative self. Even though it is intended - and works! - as a practical self-help course, it is packed with wise remarks, and will apply to everyone who in one way or other feels 'blocked' creatively in whatever area or profession. It is in fact as much a treatise on living as it is one on creativity, and perhaps the two can hardly be separated. Read it, enjoy, and feel the changes happening. Thank you, Julia.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Assistant
Review: I found the book to be helpful and specific to creative blocking. My criticism lies in the fact that if you have more damage that may have nothing to do with those things that block you creatively you may be wasting your time reading this book at this time. I am attending Al-Anon, seeing a therapist for being an Adult Child of an Alcoholic AND working through this book. With this combination of therapies, support and the work from the book, I am finding creative breakthroughs. In short, An Artist's Way is a good assistant to your journey through trauma, tragedy, or childhood injury but can only be a catalyst or a companion as opposed to counselor to you along your journey.

Rating:
Summary: good but superficial
Review: This book is good to get people started. But it's not good enough to keep you going. That's because to create, you need to do two things that I don't see at all addressed here:

1. face the pain of living. Everyone has some sorrow in life, and the creative process, which makes you look at life unflinchingly, forces you to face the pain you've had. Most people don't want to hear this, which is probably why it's not here, except in a superficial way. Remembering the insulting things your teacher said to you in the seventh grade is a start, but it's not going to get you anywhere. I noticed that discussion of trauma, such as rape, incest, and other tragedies like severe childhood illness or the impact of a death in the family, are conspicuously avoided. This is absurd because the research shows that creativity and trauma are linked. Although we all have not had equal types of trauma in our lives, in my opinion, to face one you have to face the other. But this message doesn't fit with her happy message of 'just do your morning pages and artist dates and unleash your creativity'.

2. face the terror of bringing something new into being. Creating means taking your idea and translating it from the vision in your head to the material world. This can be fun, and exciting, but if you're on to a source of real power in terms of a creative vision, it's terrifying. Because you're leaving the place of safety, where everyone else is, and going off to your own place and - who knows when or if you'll be back, or even how you can reintegrate into society once you get back. The creative process can be quite frightening. It's like every horror movie where the people start in a nice, safe, secure world, then they have to leave it.

People don't want to hear these things, so they are not here. But their absence detracts from the book. What's here is a nice, warm, reassuring book that gives people a great start at exploring the creative world, but won't take them the distance in my opinion.

think about it - why are so many African-Americans so incredibly creative? Because they have faced the pain of life in a way that many whites have not. This does not in any way justify the oppression they endured for hundreds of years. But their strengh in dealing with it gives them a source of power. A good book on writing is "remembered rapture" by bell hooks.