"This is a book about making art. Ordinary art. Ordinary art means something like: all art not made by Mozart. After all, art is rarely made by Mozart-like people; essentially—statistically speaking—there aren't any people like that. Geniuses get made once-a-century or so, yet good art gets made all the time, so to equate the making of art with the workings of genius removes this intimately human activity to a strangely unreachable and unknowable place. For all practical purposes making art can be examined in great detail without ever getting entangled in the very remote problems of genius." —-from the Introduction
Art &amp; Fear explores the way art gets made, the reasons it often doesn't get made, and the nature of the difficulties that cause so many artists to give up along the way. The book's co-authors, David Bayles and Ted Orland, are themselves both working artists, grappling daily with the problems of making art in the real world. Their insights and observations, drawn from personal experience, provide an incisive view into the world of art as it is expeienced by artmakers themselves.
This is not your typical self-help book. This is a book written by artists, for artists -— it's about what it feels like when artists sit down at their easel or keyboard, in their studio or performance space, trying to do the work they need to do. First published in 1994, Art &amp; Fear quickly became an underground classic. Word-of-mouth response alone—now enhanced by internet posting—has placed it among the best-selling books on artmaking and creativity nationally.
Art &amp; Fear has attracted a remarkably diverse audience, ranging from beginning to accomplished artists in every medium, and including an exceptional concentration among students and teachers. The original Capra Press edition of Art &amp; Fear sold 80,000 copies.
An excerpt:
Today, more than it was however many years ago, art is hard because you have to keep after it so consistently. On so many different fronts. For so little external reward. Artists become veteran artists only by making peace not just with themselves, but with a huge range of issues. You have to find your work...

Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

Arts & Photography

Bayles, David

Orland, Ted

History & Criticism

Image Continuum Press

In his best-selling Art and Fear, David Bayles (with Ted Orland) closely examined personal and autobiographical episodes in search of general truths about artmaking. Bayles now turns that same attention to his native West.
When European Americans “discovered” the American West, they fell in love with the resplendent landscape. The love affair and its congenital flaws persists to this day.
Bayles writes: “. . . the question is why my people bungled our occupation of the West so badly when no one really wanted to, when there was every chance to get it right, when voices of caution were constantly raised, when what needed to be done was frequently obvious, and when, occasionally, we did get it right (think: National Parks).”
Notes on a Shared Landscape engages the issues that make the West the West—widely ranging over the autobiographical and the cultural, the ecological and the epistemological, the cow and the potato. This is an intensely personal book, and though the Western library is huge, there is not another book like it. Much of the text unfolds in Yellowstone, where Bayles writes:
In the Lamar valley of the Yellowstone, beaver gnaw the trunks of cottonwoods, elk browse their leaves. The shadows are long, even in summer. Even so, it is just another place. In it, just as elsewhere, we see the marks of our own hands faintly because we don’t have to know very much about the land we live in, because we are equally a part of and apart from nature, and because there is hardly any moment when humans are more delusional than when self recognition is required.

Notes on a Shared Landscape: Making Sense of the American West

What is your art really about? Where is it going? What stands in the way of getting it there?These are questions that matter, questions that recur at each stage of artistic development-and they are the source for this volume of wonderfully incisive commentary. Art & Fear explores the way art gets made, the reasons it often doesn't get made, and the nature of the difficulties that cause so many artists to give up along the way.This is a book about what it feels like to sit in your studio or classroom, at your wheel or keyboard, easel or camera, trying to do the work you need to do. It is about committing your future to your own hands, placing free will above predestination, choice above chance. It is about finding your own work.

Tantor Audio

The stunning and dramatic beauty of California's Central Coast has long been a magnet for artists and photographers, and is emblematic of the school of West Coast photography. Home to photographers Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and Wynn Bullock, the Central Coast remains a mecca for photographers. In this collection, Martha Casanave has taken a conceptual and imaginative, rather than a literal approach to this iconic location. Martha Casanave: Explorations Along an Imaginary Coastline captures scenes of this striking coastline from a new perspective. Equipped with only a 6 x 4 pinhole camera, Casanave transforms the recognisable into the other-worldly and brings a timeless elegance and drama to her photography never before published.

Martha Casanave: Explorations Along an Imaginary Coastline

Individual Artists

Lucia|Marquand

Übersetzung der amerikanischen Originalausgabe von Art & Fear Ein Überlebenshandbuch für den Künstler von David Bayles & Ted Orland Worum geht es bei Kunst? Wohin bewegt sie sich? Welche Widerstände gibt es? DAS SIND DIE FRAGEN, AUF DIE ES ANKOMMT, wiederkehrende Fragen, die sich in jedem Stadium der künstlerischen Entwicklung stellen. Sie sind der Ursprung für dieses Kompendium scharfsinniger Beobachtungen. Kunst & Angst erforscht, wie Kunst geschaffen wird, die Gründe, warum Kunstwerke oft nicht entstehen und die Art der Schwierigkeiten, die so viele Künstler dazu bringt, auf der Wegstrecke aufzugeben. Dieses Buch handelt davon, was du fühlst, wenn du in deinem Atelier oder im Lehrsaal sitzt, du an der Töpferscheibe oder am Keyboard, vor der Staffelei oder hinter deiner Kamera stehst und du versuchst, das Werk, das dir bestimmt ist, zu schaffen. Es geht darum, dass du deine Zukunft in die Hand nimmst, den Freien Willen über Vorherbestimmung, die Wahl vor den Zufall stellst. Es geht darum, dein eigenes Werk zu finden.

Kunst und Angst: Feststellungen über die Gefahren (und Belohnungen) des Kunstschaffens (German Edition)

Study & Teaching

Samuel Wachtman's Sons, Inc.

IAD - Petit éloge des arts - repérer et surmonterles peurs propres à toute pratique artistique

Retz

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Bayles, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Bayles, David

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Bayles, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

Notes on a Shared Landscape: Making Sense of the American West

Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

Martha Casanave: Explorations Along an Imaginary Coastline

Kunst und Angst: Feststellungen über die Gefahren (und Belohnungen) des Kunstschaffens (German Edition)

IAD - Petit éloge des arts - repérer et surmonterles peurs propres à toute pratique artistique

Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking