Book an absorbing errand pdf
An Absorbing Errand uses stories of artists lives personal anecdotes and insights from the author s work as a psychotherapist to examine the psychological obstacles that prevent people from staying with and relishing the process of art making Each chapter is devoted to a problem intrinsic to the creative process and illustrates how these very obstacles once understood can become prime sources of the energy that actually fuels the mastery of art making Ultimately An Absorbing Errand provides a philosophical historical and analytical look at the creative impulse and how certain artists from a wide field mastered their craft From Julia Child to Charlie Chaplin Lady Gaga to Michael Jackson famous painters to established writers Smith shows us how each overcame the obstacles they faced in the pursuit of their creative visions Many people carry within their hearts an aching sense that they have something they want to express through art or that they will not feel complete until they ve brought out some hidden part of themselves Yet they cannot begin to do the work of bringing their creative idea into the world Or maybe they ve begun over and over but they can t stay with their labor long enough to finish it An Absorbing Errand is a supportive companion an enlightened and compassionate ballast a guide for anyone who has ever picked up a pencil to write or a paint brush to paint or any tool from chisel to loom to pursue any serious craft and then put it down again frustrated discouraged and unable to continue An Absorbing Errand is unlike any book about creating art of any kind and aspiring and working artists alike will find it both original and invaluable An Absorbing Errand How Artists and Craftsmen Make Their Way to MasteryI wish I d had this book available to me twenty five years ago when I was majoring in fine art in college And then I wish I d had reread it every five years It would have saved me a lot of angst and trouble. An absorbing errand book review Pretty much every quandary I ve ever been in or excuse I ve given to make not make or not show my work to anyone has been lived through and felt before by so many people before me that I can t help but feel encouraged just knowing my life as a creative person is in fact as normal as can be expected. Epub an absorbing errand epub Anyone who writes make music paints or does anything else creative can find solace in these pages Nonfiction A beauty of a book It s a book about the making of an effective creative life but it s much than that The writer a practicing psychotherapist goes through things like identity shame solitude and The writing is unusually perfect beautiful and um heavenly Nonfiction The good life is lived best by those with gardens I mean rather the moral equivalent of a garden the virtual garden I posit that life is better when you possess a sustaining practice that holds your desire demands your attention and requires effort a plot of ground that gratifies the wish to labor and create and by so doing to rule over an imagined world of your own p 3 The love of a practice the effort of trying to master it gives us a different portal through which to enter the world and thus another way both to see new places and to draw from our innate beings the things that are potentially contained within it p 21 Alone in our desks or studios working at our practices we encounter uncomfortable feelings with no means of identifying them We do not quickly comprehend that these very anxieties are intrinsic to our own progress We experience them as being about our personalities or our singular failings and consequently too often they debilitate us and arrest our forward motion Further because contemporary culture is obsessed with superficial notions of happiness it sets us up to feel ashamed of feeling bad Mental distress gets too quickly interpreted as pathology or weakness This skewed understanding makes it harder to stay with the challenging psychological journey of mastery p 29 30 She learned for example that one must welcome discouragement and anxiety in any creative task because they may be signs that will and control are giving way to something fresh and original p 32 Related The Courage to Create by Rollo May Nonfiction Some books move me along quickly This was a slow absorbing read I borrowed from the library but have ordered now for my own bookshelf Recognized myself in a few of the to be changed behaviours Nonfiction I loved this It is a slow book and I savored it I would recommend this book to writers and to artists of any type Her examples are wide ranging and fascinating but what I most enjoyed was the sense of community with others engaged in the creative process which this book gave me Nonfiction 
Janna Malamud Smith is a practicing psychotherapist and the acclaimed author of four books including An Absorbing Errand How Artists and Craftsmen Make Their Way to Creative Mastery My Father is a Book A Memoir of Bernard Malamud A Potent Spell Mother Love and the Power of Fear and Private Matters In Defense of the Personal Life Her titles have been New York Times Notable Books and she has been interviewed about her work on top national broadcast media Her newly published book An Absorbing Errand How Artists and Craftsmen Make Their Way to Creative Mastery examines the psychological obstacles and fears that prevent aspiring and established artists from building a sustainable nurturing and realistic creative practice against t Janna Malamud Smith is a practicing psychotherapist and the acclaimed author of four books including An Absorbing Errand How Artists and Craftsmen Make Their Way to Creative Mastery My Father is a Book A Memoir of Bernard Malamud A Potent Spell Mother Love and the Power of Fear and Private Matters In Defense of the Personal Life Her titles have been New York Times Notable Books and she has been interviewed about her work on top national broadcast media Her newly published book An Absorbing Errand How Artists and Craftsmen Make Their Way to Creative Mastery examines the psychological obstacles and fears that prevent aspiring and established artists from building a sustainable nurturing and realistic creative practice against the background of how many of today s hot button topics including social media technology the recession sexuality and identity impact the creative process For information on Janna Malamud Smith please visit site_link www. Book An Absorbing errands com site_link I have a problem with non narrative non fiction books they can be boring Not only does the author often drone on and on but they repeat the same point they made in the first chapter expanding on it until it is worn so thin I can use the pages as tissue Perhaps it s my own flaw but I need a story without it my attention wanes So I was a little hesitant to pick up An Absorbing Errand I thought the topic was interesting but I knew that didn t necessarily mean it would keep my interest And in full disclosure I mostly picked up this book because it was written by the daughter of Bernard Malamud I have this strange obsession with reading books by the offspring of my favorite authors An Absorbing Errand however was an absorbing read If you want to understand better your need to create why you have been dragging your feet as an artist then this is the book to read. Epub an absorbing errant Smith has been around a wide range of artists Not only did she grow up amongst artists but she has remained in their midst throughout the years Further she is a psychotherapist and is well read Smith knows artists and she understands them This leads to a very insightful read that is equally cautionary as it is reassuring. Book An Absorbing errands meaning What I most liked about this book is how united it made me feel with other artists around the globe If Smith is right in her diagnosis we re not all that different from one another We may approach our respective arts from different angles but we largely experience the same feelings of fear isolation and ruthlessness In her understanding of artists in general Smith shows that she knows me She understands why I create Suddenly I don t feel so alone. EBook An Absorbing errand janna malamud Walking away from this book the one thing I realize I most need to succeed is the company of others Since I graduated from with my MFA two years ago I ve been doing this on my own I have walled myself in with my novel and have become so consumed with it that I am not allowing myself interaction with other humans I need counsel I need communication I need to have a friend or two Without these my work will suffer Nonfiction I can t improve on the above description of this book so I ll just say that I really liked it and appreciate the way it put words to the things that an artist goes through in my case as a writer I came away from reading it with a much greater understanding of why I sabotage myself suffer from writer s block and have trouble believing that I m good enough It also helped me to see things I can do to be creative and productive Nonfiction Every once in a while a book comes along that changes how I think about my world From Willa Cather to Malcolm Gladwell there are many writers that have had this effect on me and now I must add Janna Malamud Smith to that list Her latest book is An Absorbing Errand How Artists and Craftsmen Make Their Way to Mastery Though she s very focused on artists I find this to be broadly about mastery than just about art and artists Almost everything she says in my experience applies to any attempt at mastery whether writing or management or any endeavor in which we choose to deeply invest ourselves Any thing or person for that matter that we settle our passion on for any period of time makes us tremendously vulnerable even as it enlivens us She does a great job of talking about how that dance of passion and vulnerability needs to be managed in order for us to achieve even a private modicum of mastery If you aspire to any level of excellence have ever uttered the words world class best practice or state of the art or used a version of the phrase My profession is as much an art as it is a science your integrity your heart and your ego demand that you read this book Nonfiction Jungian analyst with erudite writing style examines the creative impulse its triumphs and frustrations Nice breakdown of factors Nonfiction A book about writing about art making about making of all kinds and one of the most unusual and helpful ones I ve ever read Janna Malamud Smith writes beautifully and with great clarity about complicated things how we approach the making of art and the feelings that often stand in our way when we try to create This is a deeply hopeful book in the sense that she sees those feelings and internal weathers shame envy ruthlessness as fuel for the creative process at least she feels they CAN be fuel Somewhat like the Buddhist concept of barrier gates shame and envy feel like barriers and painful ones but they can actually help us when they re approached consciously thoughtfully Smith s examples the stories she tells and the biographies she refers to are fascinating and surprising Lady Gaga Charlie Chaplin Wordsworth Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell She explores the balance between solitude and companionship the difficulties of going public with one s work She has a capacious vision of art making ranging through writing of all kinds painting singing quilting gardening and I feel like I d like to start reading this book again tomorrow Inspiring in many ways and helpful ditto especially in the sense that she reminds readers over and over that they we aren t alone in feeling ashamed frightened of publishing conflicted over taking time for art making etc etc Nonfiction.