As the team behind an independent, international visual arts magazine, we’re sure it’s no surprise that we also enjoy reading other publications about art! People often come to us for recommendations - especially artists who are new to the industry and are seeking career advice.
In this post, we're sharing a list we’ve compiled that includes favorites from our staff and online community from over the years. These top books that every emerging artist should have in their art library include guides about the business of art, art writing, honing in on your creative voice, finding the motivation to pursue your art even when the going gets tough, and much more. We hope you enjoy this list and we invite you to reach out if you have books to add!
15 Books for Emerging Artists
1. Find Your Artistic Voice: The Essential Guide To Working Your Creative Magic by Lisa Congdon
Bestselling author, artist, and illustrator Lisa Congdon brings her expertise to this guide to the process of artistic self-discovery. Find Your Artistic Voice helps artists and creatives identify and nurture their own visual identity. This one-of-a-kind book helps artists navigate the influence of creators they admire, while simultaneously appreciating the value of their personal journey. The book features down-to-earth and encouraging advice from Congdon herself, is filled with interviews with established artists, illustrators, and creatives, and answers the question "how do I develop a unique artistic style?".
An artist's voice is their calling card—it's what makes each of their works vital and particular, but developing such singular artistry requires effort and persistence. Find Your Artistic Voice offers everyday strategies, inspirational anecdotes, and practical advice to push through fear and insecurity in your artistic practice.
2. The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron
Since its first publication, The Artist's Way phenomena has inspired the genius of Elizabeth Gilbert and millions of readers to embark on a creative journey and find a deeper connection to process and purpose. Julia Cameron's novel approach guides readers in uncovering problems areas and pressure points that may be restricting their creative flow and offers techniques to free up any areas where they might be stuck, opening up opportunities for self-growth and self-discovery.
The program begins with Cameron’s most vital tools for creative recovery – The Morning Pages, a daily writing ritual of three pages of stream-of-conscious, and The Artist Date, a dedicated block of time to nurture your inner artist. From there, she shares hundreds of exercises, activities, and prompts to help readers thoroughly explore each chapter. She also offers guidance on starting a “Creative Cluster” of fellow artists who will support you in your creative endeavors.
A revolutionary program for personal renewal, The Artist's Way will help get you back on track, rediscover your passions, and take the steps you need to change your life.
3. Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
Readers of all ages and walks of life have drawn inspiration and empowerment from Elizabeth Gilbert’s books for years. Now, this beloved author digs deep into her own generative process to share her wisdom and unique perspective about creativity. With profound empathy and radiant generosity, she offers potent insights into the mysterious nature of inspiration. She asks us to embrace our curiosity and let go of needless suffering. She shows us how to tackle what we most love, and how to face down what we most fear. She discusses the attitudes, approaches, and habits we need in order to live our most creative lives. Balancing between soulful spirituality and cheerful pragmatism, Gilbert encourages us to uncover the “strange jewels” that are hidden within each of us. Whether we are looking to write a book, make art, find new ways to address challenges in our work, embark on a dream long deferred, or simply infuse our everyday lives with more mindfulness and passion, Big Magic cracks open a world of wonder and joy.
4. This Is What I Know About Art by Kimberly Drew
Pocket Change Collective is a series of small books with big ideas from today's leading activists and artists. In this installment, arts writer and co-editor of Black Futures Kimberly Drew shows us that art and protest are inextricably linked. Drawing on her personal experience through art toward activism, Drew challenges us to create space for the change that we want to see in the world. Because there really is so much more space than we think.
5. Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad by Austin Kleon
In his previous books Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work!, both New York Times bestsellers, Austin Kleon gave readers the keys to unlock their creativity and showed them how to become known. Now he offers his most inspiring work yet, with ten simple rules for how to stay creative, focused, and true to yourself—for life.
The creative life is not a linear journey to a finish line, it’s a loop—so find a daily routine, because today is the only day that matters. Disconnect from the world to connect with yourself—sometimes you just have to switch into airplane mode. Keep Going celebrates getting outdoors and taking a walk (as director Ingmar Bergman told his daughter, ”The demons hate fresh air”). Pay attention, and especially pay attention to what you pay attention to. Worry less about getting things done, and more about the worth of what you’re doing. Instead of focusing on making your mark, work to leave things better than you found them.
Keep Going and its timeless, practical, and ethical principles are for anyone trying to sustain a meaningful and productive life.
6. Make Your Art No Matter What: Moving Beyond Creative Hurdles by Beth Pickens
If you are an artist, you need to make your art. That's not an overstatement—it's a fact; if you stop doing your creative work, your quality of life is diminished. But what do you do when life gets in the way? In this down-to-earth handbook, experienced artist coach Beth Pickens offers practical advice for developing a lasting and meaningful artistic practice in the face of life's inevitable obstacles and distractions. This thoughtful volume suggests creative ways to address the challenges all artists must overcome—from making decisions about time, money, and education, to grappling with isolation, fear, and anxiety. No matter where you are in your art-making journey, this book will motivate and inspire you. Because not only do you need your art—the world needs it, too.
7. The Complete Smartist Guide by Ekaterina Popova and Alicia Puig
This is the book with all of the practical information about how to actually make a career in the arts that we never learned in art school. The Complete Smartist Guide by artist and Create! Magazine Founder, Ekaterina Popova, and curator and gallery director of PxP Contemporary, Alicia Puig, is packed with tips, hints, and actionable steps from our personal experiences working in the art world.
In this essential guide for self-taught and emerging artists, we discuss not only business tactics, sales strategies, and how to promote your art online and in person, but also actionable information about how to deal with creative burnout, overcome imposter syndrome, and avoid the comparison game! We’ve built our creative businesses largely using social media and email marketing so we share all of the exact steps we used to reach audiences of hundreds of thousands of followers around the world.
To make sure we rounded out this book with even more solid advice, we’ve included interviews with numerous contemporary artists to share their unique insight into how to license your art, attract clients for commissions and mural projects, develop your unique creative voice, and so much more!
8. How to Write About Contemporary Art by Gilda Williams
How to Write About Contemporary Art is the definitive guide to writing engagingly about the art of our time. Invaluable for students, arts professionals, and other aspiring writers, the book first navigates readers through the key elements of style and content, from the aims and structure of a piece to its tone and language. Brimming with practical tips that range across the complete spectrum of art-writing, the second part of the book is organized around its specific forms, including academic essays; press releases and news articles; texts for auction and exhibition catalogs, gallery guides and wall labels; op-ed journalism and exhibition reviews; and writing for websites and blogs.
In counseling the reader against common pitfalls―such as jargon and poor structure―Gilda Williams points instead to the power of close looking and research, showing how to deploy language effectively; how to develop new ideas; and how to construct compelling texts. More than 30 illustrations throughout support closely analyzed case studies of the best writing, in Source Texts by 64 authors, including Claire Bishop, Thomas Crow, T.J. Demos, Okwui Enwezor, Dave Hickey, John Kelsey, Chris Kraus, Rosalind Krauss, Stuart Morgan, Hito Steyerl, and Adam Szymczyk.
Supplemented by a general bibliography, advice on the use and misuse of grammar, and tips on how to construct your own contemporary art library, How to Write About Contemporary Art is the essential handbook for all those interested in communicating about the art of today.
9. The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair
The Secret Lives of Color tells the unusual stories of 75 fascinating shades, dyes, and hues. From blonde to ginger, the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso’s blue period to the charcoal on the cave walls at Lascaux, acid yellow to kelly green, and from scarlet women to imperial purple, these surprising stories run like a bright thread throughout history.
In this book, Kassia St. Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colors and where they come from (whether Van Gogh’s chrome yellow sunflowers or punk’s fluorescent pink) into a unique study of human civilization. Across fashion and politics, art and war, the secret lives of color tell the vivid story of our culture.
10. How to Be An Artist by Jerry Saltz
Art has the power to change our lives. For many, becoming an artist is a lifelong dream. But how to make it happen? In How to Be an Artist, Jerry Saltz, one of the art world’s most celebrated and passionate voices, offers an indispensable handbook for creative people of all kinds.
From the first sparks of inspiration—and how to pursue them without giving in to self-doubt—Saltz offers invaluable insight into what really matters to emerging artists: originality, persistence, a balance between knowledge and intuition, and that most precious of qualities, self-belief. Brimming with rules, prompts, and practical tips, How to Be an Artist gives artists new ways to break through creative blocks, get the most from materials, navigate career challenges, and above all find joy in the work.
Teeming with full-color artwork from visionaries ancient and modern, this beautiful and useful book will help artists of all kinds—painters, photographers, writers, performers—realize their dreams.
11. How To Spot An Artist: This Might Get Messy by Danielle Krysa (It’s a children’s book, but just trust us!)
With over 200,000 Instagram followers, Danielle Krysa has helped a lot of people overcome the fear that they "aren't creative." In books like Creative Block and Your Inner Critic is a Big Jerk she calls out the self-criticism that keeps us from claiming and expressing our artistic abilities. Now she uses her characteristic playfulness, lively illustrations, and humor to help kids overcome negativity about their artistic endeavors--and to help them redefine what being an artist means. Every page delivers encouragement to the kid who thinks artists all live in cities, or that art has to look like something familiar, or that painting and drawing are the only way to make art. In a world that drastically undervalues creative freedom, Krysa's whimsical paintings and collages joyfully proclaim that art is essential and that artists are everywhere. Additionally, a page at the back of the book includes ideas for art projects--because who wants fewer art projects? Nobody!
12. The Art Spirit by Robert Henri
“Art when really understood is the province of every human being.” So begins The Art Spirit, the collected words, teachings, and wisdom of innovative artist and beloved teacher Robert Henri. Henri, who painted in the Realist style and was a founding member of the Ashcan School, was known for his belief in the interactive nature of creativity and inspiration, and the enduring power of art. Since its first publication in 1923, The Art Spirit, has been a source of inspiration for artists and creatives from David Lynch to George Bellows. Filled with valuable technical advice as well as wisdom about the place of art and the artist in American society, this classic work continues to be a must-read for anyone interested in the power of creation and the beauty of art.
13. Art-Write: The Writing Guide for Visual Artists by Vicki Krohn Amorose
Art-Write: The Writing Guide for Visual Artists has a single intention: To teach artists how to write about their own artwork. This concise and current career resource is filled with achievable advice on how to write for art promotion and sales. The book offers a step-by-step approach to create a professional artist statement, with thinking and writing exercises to ease the process and develop authentic and clear content.
Opportunities in the art world often begin with the artist's own writing; for exhibitions, funding, press releases, and email inquiry letters. Art-Write offers comprehensive direction to artists who want to enhance their visual work with effective language. Author Vicki Krohn Amorose combines the sensibility of an artist with the practicality of a copywriter, offering an understanding of her readers along with generous wit and encouragement.
14. Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland
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. 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 experienced 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 & 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 & 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 & Fear sold 80,000 copies.
15. Show Your Art: How to Build an Art Career Without a Gallery by Gita Joshi
Many artists still believe that the only way to be visible and get your art noticed is through gallery representation. Working with a gallery has always been the go-to avenue when it comes to selling art. However, there are more artists than galleries could ever represent. As the modern market becomes more saturated, emerging artists have to explore non-traditional approaches to sell their art. Show Your Art: How To Build An Art Career Without A Gallery serves the self-representing artist who’s ready to move ahead and begin creating a life in art even without a gallery.
For artists who want to take charge of their art career, Show Your Art reveals practical steps on how to write about your art to increase your visibility, share your stories and value, and reach your audiences directly without having to lose commission through a gallery. It goes through the contemporary and dynamic ways of exhibiting and using your online channels to reach a global audience as a self-representing artist -- something that wasn’t even possible 30 years ago!
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Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this article, you can find more of my writing at www.aliciapuig.com.
