Reflecting on Reading
Five books I read in 2024 that are shaping my 2025
The winter season has a way of getting me in a reflective mood—I tend to slow down, review what’s working/not, and pare back on the things that no longer serve me so that I can emerge refreshed and “ready to go” come springtime.
This reflection time has helped me notice that the way in which I speak about my art practice has undergone a major shift in the past year. Certain books greatly contributed to this evolution, and I’d like to share those books with you!
The Creative Act: A Way of Being
-Rick Rubin
In late 2023, a few snippets of Rick Rubin podcasts showed up on my Instagram feed. At the time I had no idea who he was, just that I connected with a lot of what he was saying about the creative process. I then heard about his book, and the title intrigued me enough to get a copy for myself.
Reading this book, and through it, seeing a popular music producer talk about the inherent spiritual nature of creativity and the art-making process, gave me the courage to start discussing my own art-making process in MUCH more honest terms. Meaning, I began to talk about and reveal the automatic drawing, channeling, and meditative processes that birth the work into being. Up until that point, I had been scared to relate my art to anything that could be construed as ‘spiritual’ because it has been such a taboo in the art world for such a long time.
I started actively learning about spirituality, mysticism, and transcendental meditation all the way back in high school; in short, I’ve been interested in what lies beyond our physical reality for a while now. However, my interests informed my artwork in ways I didn’t fully realize or acknowledge until this year! This book gave me permission to acknowledge those fundamental influences in my own work much more publicly.
How to Write about Contemporary Art
-Gilda Williams
After realizing that I had been inadvertently hiding a significant part of my art-making process, the next thing on the docket was to completely revamp my artist statement. As discussed previously, I hired a writing coach and she recommended this book to support the artist statement re-writing process.
This book is for artists, art critics, and art historians finding themselves in the position of writing about contemporary art. Williams writes with a tongue-in-cheek attitude that I find super refreshing, and she asks important questions to get to the heart of what an artist statement actually needs to state. There are lots of text samples written by real artists that provide a grounded perspective for the book’s content. It also has a fantastic list of what NOT to do when writing about art. In short, it’s the best art writing resource that I’ve found to date.
Get the Picture
-Bianca Basker
I picked up this book in Seattle while I was in town for my birthday in May. This story reads like a thriller—except it’s a non-fiction account of the pre-covid New York art scene. Deliciously written and filled with behind-the-art-scenes gossip, I absolutely devoured this book. Basker is a self-declared art outsider, specifically a journalist, who made it her mission to understand why art matters. She infiltrates various facets of the art world while trying to understand why so many of her friends go on about art being transcendent. This outsider perspective helped me realize that
1. I actually know a thing or two about art-making and the ‘art world’,
2. How much my art school in St Louis, MO was influenced by the NY art scene, and
3. Just how f’ed up the art scene can be.
This book helped me question whether I want to continue being complicit in a system that is so brutal to artists themselves. It also reaffirmed all the beauty and awe I feel when viewing certain artworks. Highly recommended for both the thrill and the wake up call.
Another World: The Transcendental Painting Group
-Michael Duncan with additional contributing essayists
When I was in Seattle for the Seattle Art Fair last summer, I stopped into one of my favorite galleries: Roq la Rue. If you have any interest at all in Low Brow Pop Surrealist art, I highly recommend joining their mailing list and getting regular updates on the mind-bendingly sublime work that Kirsten Anderson curates in this innovative space. They’ll actually be moving into a fantastic new space in Belltown (Seattle) in March 2025, so do check them out.
Kirsten also curates fantastic book selections; when I saw the cover of this book, it totally stopped me in my tracks. The cover image looked similar to Georgia O’Keefe’s paintings, but with a more spiritual undertone—which is exactly how the author describes Agnes Pelton’s work! In this book I learned of Agnes Pelton and Emil Bisttram (as well as many other artists) for the very first time and learned more about Hilda af Klint, an artist and mystic who keeps popping up on my radar.
This book is actually a catalogue for the large-scale art exhibit by the same name. The essays contained within opened my eyes to realize that there are entire art movements that get swept under the carpet because certain ideas aren’t en vogue at a particular place and time. I found kinship with these fellow artists who aimed to express similar ideas and experiences that I am having in my own work.
Women Who Run with the Wolves
-Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Considered a feminist classic, I have heard recommendations for this book for years; from yoga studios to academia, moon circles to therapy couches, SO MANY folks connect with this book. However, when I’ve picked it up in the past, I found it really dense and academic. Fast forward to this year, and the stories and discourse are suddenly landing with a power and wisdom that few books have held for me.
This book dives DEEP into cultural stories and the necessary re-wilding of the feminine spirit to connect with intuitive wisdom and the flow of creativity. With the unveiling of spiritual themes in my own art practice, these stories further inform and resonate with the intuitive learning I’ve had through relationships and lived experience. It’s rich and so nourishing; I’m glad that I re-approached it with patience and curiosity.
If you’ve gotten this far, thank you for coming along for the ride—hopefully one or more of the titles sounds intriguing and you’ll add it to your reading list this year.
Are there any books that are shaping your experience of 2025? I look forward to hearing your recommendations!