Review – “Living the Creative Life”

This is a new feature for my blog. I’ll tell you right now, I’m only going to review books I like and/or use. The world is just too full of insults and injury for me to want to add to it. 🙂  I’m adding an Amazon affiliate link for these as well. Don’t feel obligated to buy a copy through me, I highly recommend supporting your local bookseller or needlework shop. But it’s there if you just can’t wait!

When I first saw this book online, I passed it over — I expected it to be something superficial, maybe even glib. With Ricë Freeman-Zachery as the author, I should have known better – I’ve loved her articles in Belle Armoire and Somerset Studio. I actually bought this book at a local craft store after I found myself standing at the rack engrossed for 20 minutes when I really needed to go back to work at my day job.

The book is filled with gorgeous, lush photos of the work of the fifteen included artists’ work, their studios, and quotes from them. But it isn’t a book of profiles, or the kind of studio analysis that makes me jealous. It’s organized around the analyzing what, exactly, creativity IS anyway, how you go about living a creative life, and what defines such a life for each of the artists individually. The “profiles” are mixed in with the theses of each chapter, and each time I turned a page I got drawn in deeper.  And in among all of this wonderful discussion there are creativity tips, unique perspective sidebars, and things for you to try to bring some of the ideas into your own work.

And the artists aren’t all the same, either. There are bookbinders, textile artists, jewelry artists, and even a puppet-maker in the mix.

All in all, the book is a deep pool that I wanted to wallow in for hours – and over and over again. It’s not a book I just put on my shelf to look pretty. It is truly inspirational for me.