It took me a while to finish reading “Art, Inc.” by Lisa Congdon. I bought this when it was released but put it down as I got distracted with other things. Last week, I finally picked it up again and devoured its last pages by this morning.
It’s for the working artist.
Simply put, all the ideas, options and possibilities for all forms of art are spelled out for any artist who wants to make a living off their work. From licensing, illustrating children’s books to fine art selling, it’s all up to the artist to test them out and see what works best with your art.
It’s concise and comprehensive.
The flow of content is very easy to follow. The tone is friendly and language of writing is pretty straightforward. It makes it easy to digest all the information one page after the other. The book is rich with the author’s personal experiences and thoughts as a flourishing artist, so it makes the written ideas very, very real for the reader.
The testimonials are a source of encouragement.
The book features 20 interviews with artists of different fields. I absolutely love hearing and reading about other people’s lives and how they carved their creative path, what worked and what didn’t.
The layout.
The aesthetics of the book affect my way of reading. The main reason I put the book down was my vision had a hard time adjusting through the lengthy content on portions of red-orange pages and orange-on-white pages. I managed avoiding the strain by reading only in natural daylight, and not under a lamp. It changed everything and I sped through the book effortlessly thereafter.
The list of resources.
Lisa Congdon makes building a career out of art a concrete experience , as she thoroughly lists down specific resources: from conferences, galleries, printers, residencies, etc. I think this is the part about the book I love best because it gets the ball rolling and gives you a specific starting point and orientation.
I am so glad I got a copy for myself because it filled in a lot of gaps and opened my mind to the vast ways of doing things across the multitude of art fields and personalities there are in the world. I honestly believe both the established and neophyte artists have so much to gain from reading this book! “Art Inc.” is a great source of inspiration, a bubbling well of ideas and a fantastic instrument to get the wheels of your mind turning and makes you want to get off your seat and do something right now.
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Thanks Cherie, for another helpful post! I am a
“Neophyte artist” and I’ll definitely pick this up. I actually just emailed you about advice and resources today so this is great timing! 🙂
Thanks for the vote of confidence, and thank you so much for your email, Aminah! Let me put on my thinking cap and get back to you at the soonest possible time 🙂
I have this book from the library, but I think I might need to own it!