The 5 best books to read for the creative mind
The 5 books we want you to read. Incase you have an extensional crisis, thinking about quitting your job and you think the whole world is against you. Creatives tend to find themselves in difficult positions and it’s important to know that you shouldn’t be to hard on yourself! These books will give you insights about creative blocks, turnin flops into master pieces and a deepdive into translating images that makes your head tilt to the side.
Are you still counting all your failures from past decades?
Failed it! By Erik Kessels
is a fabulous way to celebrate the art of imperfections. Kessels is a Dutch artist, collector and co- founder of KesselsKramer (advertising agency, known for the Hans Brinker budget hotel). With a collection of photographs shows a unique insight to embrace our failures Kessels encourages us to embrace our failures, while we live in an era when everyone is striving for perfection and now we are afraid to fail, which limits our potential.
If we learn how to change our perceptions on failures we can open up a new gate with other possibilities, new ways of thinking and innovate solutions. This book transforms mistakes from something to embarrassed about into a case of celebration.
Kessels includes images by fine art photographers who make unposed, awkward and weird photos. In Matt Stuart’s Fifth Avenue, a shadow creates a comical mustache on an unsuspecting security guard. In Andre Thiessen’s Car With Balls, two spherical sidewalk barricades align with the wheels of a car.
““the ubiquity of Apple + Z, means that we can literally undo any mistake before it has had time to breathe, be considered and - perhaps - evolve into something else: a fascinating, strange, provocative or even original piece of work. This book asks readers to embrace their fuck-ups, learn from them and celebrate their tawdry glory’.”
If you have the feeling that you are going though a creative burn-out
The Artists way by Julia Cameron
You don’t need to be spiritual or believe in God. You can be an atheist or agnostic, it doesn’t matter. Cameron teaches us that the whole universe’s existence is about creativity.
This will be a 12 week cursus to help to unblock your creativity your gut feeling. At the beginning of this journey you are signing a contract, it’s a creative contract with yourself. And continue to do the weekly assignments. Besides the insightful theory, 12 week cursus you must do morning pages. Morning pages are just basically 750 words each day with all your junk and thoughts, you don’t have to share it with others.
And not to forget to mention the ‘Artists date’: go outside of your routine, and reward yourself each week. For example, you can take time to cook, go for a walk, paint, or listen to music. Something that allows you to experience and enjoy life. It’s a practical cursus, you don’t need anything except for the book itself it’s totally worth to try it!
““No matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.””
Are you stuck? Do you need new refreshing inspiration?
Whatever you think, think the opposite by Paul Arden
Arden gives us a very clear vision of the possibilities about re-thinking. Turns logic and common sense on its head in ‘Whatever you think think the opposite’ and gives you the confidence to take bigger risks and enjoy your work more than you can imagine.
Have you ever considered the extraordinary power of making bad decisions, being unreasonable, and taking dangerous, unadvisable risks? Has it ever occurred to you that nothing is more dangerous than playing it safe, or that the straight and narrow path may lead you right off a cliff? Whether you sell, manage, or buy, Arden will inspire you with his counterintuitive axioms, startling anecdotes, brilliant photographs, and offbeat quotations from artists, scientists, and philosophers.
This book is for people who want to break new ground, who understand that if you want to leave your mark on the world you have to start thinking differently.
“The world is what you think of it. So think of it differently, and your life will change.”
Are you ready to get a magical mind-fuck?
Ways of seeing by John Berger
Based on the BBC Television Series by Berger’s, ‘Ways of Seeing’ is one of the most stimulating and the most influential books on art in any language. Berger changed the way people think about painting, art criticism and advertising, through word and image shows this book that what we see is always influenced by a lot of assumptions concerning that nature of beauty, truth, civilization, taste class and gender.
Diving deeper in the layers and exploring more meaning within photographs, paintings and graphic art. Berger argues that when we see, we are not just looking - we are reading the language of images. That the way of work of art was perceived differed depending on the person who was perceiving it.
First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the Sunday Times critic commented:
“This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures.” By now he has.
Here a glimpse of Ways of Seeing on BBC.
If you are in need of more feminine inspiration and motivation to pursue your dreams.
In the Company of Woman by Grace Bonney
‘Inspiration and Advice from over 100 Makers, Artists, and Entrepreneurs'
A stunning and ambitious project. In an interview, Bonney gives us multiple new insights from over 100 exceptional and influential women. Their interviews are paired with intimate, striking portraits and vividly rich photographs of their workspaces and creations. It describes how they embraced their creative spirit, overcame adversity and sparked a global movement of entrepreneurship. Media titans and ceramicists, hoteliers and tattoo artists, comedians and architects—taken together, these profiles paint a beautiful picture of what happens when we pursue our passions and dreams.
“Name the biggest overall lesson you’ve learned in running a business. Winners are losers who got back up. Full stop. If you want something, grab it. Get it. It’s yours, damn it.”
