How to Be an Artist

**Author:** Jerry Saltz **Estimated Reading Time:** 45 minutes

**What You'll Learn:** How to overcome the fears that keep you from making art, build a creative practice that sustains you, think like a working artist, navigate the art world with realistic expectations, and survive the inevitable criticism and rejection that come with putting your work into the world.

**Who This Book Is For:** Anyone who has ever wanted to make art but felt they weren't qualified, talented enough, or brave enough to start. This includes painters, writers, musicians, dancers, filmmakers, and anyone who suspects they have something to express but has been waiting for permission. The permission is here.

There is a moment that every artist knows intimately. It is the moment before you begin. The blank canvas, the empty page, the silent studio. In that moment, a voice speaks. It tells you that you are not good enough. It tells you that your ideas are foolish. It tells you that everyone else figured this out long ago and you are the only one who has not. Jerry Saltz has spent decades watching artists wrestle with that voice. As the senior art critic for New York magazine and a Pulitzer Prize winner, he has reviewed thousands of exhibitions, visited countless studios, and spoken with artists at every stage of their careers. He has seen brilliant work emerge from humble beginnings and watched promising talents crumble under the weight of their own self-doubt. What he has learned is that the difference between people who make art and people who only dream about making art is not talent. It is not education. It is not connections or luck or timing. The difference is that artists find a way to work despite the voice that tells them they cannot. This book exists because Saltz believes that voice is lying to you. The problem is not that you lack ability. The problem is that you have been taught to think about art in a way that paralyzes you. You have been taught that art requires genius, that artists are special beings touched by divine inspiration, that you must have something profound to say before you are allowed to speak. None of this is true. Art is not a gift bestowed upon a chosen few. Art is a practice, a habit, a way of seeing and responding to the world. It is available to anyone willing to show up and do the work. The artists you admire are not fundamentally different from you. They are simply people who kept going when it would have been easier to stop. Why does this matter? Because the world needs more art. Not more polished, commercial products designed to sell.…