No More Secondhand Art

Synopsis

This book is about using art as an instrument of personal transformation, enabling us to move from an inherited to a chosen state of being. Peter London offers inspiration and fresh ideas to artists, art students, and art teachers--as well as to people who think they can't draw a straight line but want to explore the joys of creative expression. Inside every person, he believes, there is an original, creative self that has been covered over by secondhand ideas, borrowed beliefs, and conditioned behavior. By freeing the capacity for visual expression--a natural human language possessed by everyone--we can awaken and release the full powers of that original self. Among the topics and exercises included are: * How to increase the ability to visualize, fantasize, and dream * Obstacles to the creative encounter and what to do about them * Experimenting with art media as true mediators between imagination and expression * Making masks to reveal the hidden self * Painting with "forbidden" colors * Arranging found objects as metaphors for one's life " "Peter London--painter, author, art educator, and art therapist--has taught the approach presented in this and other books to thousands of students, ranging from teens to octogenarians, from "art phobics" to professional artists. Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and a 2002 Distinguished Fellow at the National Art Education Association, he lives in Fairhaven, Massachusetts." ""A joy to read. In a style both conversational and precise, London questions the conventional attitudes that form a barrier to keep art outside most people's lives. London shows us that making images is as natural as speech, as dreams."--Yoga Journal "Passionate and insightful . . . A must-read for all artists, art students, and art teachers. But anyone who wants to explore their own inner dimensions of creativity can learn and profit from it."--Intuition "Peter London is grounded in his approach to the visual arts and he communicates it beautifully. He gives a fresh vision to creativity."--Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within "I am impressed--no, I am thrilled--by the courage and ripeness of his guidance toward creativity, how it can work, how it can be helped and hindered, how it can change everything."--M.C. Richards, author of Centering in Pottery, Poetry, and the Person "His eloquent, at times poetic ruminations return the reader to some earlier state of grace that may have been damaged or neglected in the hurly-burly of teaching. London not only invites the reader on this journey to some unexplored recesses of the mind, but also provides very specific tasks to ease the passage of transition. Philosopher and artist though he may be, London's commitment as a teacher shines on every page."--Al Hurwitz, author of Gifted and Talented in Art and coauthor of Children and Their Art

Copyright:

1989

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

ISBN-13:

9780834824959

Related ISBNs:

9780877734826

Publisher:

Shambhala

Date of Addition:

10/13/16

Copyrighted By:

Peter London

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Self-Help, Health, Mind and Body, Psychology

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.