Considering Art, Prayer, and Deep Reading this New Year
Happy New Year to you and your book pile! I start the new year gently, and this post discusses asking the universe for artistic guidance and highly specific reading pile pleasures.
Books
Living the Artist Way By Julia Cameron 2023, St. Martin Essentials
Julia Cameron’s The Artist Way was my favorite inspirational read last year. It offers a sustainable system for cultivating creativity. Basically, journal, pay close attention, go on walks, and pray. But that’s easier said than done!
Cameron’s newest book, Living the Artist Way, is out today and goes deep into the fourth tool,
Guidance. Structured as a six-week course, Living the Artist Way offers a workbook of advanced study for introspective journaling.
Cameron writes in the first person to discuss the spiritual impact of prayer and art on the artist (her). Guidance is The Artist Way’s deepest, most mystical, or elusive tool; the author calls it “woo woo.”
And yeah, guidance might be God or the human spirit, and asking for it is a lot like praying. Through dozens of examples, she convincingly suggests that asking the universe for guidance builds confidence, intuition, and relationships and deepens artistic practice.
I think of the monks making a beautiful painting out of sand in Samsara.
“What if it’s just my imagination?” Cameron asks for guidance and then answers, “What if it’s not?”
In the high-tech 21st century, where anything that can’t be coded into a computer isn’t real, it’s easy to forget God, praying, and our souls in the universe. Praying is what other people do. That’s not for busy metropolitans like me!
But what if it’s not?
Living the Artist Way offers practical application for prayer in an artist’s practice structured as a journaling workbook. The workbook encourages artists to pray, and the author says the word often. She describes daily prayer rituals, calling friends to offer prayers, asking others for prayers, and incorporating prayer into artistic practice. The journaling prompts hint at a process of deep introspection that can be described as meditative, neither exactly secular nor religious.
People who already pray and meditate would probably see the benefits as obvious. But skeptics like me? We have valid reasons to distrust organized religion. Some of us naively read Richard Dawkins as teenagers.
And yes, I’ve previously encountered books that discuss uniting prayer and art with “magick.” Idolizing Satan, tapping occult symbology, walking down the left-hand path, nerd boy crap. Or there’s also David Lynch asking you to pay $1500 a year to learn mantra meditation.
The book extolls readers to ask the universe for what they need and be attuned to the universe to listen, particularly for making art. Cameron’s approach is much gentler and more human than the magickal wizard stuff. In a way, Cameron is just a really nice, thoughtful friend who surrounds herself with really nice, thoughtful friends. After writing Morning Pages, she recommends using a separate notebook to ask for guidance. Ask whatever you want. Questions like What should I write next? Or How do I make my painting better? Answers come, she insists, perhaps through divine intervention, perhaps through believing in your own inner strength to live your fullest life.
So, who’s talking, exactly? Or who’s listening? Is it our subconscious mind? Cameron describes how, after a lifetime of cultivating this, she might just be following intuition. Perhaps our own voice can be one of the wise truths learned from meditation.
But what if it’s not? A strict objectivist might oversimplify things there. They might say daily journaling and intention setting provide buzzwords like mental clarity and action orientation. But Cameron stresses guidance can be unclear, deliberate, and slow. Sometimes, it might discourage action and encourage self-acceptance.
A few people said the guidance could be a picture. The author discusses the topic with dozens of friends who consider guidance might be ancestor spirits, a stillness in the universe, or God, and multiple speakers don’t try to explain it. They just swear by it.
I really adore The Artist Way, and Living The Artist Way offers dozens of helpful examples to put the tools and rituals into daily practice. I recommend the new book to people who enjoy creative, inspirational writing or self-help. Asking for guidance is a resolution I’m setting for myself this year.
Comics
Revenge of the Librarians By Tom Guald 2022, Drawn and Quarterly
I was looking up the word “Librarians” at the library, which is a silly and discursive thing to do, and it led me to Tom Guald’s 2022 collection, Revenge of the Librarians, winner of TK the Eisner for Best Humor Publication. This type of silliness is exactly what I found in Guald’s book.
Take this one about book piles, for example; it is literally the point of this newsletter.
And I think Guald installed a camera in my apartment and took pictures of my desk????
Many of Gauld’s strips represent book piles. We pilers are not alone in the world. Other people are willfully surrounding themselves with precarity.
I felt like Violet and found this strip relatable as I shoved old basement paperbacks in my suitcase and left my socks and underwear behind at my parent’s house.
It’s fair to say that these comics make me feel seen, even though they often depict faceless stick-figure silhouettes. Finally, a gag comic for pile people, folks who spend time equal time reading and reformatting piles. This might be how lesbian readers feel for Alison Bechtel, or British wizards feel for Alan Moore.
The comic reminds us to appreciate the librarians. The ones who pile for their livelihood. I hope to one day join their ranks.
I’ll be reading all of Gauld’s previous books. I recommend this book as a present to anyone who thinks of themselves as a “bookhead,” if you dig these comics, he’s posted scores more on his Instagram and Tumblr.
Pile of the Week
The first pile of the year has been set very intentionally. I continue to work on my novel like a skeleton angel in heaven.
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