This pocket-size primer, a companion to the 2006 best-seller Letters to a Young Artist, offers a candid peek into the thoughts of a group of artists between the ages of 30 and 40 who have dealt with - and continue to deal with - the questions that consume those just starting out in the art world and that are so rarely addressed openly within it. Editors Shelly Bancroft, Peter Nesbett, and Rebecca Sears asked 21 artists to write a diary entry addressing some of their most private artistic concerns and received a variety of responses. “Some of them are vulnerable, written as though in confidence or in the heat of the moment. Others are more prosaic, argumentative, or reflective. The artists write about how they spend their days in the studio; about attending their openings; about assistants, lovers, and dealers. They write about the demands placed on them by others but also about those they place on themselves. They write about frustrations, mistakes, triumphs, distractions, and influences.” –from the editors’ introduction.
Participating artists include Simon Evans, Ryan Gander, Katy Grannan, Sterling Ruby, Ellen Altfest, Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Sue de Beer, Keith Edmier, Beate Gütschow, Pablo Helguera, Adam Helms, Nina Katchadourian, Terence Koh, Ruben Ochoa, Chloe Piene, Paul Ramirez Jonas, Katerina Seda, Swoon, Hayley Tompkins, and Zoe Strauss.