Bad Artist

“An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.”

— Charles Horton Cooley —

A quick search for books on productivity yields a glut of advice for mindfully attending to your creative projects: Silo your email. Close your office door. Say no to enticing opportunities. Build your own creative oasis away from interference.

Typically delivered from a married male perspective, such recommendations fail to recognize the systemic barriers to creative productivity faced by many artists. Hewing to a conventional work template, advice on creative productivity assumes a lived reality that is increasingly rare. It is dependent on full-time, permanent, salaried work; few domestic responsibilities; free time away from children, aging parents, and/or pets; and available space. This assumption binds creativity to a capitalist model where the end result is a “product” available for consumption, rather than seeing it as a natural part of human expression.

Bad Artist is a collection of essays that aims to offer philosophical ruminations, tips on creating, and practical advice from artists working in unconventional conditions. By abandoning creativity’s unhelpful partner, productivity, Bad Artist instead explores ways we can be creative within – and despite – our material, familial, and social circumstances, all while challenging the conventional literature on time management.

Publication date: 2022