Daily rituals : how artists work

"How artists work, how they ritualize their days with the comforting (mundane) details of their lives: their daily routines, fears, dreams, naps, eating habits, and other prescribed, finely calibrated "subtle maneuvers" that help them use time, summon up willpower, exercise self-discipline and keep themselves afloat with optimism. Artists considering how they work--in letters, diaries, interviews, beguilingly compiled and edited by Mason Currey. Portraits that inspire, amuse, and delight and that reveal the profound fusion of discipline and dissipation through which the artistic temperament is allowed to evolve, recharge, emerge. From Beethoven and Kafka to George Sand, Picasso, Woody Allen and Agatha Christie; from Leo Tolstoy and Henry James to Charles Dickens and John Updike, here are writers, composers, painters, choreographers, playwrights, philosophers, caricaturists, comedians, poets, sculptors, and scientists on how they create (and avoid creating) their creations. A Sampling of Daily Rituals Charles Dickens Dickens's eldest son recalled that, "no city clerk was ever more methodical or orderly than he; no humdrum, monotonous, conventional task could ever have been discharged with more punctuality or with more business-like regularity than he gave to the work of his imagination and fancy." Dickens rose at 7:00, had breakfast at 8:00, and was in his study by 9:00. He stayed there until 2:00, taking a brief break for lunch with his family, during which he often seemed to be in a trance, eating mechanically and barely speaking a word before hurrying back to his desk. On an ordinary day he could complete about two thousand words, but during a flight of imagination he sometimes managed twice that amount. Maya Angelou: "I keep a hotel room in which I do my work--a tiny, mean room with just a bed and, sometimes, if I can find it, a face basin. I keep a dictionary, a Bible, a deck of cards, and a bottle of sherry in the room ..."-- "How artists work, how they ritualize their days with the comforting (mundane) details of their lives: their daily routines, fears, dreams, naps, eating habits, and other prescribed, finely calibrated "subtle maneuvers""--… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member beata

Too bad it was written in any particular order and no additional information about the people mentioned is provided. What i learned is that many artists are getting up early and working every day until lunch and have walks afterwords and usually smoke and sometimes drink alcohol.

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LibraryThing member starsandscribbles

A thoughtful book of interesting facts that I would not have otherwise known about these famous and quirky artists.

LibraryThing member debnance

They do it all different ways, I’ve learned. Early hours of the day, before dawn. Late night. All day, every day. An hour after dinner, and that’s all. Drinking lots of liquor. Drinking lots of coffee. Standing up. At a desk. In a rented office.

A million different ways. But somehow, to all, the

muse comes. And goes. And comes again.

You must read this book if you want to create. Maybe here you will find a great way to create. Or figure out your own way to call out to the muse.

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LibraryThing member ValerieAndBooks

The back of my copy of this book says "Writers, composers, painters, choreographers, playwrights, poets, philosophers, sculptors, filmmakers and scientists on how they create and (avoid creating) their creations". That pretty much sums up the premise of this book. Author Mason Currey started a blog

based on the daily rituals on these mostly well-known figures, then this book came into being. At first, I enjoyed reading the trivia of these people, some of which were quite eccentric. But then, it started to all seem somewhat repetitious. At that point, my reading changed from a constant read to picking up and reading an essay or two at a time mostly at bedtime. The latter method is probably the best way to read this book. Overall an enjoyable read, though.

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LibraryThing member LadyD_Books

Inspirational read about the daily rituals of great minds. I was especially interested in learning about the creative habits of famous composers. It's fascinating to know that we as artists have similar patterns and disciplines of so many creative minds mentioned here. Not surprising to read of

composer's finding their inspiration in nature or upon rising early in the morning to compose their songs. What intrigued me was their sensitivity to privacy and not wanting to keep diaries or to be quoted by family members. Yet their desire was to teach and share their great gifts with the world. Indeed, they have and we are so enriched to review how they achieved their greatness in these writings. Take your time with this one because there are so many treasures to discover here. My only disappointment was that the contents were not alphabetized but you can easily pick up anywhere and find out about musicians, artists, philosophers and scientists. My favorite quote is from Tchaikovsky, of course.

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LibraryThing member akblanchard

In this book, author Mason Currey gathers together descriptions of successful artists' self-reported work habits, mostly taken from published sources such as biographies and magazine interviews. The "artists" Currey profiles are a high-browed group that includes painters, writers, composers, and

scientists, among others; there are no rock musicians or pop culture icons here. Each individual has his or her own habits, but, as a group, they tend to be routine-oriented. If there is one lesson that can be derived from the artists' experiences, it is this: setting aside time each day for creative work is a more productive approach than waiting for inspiration to strike.

This book could have been better than what it was. For example, Currey doesn't provide much background on the artists he selected. Moreover, the chapters are arranged in no discernible order. I read this book straight through from page one to the end, but it is probably more suited to dipping into and skipping around in. The in-depth descriptions of daily routines, including wake-up times, preferred foods and beverages, favored work spaces and bed times, get monotonous after a while. Fortunately, some of the artists have interesting quirks that enliven the text.

Nonetheless, if you're curious about how successful artists of the past and present manage to to tame the distractions and get down to the business at hand, this book offers that information, in great detail and all in one place.

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LibraryThing member jen.e.moore

Abandoned not because I didn't like it, but because it's just not the kind of book you read straight through, and it's due back at the library.

LibraryThing member spbooks

More of a book to dip into rather than read through from cover to cover. Some interesting information about how famous people structured their daily lives to get things done. The author has done an amazing amount of research!

LibraryThing member StaffReads

This is a quirky little book of short essays about dozens of famous artists (painters, writers and composers to name a few) on how they structured their days to accomplish their art. If you are interested in how artists order theirs days for peak productivity or if you are just a bit voyeuristic,

this would be a fun book for you. Something to pick up from time to time.

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LibraryThing member CassandraT

Each creative celebrity gets one or two pages of information about their daily routines or their planned daily routines. Some are just valid while the individual was working. I really enjoyed a few of these insights. It was also nice that the author admits that some of these individuals were never

able to stick to a schedule. Buckminster Fuller's story is one of my favorites. It is four paragraphs. Bucky trained himself to sleep less and more purposefully at unique intervals to match his "modern lifestyle."

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LibraryThing member jculkin

Each 'portrait' lasts around a page - perfect for toilet or over-breakfast reading. It's heartening to learn that the only thing all these greats have in common is that they were great. How they were great takes no formula: some stick to routine, some don't; some do drugs, some don't; some work at

night, some work in the morning; some took years of variation to strike upon the right habits, and some got it straight off the bat.

My advice is to figure out who are the ones closest in thought structure, which takes a bit of wikipeding, and then pay close attention to their habits. Favourites were Jung, Kierkegaard, Erdos and Asimov. Others of note: Auden, Feldman, Franklin, Flaubert, Mahler, Matisse, Miró, Miller, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Murakami, Skinner, Proust, Christie, Greene, Armstrong, Balzac, Hugo, Tolstoy, Bell, Cather, Sacks, Wallace and Simenon.

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LibraryThing member Smiler69

A fun book to dip in and out of, as it is composed of short essays of no more than one or two pages, each focusing on individual artists, mostly from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, though there are also entries from the 17th and 18th centuries such as John Milton and Wofgang Amadeus Mozart.

Currey has based himself on various existing texts and biographies and personal interviews with contemporary artists to establish what their daily habits are which enables them to produce their various creative works. From famous authors, painters, composers, architects, what became glaringly obvious was there are as many ways of tackling the day as there are ways of expressing creativity, and that while some artists with a prodigious output such as Dickens and Balzac did indeed dedicate the better part of their lives to their writing and predictably enough a number of other artists used a great deal of stimulants like alcohol and amphetamines to drive themselves through long sleepless periods of manic work, a great many surprisingly spent no more than two or three hours each day on their labours and then went got on with the rest of their activities. I borrowed this from the library but wouldn't mind having my own copy to dip in and out of as a reference and inspiration on how to handle my own creative endeavours.

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LibraryThing member capriciousreader

I just couldn't finish it. There is a lot of interesting information in this book, if you're willing to slog through all the useless parts.

LibraryThing member liz.mabry

So I got about 100 pages in, and found myself filled with rage. All of these men (with very few exceptions) have their daily rituals because their wives/mothers/children/servants cater to them and make the money/food/silence that their egos require. I just can't read this right now.

The book itself

is lovely - I was very much looking forward to it, and will come back to it when the patriarchy doesn't bother me so much. HAHAHAHAHA.

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LibraryThing member knightlight777

A fascinating book with short profiles of famous authors and artists of their daily habits in setting about their creative ways. Though not a lot of description here it is none the less interesting how these individuals organize and set their routines surrounding their work. Some are very specific

and almost rigid in their ways while others are the free floating types who are much like their work is creative in nature. One key element that seemed to pop into many was the daily walks that broke up the pattern and apparently added to the creativity.

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LibraryThing member MrsLee

An interesting collection of the daily rituals of famous creative folks. Included are artists, writers, choreographers, composers and architects. They range from as early as the 1600s and up through modern times. I had to look up many of the modern ones, but that was interesting too.

An interesting

topic for a book, I read it in short intervals. About the only thing I take away from it is that people are unique and there is no one right daily ritual to achieve greatness. That lies somewhere in the heart and mind and it is obvious that all of the people highlighted in this book had a drive to do what they did. It was something they couldn't not do.

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LibraryThing member runningbeardbooks

Deciding HOW to read this book was the challenge as it jumps from one artist or writer to the next in a encyclopedic fashion. But I decided to read continually from one biographical portrait to the next and allowed them flow into one another to a satisfying result. So much so that I finished the

book in a day. Endlessly fascinating and amusing if you happen to be seeking your own 3-4 hour window each day to create.

Lessons learned? Many wake and work in the pre-dawn hours, walk many a mile, imbibe impressive quantities of coffee, tea, booze and amphetamines, and have loyal friendships, servants and understanding partners.

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LibraryThing member augustgarage

As Currey admits, this is a superficial book; a thin collection of vignettes loosely describing the working habits and other random biographical quirks of a variety of creative artists - I could see the appeal of this as a blog, but it doesn't make for much of a book. Moderately

entertaining/diverting, but about as inspiring or insightful as a series of anecdotes scribbled on post-it notes pasted up around your desk...

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LibraryThing member c_why

Fun & moderately interesting, but simply a compilation from other sources.

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