An Absorbing Errand: How Artists and Craftsmen Make Their Way to Mastery

by Janna Malamud Smith

An Absorbing Errand provides a philosophical, historical, and analytical look at the creative impulse and how certain artists from a wide field mastered their craft. From Julia Child to Charlie Chaplin, Lady Gaga to Michael Jackson, famous painters to established writers, Smith shows us how each overcame the obstacles they faced in the pursuit of their creative visions.

This utilizes stories of artists’ lives, personal anecdotes, and insights from the author’s work as a psychotherapist to examine the psychological obstacles that prevent people from staying with, and relishing, the process of art-making. Each chapter is devoted to a problem intrinsic to the creative process and illustrates how these very obstacles, once understood, can become prime sources of the energy that actually fuels the mastery of art-making.

An Absorbing Errand is a supportive companion, an enlightened and compassionate ballast, a guide for anyone who has ever picked up a pencil to write, or a paint brush to paint, or any tool —from chisel to loom— to pursue any serious craft, and then put it down again frustrated, discouraged, and unable to continue.

Genres: Writing, Art, Nonfiction, Psychology

272 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2012

About the author

Janna Malamud Smith is a practicing psychotherapist and the acclaimed author of four books, including An Absorbing Errand: How Artists and Craftsmen Make Their Way to Creative Mastery, My Father is a Book: A Memoir of Bernard Malamud; A Potent Spell: Mother Love and the Power of Fear; and Private Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life. Her titles have been New York Times Notable Books and she has been interviewed about her work on top national broadcast media. Her newly published book, An Absorbing Errand: How Artists and Craftsmen Make Their Way to Creative Mastery, examines the psychological obstacles and fears that prevent aspiring and established artists from building a sustainable, nurturing, and realistic creative practice against the background of how many of today's hot button topics, including social media, technology, the recession, sexuality, and identity, impact the creative process. For more information on Janna Malamud Smith, please visit: www.jannamalamudsmith.com

Reviews

[Chris Blocker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a problem with non-narrative non-fiction books: they can be boring. Not only does the author often drone on and on, but they repeat the same point they made in the first chapter, expanding on it until it is worn so thin I can use the pages as tissue. Perhaps it's my own flaw, but I need a story; without it, my attention wanes. So I was a little hesitant to pick up An Absorbing Errand. I thought the topic was interesting, but I knew that didn't necessarily mean it would keep my interest. And, in full disclosure, I mostly picked up this book because it was written by the daughter of Bernard Malamud (I have this strange obsession with reading books by the offspring of my favorite authors). An Absorbing Errand, however, was an absorbing read. If you want to understand better your need to create, why you have been dragging your feet as an artist, then this is the book to read.

Smith has been around a wide range of artists. Not only did she grow up amongst artists, but she has remained in their midst throughout the years. Furthermore, she is a psychotherapist and is well read. Smith knows artists and she understands them. This leads to a very insightful read that is equally cautionary as it is reassuring.

What I most liked about this book is how united it made me feel with other artists around the globe. If Smith is right in her diagnosis, we're not all that different from one another. We may approach our respective arts from different angles, but we largely experience the same feelings of fear, isolation, and ruthlessness. In her understanding of artists in general, Smith shows that she knows me. She understands why I create. Suddenly, I don't feel so alone.

Walking away from this book, the one thing I realize I most need to succeed is the company of others. Since I graduated from with my MFA two years ago, I've been doing this on my own. I have walled myself in with my novel and have become so consumed with it that I am not allowing myself interaction with other humans. I need counsel. I need communication. I need to have a friend or two. Without these, my work will suffer.

[Kasey Jueds · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book about writing, about art-making, about making of all kinds--and one of the most unusual and helpful ones I've ever read. Janna Malamud Smith writes beautifully and with great clarity about complicated things--how we approach the making of art, and the feelings that often stand in our way when we try to create. This is a deeply hopeful book, in the sense that she sees those feelings and internal weathers (shame, envy, ruthlessness)as fuel for the creative process--at least she feels they CAN be fuel. Somewhat like the Buddhist concept of barrier gates--shame and envy feel like barriers, and painful ones, but they can actually help us when they're approached consciously, thoughtfully. Smith's examples, the stories she tells and the biographies she refers to, are fascinating and surprising: Lady Gaga, Charlie Chaplin, Wordsworth, Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. She explores the balance between solitude and companionship, the difficulties of "going public" with one's work. She has a capacious vision of art-making, ranging through writing of all kinds, painting, singing, quilting, gardening, and more. I feel like I'd like to start reading this book again tomorrow. Inspiring--in many ways--and helpful--ditto (especially in the sense that she reminds readers, over and over, that they--we--aren't alone in feeling ashamed, frightened of publishing, conflicted over taking time for art-making, etc. etc.).

[miteypen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't improve on the above description of this book so I'll just say that I really liked it and appreciate the way it put words to the things that an artist goes through (in my case, as a writer). I came away from reading it with a much greater understanding of why I sabotage myself, suffer from writer's block, and have trouble believing that I'm good enough. It also helped me to see things I can do to be more creative and productive.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jungian analyst with erudite writing style examines the creative impulse, its triumphs and frustrations. Nice breakdown of factors.

[Byron Glick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once in a while a book comes along that changes how I think about my world. From Willa Cather to Malcolm Gladwell, there are many writers that have had this effect on me and now I must add Janna Malamud Smith to that list.

Her latest book is An Absorbing Errand: How Artists and Craftsmen Make Their Way to Mastery. Though she’s very focused on artists, I find this to be more broadly about mastery than just about art and artists. Almost everything she says, in my experience, applies to any attempt at mastery whether writing or management or any endeavor in which we choose to deeply invest ourselves.

Any thing (or person for that matter) that we settle our passion on for any period of time makes us tremendously vulnerable even as it enlivens us. She does a great job of talking about how that dance of passion and vulnerability needs to be managed in order for us to achieve even a private modicum of mastery.

If you aspire to any level of excellence, have ever uttered the words "world class" "best practice" or "state of the art" or used a version of the phrase "My profession is as much an art as it is a science" your integrity, your heart, and your ego demand that you read this book.

[Minkee Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book straight through the first time, with every intention of re-reading it in the future, absorbing the advice and the guidelines in a way that will sustain me as a writer. It is beautifully written in an engaging style. More importantly, it gives real insight into what makes creative people 'tick'.

Anyone who is struggling with the creative process, in any field, will find something to hang onto in this book, even if it is just the affirmation that they are not alone; that they are normal.

Malamud Smith uses real life examples to illustrate key points and concepts about the creative brain and how to move forward, but most of all, this book reminds us that doing something worthwhile is a joyous struggle, and the beauty for many artists is as much in the doing as in the end result.

[A.B. McFarland · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I'd had this book available to me twenty-five years ago when I was majoring in fine art in college. And then I wish I'd had reread it every five years. It would have saved me a lot of angst and trouble.

Pretty much every quandary I've ever been in or excuse I've given to make, not make, or not show my work to anyone has been lived through and felt before by so many people before me, that I can't help but feel encouraged just knowing my life as a creative person is in fact as normal as can be expected.

Anyone who writes, make music, paints or does anything else creative can find solace in these pages.

[Meg Petersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. It is a slow book, and I savored it. I would recommend this book to writers, and to artists of any type. Her examples are wide-ranging, and fascinating, but what I most enjoyed was the sense of community with others engaged in the creative process which this book gave me.

[Micaela · Rating 4 out of 5]

So far I have only read one chapter and this book is brilliant!

[Justin Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sparse and deeply open little instruction manual by a writer-psychologist that tries to break down 'writer's block' into its constituent parts -- fear, shame, etc -- and respond to each with the example of a specific artist. I thought more deeply about Elizabeth Bishop, Charlie Chaplin, myself, Woolf, and time because of reading this. Knocked down a few stars because of a truly insane section comparing Lady Gaga to a Nazi propogandist and a thuddish end; but not a bad way to spend an afternoon or three.

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beauty of a book. It’s a book about the making of an effective, creative life but it’s much more than that. The writer, a practicing psychotherapist goes through things like identity, shame, solitude, and more. The writing is unusually perfect, beautiful, and, um, heavenly.

[Madelyne! · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some books move me along quickly. This was a slow absorbing read I borrowed from the library, but have ordered now for my own bookshelf. Recognized myself in a few of the to-be-changed behaviours :)

[Jen Herr · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the most basic sense, creativity is the mind's repeated effort to solve an apparently insoluble problem.

[Shelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book about challenges faced by artists and writers. It discusses myths and the lives of some historical artists. It is aimed at aspiring artists.

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The good life is lived best by those with gardens... I mean rather the moral equivalent of a garden - the virtual garden. I posit that life is better when you possess a sustaining practice that holds your desire, demands your attention, and requires effort; a plot of ground that gratifies the wish to labor and create - and, by so doing, to rule over an imagined world of your own." (p. 3)

"The love of a practice, the effort of trying to master it, gives us a different portal through which to enter the world and, thus, another way both to see new places and to draw from our innate beings the things that are potentially contained within it." (p. 21)

"Alone in our desks or studios working at our practices, we encounter uncomfortable feelings with no means of identifying them. We do not quickly comprehend that these very anxieties are intrinsic to our own progress. We experience them as being about our personalities or our singular failings, and consequently, too often, they debilitate us and arrest our forward motion. Furthermore, because contemporary culture is obsessed with superficial notions of happiness, it sets us up to feel ashamed of feeling bad. Mental distress gets too quickly interpreted as pathology or weakness. This skewed understanding makes it harder to stay with the challenging psychological journey of mastery." (p. 29-30)

"She learned, for example, that one must welcome discouragement and anxiety in any creative task because they may be signs that will and control are giving way to something fresh and original." (p. 32)

Related: The Courage to Create by Rollo May

[Alic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Similar to The World Beyond Your Head, I found this book difficult to read from cover to cover. I blame myself. The writing is lovely although very "shrinky"....I did not realize the author is a psychotherapist but I soon detected that particular style of writing, which I confess is not my favorite. That said, I did find some useful ideas about the nature of artistic work, which were particularly helpful anchors as I plunged into a new production as an amateur performer myself. I wish she'd included more anecdotes from modern artists, as I particularly enjoyed the passages about Michael Jackson.

[Greta · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't find this book as absorbing as I thought I would. Probably because it was mostly about the author and she seemed to be mostly absorbed with herself and a few "famous" artists she could cite as examples of what she was talking about. At the end, I wasn't really sure what she had to say other than to make your way to mastery you have to stick with your art, or craft, as the case may be, despite all obstacles. Duh.

[Louise Pare-Lobinske · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is essentially The Psychology of Being an Artist/Craftsman. I didn't know my purpose in life (which I think now is to be a writer) when I first started, so I found it depressing at first, but when I made up my mind, it was very helpful. Recommended for all serious artists and craftsmen and those who want to be.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

How do I edit this book off my 'currently reading' page? I hated it and returned it to the library over a year ago!

[Melissa Hefferlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fairly perceptive and articulate description of the obstacles and rewards of a life of creativity. Her examples from among celebrities were interesting. I found it a very good audio book.

[Ginger · Rating 4 out of 5]

A recommend for those who create, in any form.

[Cindy Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Explores the emotional ups and downs of being an artist by exploring the lives of famous artists; inspirational.

[Martins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like a garden is life.