Yield: The Journal of an Artist

by Anne Truitt, Rachel Kushner (Foreword)

Celebrating Anne Truitt's centenary, this posthumously published work serves as the fourth and final volume in her remarkable series of journals



In the spring of 1974, the artist Anne Truitt (1921–2004) committed herself to keeping a journal for a year. She would continue the practice, sometimes intermittently, over the next six years, writing in spiral-bound notebooks and setting no guidelines other than to “let the artist speak.” These writings were published as The Journal of an Artist (1982). Two other journal volumes Turn (1986) and Prospect (1996). This book, the final volume, comprises journals the artist kept from the winter of 2001 to the spring of 2002, two years before her death.



In Yield, Truitt’s unflinching honesty is on display as she contemplates her place in the world and comes to terms with the intellectual, practical, emotional, and spiritual issues that an artist faces when reconciling her art with her life, even as that life approaches its end. Truitt illuminates a life and career in which the demands, responsibilities, and rewards of family, friends, motherhood, and grandmotherhood are ultimately accepted, together with those of a working artist.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography

205 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 24, 2022

About the author

The artist Anne Truitt was born in Baltimore in 1921 and spent her childhood in Easton. She lived in a house on South Street, just a block from the Academy Art Museum. She travelled extensively before eventually settling in Washington, DC. Her paintings and sculpture are noted for their simple linear qualities and investigation of color relationships.

Critics have often associated her with both Minimalism and the Washington Color Field artists, although like many artists she rejected reductive classifications. She had a successful career showing her work extensively in New York City and across the country.

Along with her art Truitt was noted as a teacher and as an author of memoirs: Daybook (1982), Turn (1986), and Prospect (1996). She died in Washington in 2004.

Reviews

[Gretchen Rubin]

I love the writing of artist Anne Truitt, and was so excited to learn that her final journal had been published.

[Cherise Wolas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish locating Anne Truitt's earlier artist journals and diaries, of which there are three, wasn't so difficult because I would love to read them all, in order. She was a fascinating woman, ahead of her times, accidentally often in the middle of history, and what she has to say about life and art and making art and about herself is compelling. I'm not sure why I was unaware of her as a minimalist artist, but have spent some wonderful time while reading this looking at her sculptures and the last paintings she made. On the hunt for copies of the earlier Truitt books.

[Amber V.2.0 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve really loved this series by Anne Truitt particularly her discussion of consciousness.

[JoJo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like nothing I've read before, except, I flatter myself, in my own journals. For me, it's the juxtaposition of the major and life-altering with the ordinary and life-constituting that gives journals their unique flavor. But while reading Truitt's entries revealed this phenomenon to me in my own journaling, her work itself pushes back against the distinction whose invention it inspires. Placing daily musings alongside philosophical inquiries alongside preoccupations with life and death and aging, progress updates on her sculptures, and accounts of times spent with family and friends, Truitt declines to privilege any one above the other. Her various roles—not limited to those of artist, mother, person—are all urgent and meaningful and not so easily distinguished.
Another distinction loses substance under her care. Yield reminds me of the way I used to write in my diary, with performative and personal expression warring for dominance. Despite her express references to the potential publication of the very words she's penning, Truitt's writing never feels false or forced. Rather than the meta nature of journaling—heightened by her established practice of publishing what ordinarily is inordinately private—obscuring or skewing the authentic voice, she blurs the line between public and intimate in a more honest expression of her psyche.
What results is nothing short of inspiring: achingly beautiful and profound vulnerability.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the last of the books made from Truitt’s journals, entries from one of the final years of her life and inclusive of George W. Bush becoming President and 9/11. Those events are the backdrop against which Truitt wakes up early to layer paint onto her works in progress, bakes cookies for her family, learns of friends’ illnesses and deaths, and recalls her interactions with major figures of art history. All of her anecdotes feel mythic—or maybe more so at the towering age of 82–reassuringly grounded by her constant making and her body’s dictates.

[Mina Widding · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kontemplativ, om liv och skapande, konst, i slutet av ett långt, in i döden produktivt liv. Stor respekt för den konstnär hon är (var), och väldigt sugen på att någon gång få se och uppleva hennes skulpturer. Sjukt avundsjuk på Yaddo, och hennes studio på gården. Sympatisk inställning under 2001 och 9/11, önskar fler amerikaner tänkte som henne. Hon skulle skämmas ögonen ur sig om hon fått uppleva Trump? Förmodligen.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pockets of this were really lovely

[lmv · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read this, I want to read Truitt’s previous 3 journals that were published before her death. The whole text reminds me of this oft-quoted passage from Rilke’s letters: “Everything is gestation and then bringing forth. To let each impression and each germ of feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own intelligence, and await with deep humility and patience the birth-hour of a new clarity: that alone is living the artist's life, in understanding and in creating.” — written in 1903 as part of a collection of letters in his correspondence with Franz Kappus, a young cadet. The idea of *everything* being “gestation and then bringing forth” is embodied in Truitt’s meticulous recounting of moments and in-time reflections and analysis of how a moment may be something more than it is. In form and discourse, there are natural connections to Perec and Lamott, also experts in the craft of effecting context and meaning to bring the reader along — in Truitt’s case, made especially poignant as she crafts this yearlong diary in the months preceding and following her 80th birthday.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

A difficult book to rate. While the writing was poetic with fascinating and unique thoughts on a variety of topics, I didn't really enjoy or find myself interested in this book for the most part. I still have a huge appreciation for Anne Truitt, the way that she puts together words is unmatched and highly detailed. I could tell that she was a talented writer who lived a rich and interesting life.
I just struggled to stay invested in an artist that I know nothing about so I'd recommend this book to people who are fans of Anne Truitt or people who are interested in art, specifically modern artists.

[Cameron Toney · Rating 4 out of 5]

To read these books feels a bit like a series of conversations. Like you and Truitt are sitting down over tea, or taking walks, and touching on all sorts of subjects.
Gentle, thoughtful things.