Prospect: The Journey of an Artist

by Anne Truitt

The final volume of Anne Truitt's trilogy reflects on life, art, and the challenges and blessings of old age. In "Prospect", Truitt looks at the far end of her life's arc and feels the urgent need to reevaluate her talents as a sculptor. Meanwhile, a forced retirement from her teaching position leads her to examine her own vulnerability National ads & publicity.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography

221 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

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

[Julene · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Anne Truitt third and final memoir, she writes about the process of being an artist while reviewing her life. She uses polar/Arctic sailing missions, such as Shackleton & Robert Fitzroy who sailed the ship Darwin was on when he developed his theory that survival of the fittest was a law of nature. She uses them to compare her journey and her art with their lives. Also, she uses artist Joseph Beuys, born the same year as she was, 1921, he was shot down when flying during battle, and wound up being saved by natives, the Tartars, nomads of the Crimea, who covered his body with fat, he later created a piece that was a bathtub lined with fat.

Below are a few gems from the book:

"...I find myself living along a kind of celtic line, winding back into my life and then winding forward, the past weaving relentlessly into the present and the present as relentlessly into the future."

She quotes from Wallace Stegner, "The sound of anything coming at you—say a train, or the future—has a higher pitch than the sound of the same thing going away." So Stegner says a life in retrospect has "a sober sound of expectations reduced, desires blunted, hopes deferred or abandoned, chances lost, defeats accepted, griefs borne."

And she writes, "...it is art that renders individuality visible, first as a personal ever-beaconing mystery, then as an available resource to all who hunger for companionship as they strive toward their own development." She continues, "...I look for the rare artists who have had the resolution, the courage, the pertinacity to observe, examine and reexamine on its own terms the given range of their singulairty until the particular yields the universal."

She even writes about her husband and his frustrating attempt to write a novel that he had to drop. "...had not trained himself to initiate and cultivate a context inside himself." "He had trained himself for two long to respond to a context outside himself."

Such a good writer, I plan to read the two earlier memoirs as well.

[Charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the first two books of her diaries and thoughts much more than this book. I got very tired of her somehow trying to draw in stories about polar explorers and Charles Darwin, there didn't seem to be much point. It's still interesting to read her perspective on art making, especially as she nears and clears the age of 70.

I thought a lot about the book "Art Worlds" that I read recently. In spite of her dissatisfaction with the attention given to her work, Truitt was firmly part of "the" art world, tenure at a university, a custom-built studio, friends with big names, a long established connection to a prominent New York gallery, a Whitney retrospective, work held in multiple museums and private collections, surely a career for anyone to envy who desires prominence in the arts. Her dissatisfaction then feels un-earned, especially since she rose from a background of financial and social privilege. I'm not sure why it didn't bother me as much in the previous books, but maybe she wasn't as "fragile." I did learn that before ??? don't remember the date, faculty at public institutions were required to retire at 65! She was very put out about being made to retire, but they re-hired her back for part-time work and she readily got another post at an art school. It's funny what we all find to complain about...

Tough read; didn't want to finish it, but I did.

[Amber V.2.0 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anne Truitt continues to review her life to find the threads that run through it. She’s very aware of her ‘inner’ life and uses that self-knowledge in both her art and her writing.

She’s notes that her (former) husband had only an outer life and therefore could not write a novel.

Fascinating. I plan to re-read the entire series.

[Laura Daniels · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was lucky to get all three of the author's journals from my public library. There is a lot of repetition but that was okay because that implied the read could pick up any one and not be lost.

I learned about how a woman artist must balance work and family.

[Cameron Toney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have very much enjoyed this gentle view into the thoughts and methods of Anne Truitt. Each page was a delicate joy.

[Lydia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truitt wrote three books based on her journals (she died in 2004). She writes Prospect at age 70 with a strong vocabulary, and as an ardent classical reader. Her art was minimalist, but she has applied all she learned from the many batterings of life, to give the reader poetic insight into art, family, marriage, career, home and beauty. What she says is reaffirming, and in other cases, things you have worried about, she explains. She cherishes long friendships and believes in Dawkins’ memes. She is a hard worker. At this age, she is particularly attuned to her family, “I have slowly come to realize that a family is composed of people who are teaching one another.” She faces disappointment when she gives up her lessening tenure at Univ. of Maryland. She needs time alone and relishes it, “I am home, I circle my place, and picking up my routine, there is nothing as satisfactory as normality. She quotes Ortega y Gasset, “to live is to feel one’s self lost, and to accept the fact is to be on firm ground.” Raised by a nanny till 5th grade (no math), she somehow entered a public school, graduated high school at 16, went on to college (honors), earned two masters degrees, had three children, and was an art professor at Univ. of Maryland after her husband died, while also a well-known sculptor. She knows how to tell her privileged story, and to lead as an example, making as much public contribution as she can. Highly recommended if you’re feeling introspective and thinking of spring.

[Jessica Rosner · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love the bits about Arctic exploration. I wanted to love the rest, but I found it a bit tedious. I had a hard time relating to any of her feelings of inadequacy considering her long, successful career. Also, her love affair with Yaddo. There were some beautifully written pages about her process and specific pieces. But mostly I found myself rushing through it.

[Etana · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Los Angeles Times Book Review chose Prospect as one of its Best Books of 1996 In her widely acclaimed earlier memoirs, Daybook and Turn, Anne Truitt charted her life as an artist, mother and teacher. In Prospect, Truitt looks at the far end of her life

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not yet halfway through, but absolutely loving this memoir of an artist reflecting on the stages of her life's work.

[Andrea Goo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading such an insightful journal by an artist has been truly amazing reading for me! It's like I am reading about myself.