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The Artfulness of Artists Speaking

By Eric Maisel

Art in the Bagel Shop

Many years ago—maybe forty—I had a small show of abstract pastels up at the bagel shop across the street from where I was living. It stayed up a long time because, well, there was no urgency to take it down. Other artists weren’t clamoring for the space and the manager had rather forgotten about them.

One day, I wandered into the shop to get an everything bagel with cream cheese and got into conversation with the young woman behind the counter. I confessed that I was the artist and she said, “You know, I look at these every day. They are so beautiful. I would buy them all if I could afford them!”

Creativity Coaching

I’ve been coaching creative and performing artists as a creativity coach for all these long forty years. What that clerk shared constitutes music to the ears of an artist. I never thought of myself as a visual artist—I am and was always a writer, with fifty or sixty books behind me now. But I loved what a painting, a photograph, or a drawing could do, loved getting my hands dirty with my pastels, and loved what artists had to say.

Fearless Creating

As it happened, when the publisher Jeremy Tarcher purchased a book from me called Fearless Creating, soon to come out from Conari/Mango in a thirtieth anniversary edition, he asked me for what he called a “quote campaign.” He wanted me to locate resonant quotes from artists that could populate the wide margins of the book.

I had such fun locating those quotes! In those days, you had to locate them in actual books. The Internet, which had just begun to be known, had only about 15,000,000 users worldwide in 1994—and I was certainly not an early adopter. So, I had to pull those quotes from actual books, mainly books of interviews with artists, the most marvelous quotes imaginable. I loved that process!

After Fearless Creating appeared, I remained with hundreds of leftover quotes. So, I asked my literary agent of the time, Linda Allen, “What can we do with leftover quotes?” Linda suggested that we package them as a journal, one that we decided to call Artists Speak, and she sold the idea quickly to Harper San Francisco, who produced two gorgeous editions of Artists Speak, a small yellow pocket one and a full-sized black one. With Picasso eyes on the cover!

(As a fan of irony, I would like to mention here that those blank books are among my bestsellers.)

Love Affair with Journals

That was the beginning of my love affair with journals filled with quotes from artists—quotes from novelists, photographers, composers, dancers, choreographers, sculptors, playwrights, the whole pantheon of creatives.

Creatives are artful in what they produce—and they are artful in what they say. They are imaginative in what they produce—and they are imaginative in what they say. They are soulful in what they produce—and they are soulful in what they say. They are artists in their own medium—and they are artists with words, too!

Collaboration with Lynda Monk

Fast forward to the present day. I had been collaborating with Lynda Monk of the IAJW on a number of projects, including book projects like The Great Book of Journaling and Transformational Journaling for Coaches, Therapists and Clients and journal projects like Affirmations for Self-Love. And so, it popped into my head one day that we had a natural next project to pursue: journals featuring the words of visual artists.

What a natural! Journals! Visual artists! Who could resists creating such journals. We certainly couldn’t resist. And we have now launched what will be a million-book series (yes, a slight exaggeration) with six journals, three featuring Impressionists and three featuring women artists. We have loved locating breathtaking quotes and then ordering them in such a way that journal-keepers not only have space to write but a true experience.

Invitation to Experience the Artists Speak Journals for Yourself!

We invite you to have that experience. Listen to the voices of Paul Gauguin, Berthe Morisot, Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Mary Cassatt, and so many more! Hear them speak about art—and about life. What they have to say will move you, inspire you, make you smile, and make you think. Whether this is the hundredth journal you keep or your first, may it hold your deep reflections and your soaring hopes!

You can find an overview of all of the journals here >>