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Creative Block by Danielle Krysa (book review).

One thing I rarely ever have is creative block. I might not have time to do everything I want to in a given time but I was curious to see what Danielle Krysa had to say on the subject in this book called ‘Creative Block’. In her introduction, she explains that she interviewed 50 trained and untrained artists on the subject and any lessons they can give to break people out of this funk. However, something became apparent about 5 people in was many of these folk do collage rather than draw or paint. About 40 pages in, there is more variety and I suspect because much of the art is experimental tends to tar with the same medium. I did look up Krysa’s background and it is in collage which probably explains this orientation.

I should point out that each artist has a brief interview about what they do and creative block and some samples of their work before ending with a snapshot of what they look like and a suggestion for you to try out if you can’t be creative. If I’m being given advice, I at least like to know what the person looks like.

As long as you don’t insist on reading all the entries all at once, it allows your mind to savour a lot of the information given and there will be some nuggets of information that will make the connection to you. It also demonstrates that creative block can happen in all creative mediums. A few of the people here say they don’t really get it but also defined as minor lapses. The examples of what to try to get your creative juices moving again can probably work in any creative medium. The consensus is just get away from your normal working habits and find something different to stimulate you. This might sound crazy if you have a tight deadline but I expect things would speed up when you’ve got your mojo working again.

If you get bored with that, you can also look at the samples of their work. Some of them are more surprising than others and might make you think.

GF Willmetts

December 2017

(pub: Chronicle Books. 288 page illustrated square enlarged paperback. Price: £18.99 (UK), $29.95 (US). ISBN: 978-1-4521-1888-8)

check out website: www.chronicles.com

UncleGeoff

Geoff Willmetts has been editor at SFCrowsnest for some 21 plus years now, showing a versatility and knowledge in not only Science Fiction, but also the sciences and arts, all of which has been displayed here through editorials, reviews, articles and stories. With the latter, he has been running a short story series under the title of ‘Psi-Kicks’ If you want to contribute to SFCrowsnest, read the guidelines and show him what you can do. If it isn’t usable, he spends as much time telling you what the problems is as he would with material he accepts. This is largely how he got called an Uncle, as in Dutch Uncle. He’s not actually Dutch but hails from the west country in the UK.

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