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The Everyday Work of Art: Awakening the Extraordinary in Your Daily Life
The Everyday Work of Art redefines the way we think of art and shows a practical way of making the creative process a part of the things you do each day. Author Eric Booth speaks to the artist in each of us by using exercises and personal anecdotes to simplify artistic skills, and demonstrating how to apply these skills in day-to-day living. The work of art will creep into all aspects of your life, enriching how you play with your children, what you give to your personal relationships and how you do your job. This down-to-earth book takes the mystery of the arts and puts it into your hands to make a joyful difference in the quality of your everyday life.
304 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 14, 2022
I liked Booth's perspective, it's sort of academic, in that this book isn't really a "how to" book, and he's not an armchair psychologist. Booth teaches at the Juillard, and he has many great examples of exploring art through theatre, visual art, and music. I liked the last two chapters the best. He has some great pieces of advice that I don't see written about very often regarding creative process:
* The less fuss you make, the better. Stay under the radar.
* Don't buy anything. You have everything you need to begin right now.
* Be willing to seem a little eccentric.
* The less fuss you make, the better. Stay under the radar.
* Don't buy anything. You have everything you need to begin right now.
* Be willing to seem a little eccentric.
February 5, 2019
Imagine finding an award winning book (signed by the author) — that teaches you how to awaken the extraordinary in your life — in a second hand book bin for less than $3. ‘The Everyday Work of Art’ by Eric Booth is a wonderful book that invites us on the very first page to “dramatically enrich the quality of our daily life” by using the creative skills we already have. Ultimately this book was written to to awaken our artistic birthright and remind us that creativity is natural to each of us.
The Everyday Work of Art is easy to read and explains the work of art in terms of an everyday life: your life and my life. It doesn’t separate us from the ‘masters’, even reminding us that artists like Beethoven and Claude Monet and Anna Pavlova still had everyday lives. And it especially addresses our often skewed concept of ‘success’ and how any negative spin on that word can limit our enjoyment of the work. One of my favourite passages is actually from this section — a gentle reminder that the opposite of success is not failure. It’s stasis.
“Success is not the attainment of a goal, but the continuing movement toward personally important goals, whether the goals are ultimately ‘achieved’ or not. If your life is alive and moving, even if you have not achieved much in quantifiable terms, you are a success.”
The book is filled with practical examples to relate the ideas back to our own lives. Not inaccessible examples we could never hope to match (like Michelangelo inside the cistine chapel painting upside down for more than 4 years). Who does that? But the everyday stuff which actually happens to people like you and me (maybe standing in a long line at the post office to mail a gift to a friend and encountering an abrasively rude cashier). Could you find art in that? Maybe we all could.
The content is divided into 4 logical sections (see below), so the information flows logically and is easy to access during reviews (I guarantee you’ll keep coming back to the pages.
“Success is not the attainment of a goal, but the continuing movement toward personally important goals, whether the goals are ultimately ‘achieved’ or not. If your life is alive and moving, even if you have not achieved much in quantifiable terms, you are a success.”
The book is filled with practical examples to relate the ideas back to our own lives. Not inaccessible examples we could never hope to match (like Michelangelo inside the cistine chapel painting upside down for more than 4 years). Who does that? But the everyday stuff which actually happens to people like you and me (maybe standing in a long line at the post office to mail a gift to a friend and encountering an abrasively rude cashier). Could you find art in that? Maybe we could.
The content is divided into 4 logical sections (see below), so the information flows logically and is easy to access during reviews (I guarantee you’ll keep coming back to the pages.
Section 1: opening up the definition of art and reminding us that the spicy fragrance from chopped herbs are as much a work of art as Vincent Van Gough’s ‘The Starry Night’.
Section 2: helping us distinguish between learned physical skills and the inner abilities we already posses. The stuff that leads to the physical expression of art.
Section 3: opening up the ways we capture and use key moments during world-making; world-exploring; and reading the world.
Section 4: acknowledging that engaging in art is a series of small ‘yeses’ — yes to scribbling something down with a pen and paper, yes to sitting down and sketching a leaf, yes to putting a symphony into the headphones, yes to getting out of the bus two stops early.
Ultimately this book is an inspiration and a challenge to transform our lives; I’ll leave you with one of the book’s closing passages. I do hope you can find yourself a copy somewhere.
“I have an abiding faith that the work of art transforms people’s lives; I know it has mine. But my ambition for the work of art reaches further than individuals. I think it could have an influence on the lives of so many, it could change the course of a nation.”
The Everyday Work of Art is easy to read and explains the work of art in terms of an everyday life: your life and my life. It doesn’t separate us from the ‘masters’, even reminding us that artists like Beethoven and Claude Monet and Anna Pavlova still had everyday lives. And it especially addresses our often skewed concept of ‘success’ and how any negative spin on that word can limit our enjoyment of the work. One of my favourite passages is actually from this section — a gentle reminder that the opposite of success is not failure. It’s stasis.
“Success is not the attainment of a goal, but the continuing movement toward personally important goals, whether the goals are ultimately ‘achieved’ or not. If your life is alive and moving, even if you have not achieved much in quantifiable terms, you are a success.”
The book is filled with practical examples to relate the ideas back to our own lives. Not inaccessible examples we could never hope to match (like Michelangelo inside the cistine chapel painting upside down for more than 4 years). Who does that? But the everyday stuff which actually happens to people like you and me (maybe standing in a long line at the post office to mail a gift to a friend and encountering an abrasively rude cashier). Could you find art in that? Maybe we all could.
The content is divided into 4 logical sections (see below), so the information flows logically and is easy to access during reviews (I guarantee you’ll keep coming back to the pages.
“Success is not the attainment of a goal, but the continuing movement toward personally important goals, whether the goals are ultimately ‘achieved’ or not. If your life is alive and moving, even if you have not achieved much in quantifiable terms, you are a success.”
The book is filled with practical examples to relate the ideas back to our own lives. Not inaccessible examples we could never hope to match (like Michelangelo inside the cistine chapel painting upside down for more than 4 years). Who does that? But the everyday stuff which actually happens to people like you and me (maybe standing in a long line at the post office to mail a gift to a friend and encountering an abrasively rude cashier). Could you find art in that? Maybe we could.
The content is divided into 4 logical sections (see below), so the information flows logically and is easy to access during reviews (I guarantee you’ll keep coming back to the pages.
Section 1: opening up the definition of art and reminding us that the spicy fragrance from chopped herbs are as much a work of art as Vincent Van Gough’s ‘The Starry Night’.
Section 2: helping us distinguish between learned physical skills and the inner abilities we already posses. The stuff that leads to the physical expression of art.
Section 3: opening up the ways we capture and use key moments during world-making; world-exploring; and reading the world.
Section 4: acknowledging that engaging in art is a series of small ‘yeses’ — yes to scribbling something down with a pen and paper, yes to sitting down and sketching a leaf, yes to putting a symphony into the headphones, yes to getting out of the bus two stops early.
Ultimately this book is an inspiration and a challenge to transform our lives; I’ll leave you with one of the book’s closing passages. I do hope you can find yourself a copy somewhere.
“I have an abiding faith that the work of art transforms people’s lives; I know it has mine. But my ambition for the work of art reaches further than individuals. I think it could have an influence on the lives of so many, it could change the course of a nation.”
August 25, 2025
First up, disclosure: I know the author as he is my dear uncle Eric.
I reread this book recently, taking it out a trunk of old books. I wanted to read it because of my planned October newsletter where I talk about the human desire to create. And this book was as much a treat as the first time I read it. It explains and gives many wonderful examples, just as the title suggests, of how art is created in everyday work and play. Humans have an innate appreciation of the aesthetic, and not only knowing this, but really having this dawn upon me in the last few years has been a profound realisation.
I adored this book, and if you are an arts teacher of in any way interested in the arts or simply in why conscious animals like humans keep creating things, then you will too!
I reread this book recently, taking it out a trunk of old books. I wanted to read it because of my planned October newsletter where I talk about the human desire to create. And this book was as much a treat as the first time I read it. It explains and gives many wonderful examples, just as the title suggests, of how art is created in everyday work and play. Humans have an innate appreciation of the aesthetic, and not only knowing this, but really having this dawn upon me in the last few years has been a profound realisation.
I adored this book, and if you are an arts teacher of in any way interested in the arts or simply in why conscious animals like humans keep creating things, then you will too!
July 31, 2025
An interesting book about how and why to sustain a creative practice. Booth has some interesting ideas about being an amateur and developing a habit of finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. But there is a lot of filler in here. Lots of anecdotes, lots of personal stories, and lots and lots of talk about yearning (which, by the end of the book, became “yawning” in my head).
But there are some good things to extract from this book, and worth at least a skim for anyone who has any sort of creative practice.
But there are some good things to extract from this book, and worth at least a skim for anyone who has any sort of creative practice.
Read
October 15, 2022I marked this read, but recall nothing, thus i add it back as to-read...
March 9, 2013
This book changed the way I think about art and artmaking. I read it back in 2003 or 2004, and it has served as a compass point on my creative journey. It taught me that art is a verb, and affirmed my belief in everyone's innate creative abilities.
It's also relatively philosophical and rather academic (Eric Booth - my hero - spends a lot of time defining words and looking at their roots). Eric Booth also founded an academic journal for teaching artists, a perspective that certainly shines through in the book. He talks about creativity as a set of skills that can be taught rather than a visitation from a divine muse, a perspective that I share.
Maybe I love this book so much because it gave voice to things I already believed were true, but argued them much more effectively than I had ever been able to! This book, my process painting work with Stewart Cubley, my later degree in Creative Studies and my own creative explorations really form the foundation on which my own book "The Creative Conversation" was built. You've got to pay homage to the folks who start you on your path.
It's also relatively philosophical and rather academic (Eric Booth - my hero - spends a lot of time defining words and looking at their roots). Eric Booth also founded an academic journal for teaching artists, a perspective that certainly shines through in the book. He talks about creativity as a set of skills that can be taught rather than a visitation from a divine muse, a perspective that I share.
Maybe I love this book so much because it gave voice to things I already believed were true, but argued them much more effectively than I had ever been able to! This book, my process painting work with Stewart Cubley, my later degree in Creative Studies and my own creative explorations really form the foundation on which my own book "The Creative Conversation" was built. You've got to pay homage to the folks who start you on your path.
Read
July 31, 2011I chose this book as an educator, seeking creative new ways to engage my students with literature and writing, but as I got deeper into the book, I found it touching nearly every aspect of my life--my taste in film, the way I interacted with my wife and kids, my hobbies, etc.
Eric Booth thinks that art can transform the way we interact with the world. He envisions a day when we can approach the things we see and the things we do with the eye and the passion of the artist. His book includes another of teaching ideas, real-life examples, and etymologies of words, showing how they can lead to play, fun and passion.
This is a deep book: one to be read and re-read to really appreciate the ideas Booth advances. While it's not light reading, it is transformative. I see things so much differently, and I think I will bring a newer, more playful attitude to the lessons I plan for my high school students.
Eric Booth thinks that art can transform the way we interact with the world. He envisions a day when we can approach the things we see and the things we do with the eye and the passion of the artist. His book includes another of teaching ideas, real-life examples, and etymologies of words, showing how they can lead to play, fun and passion.
This is a deep book: one to be read and re-read to really appreciate the ideas Booth advances. While it's not light reading, it is transformative. I see things so much differently, and I think I will bring a newer, more playful attitude to the lessons I plan for my high school students.
November 12, 2014
I have always thought that all humans are artists in one way or another. Art is much more than just an admired end product: it is the process, the journey, experiencing "flow" in everyday life.....it is how you go about doing what you do. We are producing art when we are mindful and lose track of time while working, playing, living. How we solve problems, how we get our kids to eat spinach, how we deal with difficult people--can all be creative processes. Life is so much more fulfilling when you are aware of how interesting even the simplest things are.
January 12, 2016
I gave myself the gift of reading this book over the last six or so months. As an amateur artist and daydreamer... It made me feel so much saner and special. How not to get too close to the sun -- maintaining a balance -- learning after the final no there comes a yes and on that yes the future world depends. We crack open the stuck places through the work of art. A book that helps weed your way to wisdom.
April 10, 2011
This is more a personal philosophy book than an "art book," one of those serendipitous finds at Friends of the Library. It's about functioning with an artist's mind and heart in everyday life. One of those books that does not need to be read from start to finish - I have it by my desk and lately just flip through it every day for a thoughtful gem.
October 28, 2012
One of my favorite quotes is, "There is nothing so ordinary in an ordinary day that it doesn't warrant meaningful investigation.".
May 4, 2019
Eric Booth has done the kind of deep thinking that is demanded of arts advocates. All my artistic training will be of little use if I don't use those skills to engage with the world.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews