ART WORK

Doing art.

Photographer Mann looks back at a long career to reflect on creativity, inspiration, and the “decades of obsessive practice” she’s needed “to get shit done.” Now in her 70s, Mann aims her book at “young artists and writers, with the vain, and vainglorious, hope that some of it will make a difference in the way you organize (yes, I did say organize) your creative practice, or that it might help you avoid some of the pits into which I fell.” Twelve chapters address issues such as luck, rejection, censorship (including self-censorship), distractions, family, risk-taking, and, lastly, talent. Although from early childhood she was determined to choose her own path in life, stubbornness did not ensure she’d achieve her goals. Luck played a big part, “as though there were a hidden pattern, a matrix of coincidence that invisibly undergirded my life.” And she worked hard. “Learn your craft,” she advises. “You learn it like you learned typing (or we should have) or baking a soufflé or driving a backhoe.” She encourages her readers to believe that “in all of us, the unique events and emotions in our past will have carved a trace in our soul.” Moreover, “if you’re going to imitate, or steal, you’d damn well better do an irreproachable and transcendent version that is entirely your vision or voice.” In a book filled with anecdotes, among the most entertaining recounts her reluctant visit to Qatar, at the invitation of the emir, who wanted her to photograph him—a trip that turned into an unexpectedly rich adventure. Illustrated with her photographs, screenshots of journal entries, to-do lists, letters (many to photographer Ted Orland), and even a bankbook, the volume testifies to the evolution of a unique aesthetic persona.

Candid, irreverent, and engaging.