this one

I knew that it was that time of year, when I looked at my bedside table and living room table and studio table and my kindle and all that I could see was books that I have been accumulating all summer and fall in preparation for winter reading season. It is not that I do not read all year, but the winter is the true reading season where I binge on everything good and bad.

I am assuming that I am not alone based on two e-mails that came in this morning from Brain Pickings and ArtSpace, both of which had new books and book lists featured this month. I especially like Brain Pickings which consistently recommends books for artists and others in creative fields. http://www.brainpickings.org/

The stack I can currently see and which I began reading last night includes, in part:

1) Beyond the PostModern Mind : The Place of Meaning in a Global Civilization by Huston Smith ( recently heard an old interview with Huston Smith where this book was mentioned.  I had not heard of this book of his )
2) Banksy : The Man Behind the Wall by Ellsworth-Jones ( bought this on sale at Shakespeare and Co. in NY )
3) Concerning The Spiritual in Art by Kandinsky ( referenced in Jewish Museum Beyond the Spiritual Exhibit in San Francisco when I was there in September )
4) Salvador Dali’s Tarot ( saw a print from this book in a antique store and looked it up )
5) The Sacred and The Profane : The Nature of Religion by Eliade ( already owned this, but decided I had to read it when we saw Donna Freitas at The Gathering Conference at Keystone College last year and she repeatedly referred to it.
6) 100 Chinese Two Part Allegorical Sayings
7) What Are You Looking At? : The Surprising, Shocking, and Sometimes Strange Story of 150 Years of Modern Art by Will Gompertz
8) Glittering Images by Camille Paglia
9) True Meditation by Adyashanti ( just finished The End of Your World by same author which was fantastic )

Something does not seem quite right when I notice that I am excited and daunted and maybe even intimidated by my own list…  and this is just the beginning of the list.  That always seems to be the case for my winter reading,- a little heavier, a little more thoughtful, when not coincidentally is when I began the months of art making which will consist of the majority of my work for the year.

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