It's the first day of Women's History Month and we're celebrating by highlighting eight art and creativity books by women authors. If you've been looking for new reading material, we invite you to check out and support these authors from our community and beyond. These titles cover topics within the arts including healing, business, motherhood, history, and more!
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8 New & Recent Art Books by Women Authors
*We linked all of the Amazon pages for these books but most are available through other online book retailers as well as independent booksellers around the world.
1) Colour Me Happy!: See your everyday ordinary as extraordinary by Brandi Hofer
Want to turn your ho-hum ordinary day into the best day simply through outlook and inspiration? Realistically, this doesn’t always happen. We get tired, worn out, sick, lonely, or scared. Life happens, we embrace it, we roll with it, but aren't you exhausted by it all? What would happen if instead you flipped your outlook upside down and see that ordinary day as a day filled with memories that you can hold on to for the rest of your life? In this inspiring book written by Canadian painter and muralist Brandi Hofer, you'll learn valuable lessons about navigating art, motherhood, and creativity with joy.
2) Decoding The Flow by Drica Lobo
Through her creations, Drica strives to help people see the world with optimism, and encourages her audience to shift perspectives and ponder the mysteries of the universe. She is now picking up her pen to spread her art through her first book, Decoding the Flow, detailing her process and passion for creation. Decoding The Flow: Optimize Your Create Power With Unshakeable Confidence is a book about Lobo's search for flow and its powerful energy as a way to improve her creative living. It's a personal journey of artistic mindfulness and confidence you want to be part of. At the end of each chapter, the book offers a framework to help you optimize your creativity with unshakeable confidence.
3) The Healing Journal: Guided Prompts and Inspiration for Life with Illness by Emily Suñez
Overcome the emotional toll of chronic or invisible illness with 50 positive affirmations, writing prompts, and soothing illustrations inspired by nature. This gorgeously illustrated volume offers guided journaling to a community that stands to benefit immensely: those living with chronic illness. Author and illustrator Emily Suñez—herself a chronic illness patient with multiple diagnoses—speaks from experience through 50 affirmations and over 100 writing prompts that will both console readers and empower them.
4) The Creative Business Handbook: Follow Your Passions and Be Your Own Boss by Alicia Puig and Ekaterina Popova
Yes, this one is written by us, the editor and director here at Create! Magazine! We have been working with the team at Chronicle on our first published book that takes readers through the entire process of launching and running a creative business. In this insightful guide, you'll find action steps, anecdotes, interviews, resources, and so much more to help you get your new venture off the ground and keep it going in a financially sustainable way. This title officially launches May 16th, but is already available for pre-order.
5) The Story of Art Without Men by Katy Hessel
How many women artists do you know? Who makes art history? Did women even work as artists before the twentieth century? Guided by Katy Hessel, art historian and founder of @thegreatwomenartists, discover the glittering paintings by Sofonisba Anguissola of the Renaissance, the radical work of Harriet Powers in the nineteenth-century United States and the artist who really invented the “readymade.” Explore the Dutch Golden Age, the astonishing work of postwar artists in Latin America, and the women defining art in the 2020s. Have your sense of art history overturned and your eyes opened to many artforms often ignored or dismissed. From the Cornish coast to Manhattan, Nigeria to Japan, this is the history of art as it’s never been told before.
6) These Are My Big Girl Pants: Poetry & Paintings on Womanhood by Amber Vittoria
From award-winning artist Amber Vittoria comes These Are My Big Girl Pants, a collection of poetry and artwork that embraces womanhood and all of its inherent intricacies. Overarching themes of enlightenment, analysis, and independence speak to young adulthood, and adulthood in all of its many forms, as each poem and accompanying piece of art helps women face these emotional and physical changes. A celebration of femininity and the female body, These Are My Big Girl Pants leverages naïve artistic approaches, like simple line and brush strokes, against deep and meaningful poetry and prose, creating a true exploration of individuality, female empowerment, and emotion.
7) How to Not Exclude Artist Mothers (and Other Parents) by Hettie Judah
For too long, artists have been told that they can't have both motherhood and a successful career. In this polemical volume, critic and campaigner Hettie Judah argues that a paradigm shift is needed within the art world to take account of the needs of artist mothers (and other parents: artist fathers, parents who don't identify with the term 'mother,' and parents in other sectors of the art world). Drawing on interviews with artists internationally, the book highlights some of the success stories that offer models for the future, from alternative support networks and residency models, to studio complexes with onsite childcare, and galleries with family-friendly policies. Some artists have described motherhood as providing them with renewed focus, a new direction in their work, and even inspiration for a complete change of career. Other artists choose to keep their domestic and creative lives compartmentalized. All are placed at a disadvantage by the art world as it is currently structured. This book argues that by making changes and becoming more sensitive to the needs of artist parents, the art world has much to gain.
8) Art and Joy: Best Friends Forever by Danielle Krysa
This wry and wisdom-filled children’s book from the author of How To Spot An Artist helps artists aged five and up discover the joy of artistic expression while silencing self-criticism. We've loved all of her previous books but especially her first children's book so we can't wait to read this one too. Want to meet Danielle in person - learn more about her book tour here!
Thanks for reading! Feel free to reach out if there's another book you think we should include in a future recommendation list.
