You Are An Artist

‘For anyone who wants to tap into their inner creativity, Bob and Roberta Smith’s visionary manifesto is the ideal guide’ – Will Gompertz.

You Are An Artist is for everyone who wants to be an artist but has been too afraid to take the plunge. In this novel and stimulating work, contemporary artist and advocate Bob and Roberta Smith – known for his witty and politically charged art and curations of public art projects – combines a thought-provoking meditation on art practice with a series of over 40 practical exercises and creative provocations that encourage everyone to fulfil their potential as an artist.

The book is itself a kind of art school, helping the reader to work out what kind of artist they are, and what they can achieve. Drawing on the author’s experience as an art school teacher, it playfully adapts the methods of art education, mixing these with the sideways approach to creativity popularised by the author’s activist campaigns. Smith continually asks ‘How about this?’, providing an array of ideas, tips and practical examples from ‘Draw five inspirational objects’ to ‘Do some creative ironing’, and ‘Make a coffin for an imaginary pet’.

The exercises are accompanied by a dazzling array of illustrations, showcasing Smith’s own work specially created for this book. His riotous paintings and installations are set alongside discussions of time, place, looking, thinking, stealing and becoming, with enlightening forays into the history of art and creativity.