I love a good book! My bookshelf is full of books that inspire my art and I thought I would share them. All of these books are either directly or indirectly inspiring my current work. Most of these books I found in my favorite used bookstores (Pearl St Books in La Crosse, WI and Driftless Books in Viroqua, WI) or on ThriftBooks, many are vintage and a couple are very rare or hard to find. Many of these books are pulled off the shelves over and over or reread every few years. I have organized them into loose categories but many of the books hold subjects that weave together multiple themes within their pages. I pull out some books for street art drawings and others for paintings but I find that the following categories are often repeatedly inspiring my art. A ☆ indicates my most referenced books! The books listed with a ♡ by its side are some of my favorites!
FEMINISM / MOTHERHOOD:
Women in the Picture: What Culture does with Female Bodies by Catherine McCormack
♡Vagina by Naomi Woolf
Our Bodies, Ourselves by the Boston's Women's Health Book Collective
Witches, Midwives, and Nurses by Barbara Ejrenreich and Deirdre English
☆Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution by Adrienne Rich
Why I am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto by Jessa Crispin
Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin
MYTH / SYMBOLISM / GODDESS /ANTHROPOLOGY:
Women and Other Monsters: Building a New Mythology by Jess Zimmerman
☆♡The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image by Leonard Shlain
☆♡Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
☆♡When God Was A Woman by Merlin Stone
Mysteries of the Dark Moon by Demetra George
The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell
Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood by Merlin Stone
The Spiral Dance by Starhawk
☆The Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara Walker
☆The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects by Barbara Walker
Amulets, Charms, and Talismans by Deborah Lippman and Paul Colin
The Earth Spirit: Its Ways, Shrines and Mysteries by John Mitchell
Celtic Mysteries: The Ancient Religion by John Sharkey
Goddess Symbols by Gibson
Moon, Moon by Annie Kent Rush
Any book by Marija Gimbutas is great in my opinion!
DREAMS:
The Secret History of Dreaming by Robert Moss
♡Conscious Dreaming by Robert Moss
HERBALISM / PSYCHEDELICS / ANIMISM / BIOPHILIA:
♡Healing Wise by Susan Weed
♡Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm: Beyond the Doors of Perception into the Dreaming of Earth by Stephen Harrod Buhner
The Lost Language of Plants by Steven Harrod Buhner
♡The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley
The Harvard Psychedelic Club by Don Lattin
Animal Speak by Ted Andrews
☆♡Herbal Rituals by Judith Berger
Plant Spirit Medicine by Eliot Conway
The Cosmic Serpent by Jeremy Narby
Magical Herbalism: The Secret Craft of the Wise by Scott Cunningham
♡Being of the Sun by Alicia Bay Laurel
Living on the Earth by Alicia Bay Laurel
This list will wax and wane. It will continually be added to as the years go by and as the subject of my art changes and evolves. Of course, I am probably leaving out many books that have influenced me and what I choose to paint or draw. I would recommend any of the above books to anyone intrigued by the listed topics! So get yourself out to the local used bookstore, smell the sun-yellowed pages and find a new treasured read to curl up with!
Psssstt!!
And just for fun... A few recently read or can't-get-it-out-of-my-mind literary fiction.
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
Bunny by Mona Awad
This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno
Sula by Toni Morrison
Comments