7 Books That Shaped My Mind As An Artist

Short reads that rewire how you see, make, present and share your work.

These are seven books that have shaped my mind as an artist, and I just wanted to share them with you. If you’re interested in taking a look at any, I’ve provided links below.

They’re quite varied, to be honest. They’re not like your average art books, but I really think every one of these has its place, and together they form quite a powerful collection.

All pretty short reads, but powerful reads. So without further ado, let’s get into the list. That’s why you’re here.

Book 1: Artorious’ Guide to Navigate the Art World as an Artist, Artorious

Stumbled across this one, I think back in 2021. The guy who wrote it is an anonymous art collector, apparently, and he wrote a book on how to navigate the art world as an artist, as the title says.

I found it interesting because, first of all, it’s a very short book. It takes you through the process of setting up your website, documenting your work so it’s all published on your website, and getting the branding right.

It’s minimalist, and he gives examples of Gerhard Richter, who has a very clear site and has been documenting his work for like 60 years. He also gives examples of the big mega galleries, and how they all share a kind of minimalist look.

This book alone has put me in good stead as an artist, documenting my journey, documenting my art as it’s progressed over the past five years since I got my studio.

I’d recommend it to anyone. It’s a real gem, honestly. It’s so simple. Artists at any level can get something from it.

Even though we don’t know who he is, the actual sentiment and the structure of the book, you can tell it’s from someone who knows what they’re talking about. So I recommend this one, and you can check out the link below to purchase.

Good for: Simply learnings on documenting and presenting your art.

Book 2: Letters to a Young Artist, Anna Deavere Smith

Again, I stumbled across this one. I can’t remember where, but I think someone recommended this book. This was the wrong book. It was Letters to a Young Artist by a different author.

I can’t remember exactly what stood out in this book, but Anna shares her journey in the art world as a performing artist, and there’s lots of parallels. She teaches you how to carry yourself in that world. No one’s going to do it for you, so you have to know your worth, you have to stand up to the decision makers in a powerful way.

It’s not an instructional book by any means. It’s more autobiographical and, like I said, written in the style of letters to a young artist.

Just reading this gave me inspiration and intrinsic motivation to keep doing what I’m doing, really. It was a nice, easy read because it wasn’t too formal. It was like reading a biography of sorts.

Good for: Inspirational stories, letters and wisdom from a fellow artist.

Book 3: Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees, Lawrence Weschler

This is the biography of Robert Irwin, who I’ve spoken about in other posts. I only heard about him recently, and I found out he passed, I think it was last year, 2025 or 2024. His book has blown me away, and I’ve watched a lot of his videos. There’s so much in it.

It’s written by Lawrence Weschler, and it takes you through Irwin’s life from a young age, how he used to hang out in the 50s and loved detailing his car. He was really into detail and making his car look really nice, painting it, stuff like that. He went on to join the art movements of the 60s in LA.

What really hit home, and I didn’t expect this to inspire me, was how he experiments. He experiments more like a scientist than an artist, but not in a rigid way as such. If you read his work, when you read this book, he is quite rigid in terms of when he’s really focused on something. He did spend weeks and weeks on a certain thing and getting it right.

But what I got from it, what my takeaway was, approaching art as an experimenter and doing that as part of your art practice makes it stronger in a way, because you’re diving deeper into something rather than doing things randomly.

My example, my first project after reading this book was the cube that I made. Robert often experimented with a question in his mind, and my question was, what does peace of mind feel like in a space?

So I made a cube structure, and on my first edition of this, I put in a TV and a video game system from my childhood, in this kind of cave. It had black coverings over it, so it was safe, black, and cosy. It felt like a faded memory. I wanted to make it like my childhood bedroom, and I didn’t have the time or resources to do that, so I made it the feeling of a childhood bedroom, where I was doing an activity that I would lose myself in.

Robert would experiment with these kind of questions in terms of using light and shadow and materials, and he’s done so many projects. I don’t know if he’s that well known. He’s got his own corner of the art world, but he’s not up there like Andy Warhol or something like that, even though he should be.

I highly recommend this to any artist really. It doesn’t matter what discipline you’re in, you’ll get something from it.

Good for: Inspirational biography and new way of seeing.

Book 4: Unleash the Power of Puerility, Mark Denton Esq.

I came across Mark. I never heard of him before, he was an interesting guy. I contacted Dave Trott, who’s a big ad man from the 80s, because I wanted some help. I like exploring creativity, and I’ve watched a lot of videos on advertising and marketing and all that, and I got into Dave’s books on advertising.

I emailed Dave and I said, could you help me get my head around the advertising of art and art exhibitions? Then he put me in touch with Mark Denton, and I thought it was Mark Denton who wrote Slow Horses, so I emailed him saying, I love your TV show Slow Horses, can we have a chat about this, blah blah blah.

He said, ‘I wish I wrote Slow Horses’, and it wasn’t him, it was Mark Denton who’s this really quirky, amazing, lovely guy, artist, ad man as well from the 80s. He’s in his late 60s now, and we had a chat over Zoom. We had a really nice conversation about it, and I’ll link to it below actually, I put it in one of my Substack posts.

Bookmark it for later if you like, it’s a good one.

Back to his book, he shows a lot of his ads that he worked on, he shows his art, his drawings, his illustrations, and it’s all in a very quirky way. He’s advocating why you should be silly as an adult, and it inspires me a lot, because he’s 20 odd years my senior and he’s still tapping into that youthful creativity.

We get to a certain age and we think we shouldn’t be silly, we shouldn’t act like a kid or do anything out of the box, but his book reinforces the need to bring back that childhood wonder. It’s a heavily photographic book, a coffee table read, but you’ll get so much from it just looking through it.

Fantastic book.

Good for: Remembering your childhood silliness.

Book 5: We Need Your Art, Amie McNee

I think I found Amie McNee on Instagram, it just popped up in art feeds. She’s a big advocate of inspiring people to make more art, and that is her core message. She shares that all the time and it’s really inspiring, and seeing that repeatedly has definitely inspired me a lot.

I got her book, I think it came out last year, 2025. She’s an author and a visual artist as well, and she goes through the process of getting unstuck, getting back into art, and inspiring you in many other ways.

It’s a real gentle conversational read, but it hits you hard as well, so I’d recommend that one. This work has helped me a lot.

Good for: Nurting inspiration and motivation.

Book 6: The Medium Is the Massage, Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore

First and foremost, the book was The Medium Is the Message, but when it went to print it was mistyped as massage. From what I remember it was left like that because they couldn’t afford to reprint it, and it’s become a thing. I think he was pissed off at the time, but it’s become quite a legendary story.

I was drawn to his work, I don’t know where I found it, but again, looking into different creative mediums. He was a big proponent of, I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. His work was based in the 60s, where the television revolution was happening, and he explains how that has shaped people’s perceptions.

It’s basically the beginning of the bombardment of mass media. We all use the term global village. That’s the first time that we all knew in a big way what was happening in the outside world.

It was only TV and radio back then, but it was still a huge opening of information coming into our minds, and seeing news broadcasts in different countries, lots of cartoons, an explosion of films and programmes like Batman, and comic books, and all that kind of stuff.

It’s a short read and a visual read as well, and I’d recommend it just to mix up your brain a bit and get you thinking in different ways. I don’t know how to explain it any better than that, but I just recommend it.

It’s a short read, an interesting read, it will change your mindset, and only cost you a fiver I think, so it’s definitely worth it.

Good for: Mind bending perspectives grounded in modern reality.

Book 7: Betty Swollocks Is Like David Shrigley After Four Cans of Special Brew, Betty Swollocks

As you know, I’m a big fan of David Shrigley, and I’m actually shocked I haven’t read one of his books yet. So I will make sure I do that and I’ll report back. But this other book came up as a recommendation.

Artists who use a kind of rudimentary style, childlike style, expressive style always inspire me. This book is line drawings and a bit like Shrigley, with little quotes underneath and little lines about each person.

It’s just inspired me to carry on the way I’m going, because I think you need those inspirations around you that tell you it’s okay to do what you’re doing, especially when we’re feeling self-doubting a lot.

This one again is a short book, it’s quite funny, and it’s got, I can’t remember how many drawings it’s got, maybe 100 or something. But yeah, have a look and let me know what you think.

Good for: Inspiration, humour and realising all art isn’t like Picasso’s.

Thanks so much for reading this. I hope you’ve bought yourself a book or two, you deserve it. Tell me if you’ve read any of these books, tell me what you think below. If you have any book recommendations for me, please post in the comments below as well.

Share with an artist friend if you like.

Goodbye for now and I’ll speak to you soon.

SLART.