Making Art and Making a Living

‘A wonderfully readable, anecdote-filled tour of the inventive and sometimes eyebrow-raising ways artists through history have sought to transcend the everyday while also paying the bills. Mason Currey never tells the reader what to do—creativity is too personal for that—but there’s vast inspiration, and consolation, in these pages’ - Oliver Burkeman, New York Times bestselling author of Four Thousand Weeks

‘Mason Currey is the undisputed master of finding, in the messy lives of great artists and thinkers throughout time, deeply human lessons about cultivating meaning in our current age’ - Cal Newport, New York Times bestselling author of Slow Productivity and Deep Work

‘A delicious peek at the rich husbands, family money, business schemes, and desk jobs that really filled famous artists’ bank accounts, this book is a balm for anyone who has ever fretted that they are not a ‘real’ artist because they don’t pay their bills with their art’ - Ann Friedman, co-author of Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close

‘By telling the stories of creative people in the past, Mason Currey gives readers a wider range of possibilities for the future. I always find much to steal from his books’ - Austin Kleon, New York Times bestselling author of Steal Like an Artist

‘A riveting, incisive, and instructive book’ - Suleika Jaouad, New York Times bestselling author of Between Two Kingdoms and The Book of Alchemy

Praise for Daily Rituals:

‘Utterly fascinating’ - Sunday Times

‘Entertaining [and] thought-provoking’ - Daily Telegraph

‘A fascinating little book’ - Financial Times

‘A thoroughly researched, minutely annotated and delightful book’ - Literary Review

Mason Currey is the author of the Daily Rituals books:

• Daily Rituals: How Artists Work (2013)
• Daily Rituals: Women at Work (2019)

These books feature brief profiles of the day-to-day work habits of more than 300 brilliant minds.

He has worked as the managing editor of Metropolis, the executive editor of Print, and a senior editor at Core77. His freelance writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Slate.

Currey lives in Los Angeles and writes Subtle Maneuvers, a twice-monthly newsletter on the creative process.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.