making better art through doodles

Dana Jeri Maier knows what it’s like to make bad art. She knows what it’s like to make okay art. She knows what it’s like to procrastinate and internet surf and be a paper snob and doodle on the backs of envelopes. She knows all this because she is an artist.

As an artist who has created comics for The New Yorker and other publications as well as her own comics, Maier understands how to get through the dry times as an artist. She has faced her self-doubts and her struggles for inspiration. She knows what she needs to refill her own tank, and she knows when to troll her fake enemy for some resentment fueled creation (he’s not so much an enemy as someone who she feels makes inferior art but gets lots of internet love, so she considers him an enemy). In other words, she has figured out how to make the artist’s life work for her.

She may spend a lot of time making doodles of fish. She may argue with herself about whether she should make it a job and show up at the same time everyday or walk away for inspiration and wait for the ideas to come to her. She may not be moved by big museum pieces by “important” painters and their pretentions for telling how others should react to their work. But she knows what she likes, whether it’s a sculpture in the National Gallery of Art or a book written and illustrated by a 6-year-old.

Skip to the Fun Parts is a clever, honest, funny, moving look at the inner workings of an artist’s brain. Maier opens up some of her life and her work and shows us through short essays and cartoons what it means to her to be an artist and how a creative life works for her. It would be helpful to artists just starting out and trying to find some compassion for their attempts at art, like those in art school or considering it, or for anyone who wants to find more creativity in their life or on their vision boards.

This is a quick read, and a little cynical in places. Maier is hard on herself, but she is able to live a good life making and selling art. I hope that writing and publishing this book has helped her see how successful she really is. This is an accomplishment, and it’s totally okay to stay in bed with the cat in the morning, no matter how early other artists get up and get started. Cat time is worth it.

Egalleys for Skip to the Fun Parts were provided by Andrews McMeel Publishing through NetGalley, with many thanks.