{"product_id":"letters-to-a-young-artist-isbn-9781400032389","title":"Letters to a Young Artist","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn inspiring and no-nonsense guide for aspiring artists of all stripes—from “the most exciting individual in American theater” (\u003ci\u003eNewsweek\u003c\/i\u003e). \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn vividly anecdotal letters to the young BZ, Anna Deavere Smith addresses the full spectrum of issues that all artists starting out will face: from questions of confidence, discipline, and self-esteem, to fame, failure, and fear, to staying healthy, presenting yourself effectively, building a diverse social and professional network, and using your art to promote social change. At once inspiring and no-nonsense, \u003ci\u003eLetters to a Young Artist\u003c\/i\u003e will challenge you, motivate you, and set you on a course to pursue your art without compromise.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Will serve as inspiration to artists of every age.” —Laurence Fishburne\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A practical  manual for any artist as well as a powerful reminder of how we can and should live  through our art.” —Martin Sheen\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Imagine being pen pals with one of the world’s  greatest artistic geniuses. That is the miracle of this book.” —Kerry Washington\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Brilliant.... A treasure for anyone contemplating a career in the arts–and,  frankly, for anyone already in the midst of one.” —Dawn Raffel\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A motivating example  for all of us.” —Mary Ellen Mark\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Her advice is as relevant to a youngster just  beginning to explore artistic options as it is to adults already accomplished in  their art.” —Esmeralda Santiago\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eANNA DEAVERE SMITH is an actor, a teacher, a playwright, and the creator of an acclaimed  series of one-woman plays based on her interviews with diverse voices from communities  in crisis. She has won two Obie Awards, two Tony nominations for her play \u003ci\u003eTwilight:  Los Angeles, 1992,\u003c\/i\u003e and a MacArthur Fellowship. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist  for her play \u003ci\u003eFires in the Mirror.\u003c\/i\u003e She has had roles in the films \u003ci\u003ePhiladelphia, An  American President, The Human Stain, \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eRent, \u003c\/i\u003eand she has worked in television on  \u003ci\u003eThe Practice, Presidio Med, \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe West Wing.\u003c\/i\u003e The founder and director of the Institute  on the Arts and Civic Dialogue, she teaches at New York University and lives in New  York City.\u003c\/p\u003eChapter 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Presence\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Dear BZ:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Presence. You want to know what it is. Well, you hit on my favorite   subject.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    First of all, even before I became an actress I was told I had   “presence.” “Stage presence.” I didn’t know what that meant. I forgot   about it. Long after I had trained to become an actress, I came upon   the word in a way that was intriguing to me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Joseph Chaikin was a theater director who came to prominence in the   sixties in the experimental theater scene in New York. He wrote a book   called \u003ci\u003eThe Presence of the Actor\u003c\/i\u003e. In it he defines presence in this   way: “a kind of deep libidinal surrender which the performer reserves   for his anonymous audience.” He then went on to write that sometimes a   person has “presence” onstage, but not in life. And then he wrote:   “Gloria Foster has presence.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    At the time I did not know who Gloria Foster was. She is in two \u003ci\u003eMatrix\u003c\/i\u003e   movies; she played the Oracle. As soon as I had a chance to see her   perform, I did. She was extraordinary. And the interesting thing about   Gloria Foster was that in person, she was not at all a “close to you”   kind of a woman. By the time I met her I met a woman who definitely   kept her own space. Onstage it seemed that the light shone right   through her, and that, in fact, the light found her wherever she was   onstage. Her film work was filled with both dignity and humanity. Her   death left a hole in the theater.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I agree that presence is that feeling that the person onstage or in a   film is standing right next to you. In film the presence blasts across   the screen. Presence defies the limits of a person’s body, defies the   limits of the actual space it takes up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Some people call presence charisma. Perhaps it’s the same thing. There   are many charismatic people who are not artists. And presence is not   the same as fame, by the way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    If you think about the people around you, there are many who have   presence. There’s a woman who is a cashier at Wilkes Bashford, a   clothing store in San Francisco. Her name is “Miss Kish”—that’s a   nickname she has been given. For years I went into that store and was   intimidated by Miss Kish. She is an African-American woman in a store   that’s mostly frequented by whites (with the exception of a few famous   blacks like the former mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown). She wore   a man’s hat at the cash register, often a bright red one. She looked as   though she did not suffer fools. I was shocked to get a phone call from   Miss Kish in November 2004, when John Kerry lost to George Bush. She   wanted to know my opinion. To me, it was as if Kerry had called!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Presence means you hold your own space, control the space around you,   and sometimes welcome others into it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I saw a man in New York City in the late seventies kissing trees on a   regular basis. Of course, such an action is bound to attract attention,   but presence is not merely the attraction of attention. When he kissed   a tree, it took my breath away. He was an older man with white hair. It   was his level of commitment that gave him presence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Lauren Hutton, the first supermodel, was discovered in the sixties by   Diana Vreeland, the editor of \u003ci\u003eVogue\u003c\/i\u003e magazine. At the very moment that   Diana Vreeland discovered Lauren, Lauren did not realize she was   attracting attention. She was in Vreeland’s office as a model who   simply showed the clothes to Vreeland and others at Vogue who made   decisions about fashion. She was too short to be a high-fashion model.   She was stunned by the scene in Vreeland’s office—the glamour, the   diversity of looks and attitudes. She actually stopped working and sat   in a windowsill to watch the action, while all the other models paraded   in and out for the staff of \u003ci\u003eVogue\u003c\/i\u003e. Vreeland suddenly pointed to Lauren   with her long white glove—a glove she wore to turn the many pages of images she had to look at—and said, “And you have quite a presence.”   Lauren actually looked out the window, thinking that Vreeland was talking about somebody behind her. “You, you stay after,” said   Vreeland. And a multimillion-dollar career was launched, and nineteen   covers of Vogue magazine. Her presence was the intensity of her   gaze—not the expectation that others would be gazing at her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Lauren also has presence of \u003ci\u003ewit\u003c\/i\u003e. Presence of \u003ci\u003emind\u003c\/i\u003e. I joked with her: “I   think you should have a Kennedy Center Honor for your smile.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Oh, you do, do you?” she said in her Southern accent.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Yeah, we live in a culture infatuated with beauty—I mean, singers get   the Kennedy Center Honor, writers get it, comics get it; why don’t   beautiful people get it? Our whole culture is based on beauty, and you   have quite a smile. It should be honored.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Is that right?” she said, clearly getting a kick out of this exchange.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Yes, I think I’ll write George Bush a letter.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Will you sign your name?” she asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Of course,” I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “All three of ’em?” she asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Presence means paying attention to find any opportunity to engage.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    My dog has presence. Her name is Memphis. In Los Angeles people stop   their cars and shout out the window, “What kind of dog is that?” In New   York, people stop me on the street to talk to her. Once, when she was a   puppy, she slipped out of her collar at a busy intersection in New   York. I threw myself on top of her. People ran from all corners. “Is   your dog having an epileptic fit? Wanna use my cell phone?” I even   thought to myself on that occasion that they’d probably let a human   being just lie out on the street, but people ran from all corners to   help a dog. Haydee, who is from Peru, sometimes walks Memphis for me   when I’m working. She told me, “Anna, everybody wanna talk to Memphis;   they don’t see me; they only see Memphis.” With me on the elevator in   my building was a women—a stockbroker type, in her own thoughts, at the   end of a long day, tired. We were riding in silence. (I live in a   building that’s not so large. Nonetheless, people keep their personal   “space” in the elevator.) Suddenly she lit up and said to me, “Is   Memphis your dog?” I was startled by the suddenness of her question and   the life that came out of an otherwise day-drained persona.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Yes,” I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “That dog makes my day!” she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Same scene in an elevator in Los Angeles. In LA Memphis was not allowed   in the main elevator—she had to take the service elevator. My assistant   hated the service elevator; she said it “smelled.” Memphis loved the   service elevator—the smells of the men, the smells of their lunch, pizza, etc., the   smells of their bodies, the smells of work. She’s a work dog after all,   part Australian cattle dog—a herder. One day I was on the main   elevator—without Memphis, of course. A man who had been pointed out to   me as an archconservative turned to me and said, “That dog of yours is   fantastic.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “She’s a mutt,” I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Well, she’s got some border collie in her. Great dog. Very alert,” he   pronounced.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Thanks,” I said. And he strutted out of the elevator, crossed the   lobby, and climbed into his SUV.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Alert. Part of presence is about being alert.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I asked a friend of mine, “Why does everybody look at Memphis?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Because she’s pretty,” my friend said simply.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But presence is not just about being pretty. Presence is your ability   to be present. Because Memphis is part Australian cattle dog—a red   heeler—she is very intense, and does not like to miss a beat. She pays   attention to the movings and goings-on around her. “Pretty” does help.   But “pretty” is not the same as presence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    If two people have an argument, Memphis runs back and forth between the   two of them, as if she is afraid they will leave the room. As a herder,   she is looking for every opportunity to keep moving things together.   Presence is having something that you are wired to do, that you are   committed to do, so committed to do it that it’s almost like it’s in   your DNA. It’s being ready at all times and looking for every possible   opportunity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Presence is not so easy. There is so much \u003ci\u003estuff\u003c\/i\u003e out there. To get   presence, you have to move through layers and layers of commotion and   noise and other sites that grab the light. It’s hard to grab the light   these days. People used to talk about Andy Warhol’s fifteen minutes of   fame. Now it’s more like one minute.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It might seem that presence is all about advertising. You might think,   just hire a good PR firm. PR is powerful, but it’s not the same as   presence. Real presence has to come from the inside.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Real presence is the feeling that the person onstage is right next to   you \u003ci\u003ebecause you long to have them there. Or because you are terrified   that they could come after you and get you in your seat\u003c\/i\u003e. Monsters have   presence. Godzilla had presence. Terrorists have presence. Osama bin   Laden has presence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Presence doesn’t have to do with likability. Nor does being a   provocateur guarantee presence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Often people who have presence know that you are there before you know   \u003ci\u003ethey\u003c\/i\u003e are there. Israel, one of the doormen in my building, was beside   himself. Israel is Puerto Rican. It was winter. What had just happened?   “I seen J. Lo. On the street!” he whispered. “And I seen her and she   just went like this.” And he put his finger to his lips, “Sssh.” He was   practically blushing. “I said, ‘Cool. Cool.’ And she just walked on by; I was like, ‘I got you covered. Cool,’” he said. His eyes were   twinkling. “That woman,” he said emphatically. “There needs to be a   picture of her in the dictionary beside the words ‘Latin woman’!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Presence can be magical. It can delight the people around you. Think of   when you were a kid, and you had a favorite friend, or a favorite   relative—something enchanted you—presence is \u003ci\u003eenchanting\u003c\/i\u003e. And it does   not always have to do with what a person actually is. It is what you   \u003ci\u003ewish\u003c\/i\u003e they were. There is myth in presence. This works for that which we   wish to embrace us, and it is the same for that which we fear. There is   also magic in fear.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Jacob Lawrence, the great African-American painter, moved as a child   from Atlantic City to Easton, Pennsylvania, to Philadelphia to Harlem,   where he settled with his mother when he was thirteen. He did not often   see white people until he became famous as a painter and was embraced   by the mainstream art world. His parents had grown up in the South,   where people were lynched. He believed that all white people were   potential lynchers—and so he was always alert to the possibility that   one of them could appear. Especially if one showed up in Harlem, where   he otherwise felt safe, at home, surrounded by his own.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “If I saw a white man,” he told me, “I would automatically think, Oh,   that’s a lyncher.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    So I asked him, “Well, what happened when you got famous and you were   around white people?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Oh, you know,” he said calmly, and with a tone of reassurance, “these   things are all fears, like children are afraid of ghosts, and goblins,   and eventually they go away.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But for the time that the fearsome object has its hold on you, it has   presence. Presence is having a hold on the desires and fears of those   around you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    If you have presence, it could be helpful to know how to use it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Study photographs to learn about presence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    There is a photograph of Naomi Campbell taken at the Cuban National   Ballet School, by Patrick Demarchelier. She is poised to dance with a   male dancer. Her focus is direct, her concentration razor-sharp.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Naomi Campbell has presence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    President Bill Clinton has presence. He is known for remembering the   names of people he’s met only once, and remembering details of   conversations.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Presence requires being aware. Presence requires paying attention.   Presence requires using your intelligence. Presence requires allowing  \u003ci\u003e others\u003c\/i\u003e to make an impact on you. This means putting your mind on them,   not just on yourself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Presence is empathy. Cesar Chavez had presence. He understood the   plight of the migrant workers and was able to speak \u003ci\u003eto them and for   them.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Presence can come from deep commitments to beliefs, unpopular beliefs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I saw a photograph of the Queen Mother, standing simply in a garden   with her purse. Now she had presence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Presence is not the same as attracting attention. It’s not a gimmick.   It is not a brand. I said previously that presence was about “grabbing   the light.” No. It’s about finding the light and being a part of it.   These days, I believe that light might just be in the audience, with   the public, in the world, among the possibilities of “us” human beings   rather than in the language of “self.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Oprah Winfrey has presence. Big time!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It is harder and harder to have presence in a world of so much noise,   so much show, so much amplification.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Presence will probably, in the near future, be based on absolute   authenticity. Whoever can achieve that in a world of brands, and   seductions, and false promises, and addictions to false loves, will be   truly charismatic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I’m sure you have presence, BZ. Expand it. Dare to open your heart to   the good and bad around you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    ADS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    P.S. I am writing this to you on the back of several napkins in a   restaurant in Tiburon, California. My hosts are very late. A Sri Lankan   busboy just walked by and said, “You must have a lot on your mind. You   are writing a lot.” (He laughed out loud.) Gosh, I just realized my pen   leaked! I have ink all over my hand! No matter. This has got to be one   of the most beautiful spots in the world. It’s just after sunset, and I   can see the Golden Gate Bridge lighting up in the distance. A ship just   went by with black sails and a string of lights. It reminded me of   Othello. I’ll be writing from all sorts of places. I’m a gypsy—which   goes with the territory. So sometimes the spots will be glamorous, and   sometimes I’ll be writing to you from the back of a rental car. It’s   not all a vase of roses, this life! Hope to meet you soon.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44863734251749,"sku":"NP9781400032389","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400032389.jpg?v=1767731376","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/letters-to-a-young-artist-isbn-9781400032389","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}