Caitlin’s Creative Business Bookshelf - Episode 4: The Story of Art Without Men by Katy Hessel
This week on Caitlin’s Creative Business Bookshelf, we’re checking out another book, and this week, it’s The Story of Art Without Men by Katy Hessel.
On the surface, it may seem like it’s just about art history, but it actually goes way deeper than that and has a lot to teach us about our creative businesses. So let’s dive in…
We are tackling another book again today and it's a book that may not, on the surface, sound like it's going to be about business or anything like that, because it really isn't.
But it's a book that I found really inspirational recently and I think a book that actually ties in with what we do in our businesses quite a lot. And a book that really inspired me. It really made me think not just about the contents of the book, but the contents of the book on a larger scale, I guess.
So I'm sharing it in the hopes that you might find it interesting or intriguing, that it's a book that you might want to check out.
But we are talking today about The Story of Art Without Men by Katy Hessel. So I picked up this book for Christmas because basically my best friend had bought it and said how amazing it was. And she's very into her art, she's very knowledgeable, very smart, and, yeah, she had talked about it a lot and how inspiring it was and basically I just wanted to get in on the action.
You have those friends who, if they recommend a book, you're like, yes, I trust you so much. So I got it for Christmas, and full disclaimer, I haven't actually finished the book, but it's been a really nice-, one of those books where you kind of just pick it up as and when and flick through it or give it like a quick read before bed.
Because essentially what it is, if you haven't encountered it before, it's basically one of those lovely, chunky coffee table kind of books where Katy Hessel, the author, is essentially taking us through an alternative view of art history from the perspective of female artists.
The book goes chronologically and throughout it, she's delving into kind of, the wider context of what was happening at the time, as well as going through specific artists, specific work, and they're all recreated in beautiful colour. I mean, if you get to see the book for yourself, at the very least, I know Waterstones were pushing it quite heavily, so you might have seen it there if you're in the UK.
And, yeah, it's just a really beautiful looking book. So the origin story of the book is one that I wanted to talk about because I think it's one that as business owners and freelancers will all find quite relatable and I think is like a really good example of seeing something in the world that they want to change and then actually taking steps to kind of bring it to fruition.
I know that might sound like quite grand and over the top, perhaps, but I do kind of yeah, I do believe that, actually. I was going to play it down, but actually, I do believe that. And this book is a really beautiful example of that.
Basically, in 2015, Katy Hessel, after qualifying with an art history degree, had been to a show and had realised that not a single work presented at the show had been produced by a woman, and essentially was obviously quite upset by this, understandably so. Art history is a very male dominated arena, but it's the kind of thing where I include myself in this. I had never really questioned it. I obviously read the introduction to the book where she's talking about this and was obviously horrified and really shocked, but it's the kind of thing that we don't really question.
Anyway, so she started an Instagram account to chronicle more women because there had been research done where basically no one could name any female artists. And again, I was reading this and thinking, oh, my goodness, I don't think I could name any. I think Tracy Emin and George O'Keefe were, like the only two that leapt to mind.
And, I mean, they didn't straight away. So it was a really interesting thing about my own biases as well, when it came down to it. And then I kind of dread to think what happens when you kind of drill a bit further down and think about Black women artists or artists on the LGBTQ plus spectrum. So, yeah, a lot to unpack there.
But Katy, when confronted by all this, had decided to start an Instagram account where she challenged herself that every day she would feature a female artist from some point in art history and write a bit about them and discuss their work. And the account really took off, which I'm really, really happy to hear. And basically, the book is the kind of physical manifestation of her Instagram account and of everything she was kind of posting about on there. And she does go into this a lot more in depth in the introduction to the book, which is really interesting reading by itself, and, like I said, filtering it through that lens of why we do what we do.
For me, anyway, this felt like a really relatable story because it's kind of how I came into freelancing in the first place.
So I started my business back in 2020, which feels like a million years ago, but it was because during being furloughed and things like that, I had become a little bit disillusioned with how work culture was and how a nine to five culture was and was kind of presented with an alternative to it, which kind of led me to explore being self employed freelancing, especially because both my parents were self employed as well. So, I mean, I'd had that kind of fed to me subconsciously throughout my whole life, really.
But I digress. So that was an example of me as a business owner and a freelancer saying, I know that there is an alternative, I know that there's like a different way of doing things and I want to explore it. And when I pivoted my business, it was 2021. Oh my goodness. To kind of start thinking about bringing my creativity in and my love for creativity. It was because I really recognised the need for us to explore having a better work life balance and to explore how creativity can help us do that, and the power of embracing having hobbies and having interests away from our work.
And again, because I recognised there was a need for that and saw that as like a wrong in the business world. That's why I'm talking to you now.
So I think it's a really powerful story. I think it's a really interesting and inspiring way of looking at the world. Reading the stories of the women in the book as well really made me think a lot about how women are viewed creatively as a whole.
I'm sure it won't surprise you to hear this, but there's a lot of examples in the book of female artists who have had their work ripped off by male artists, entire movements being credited to the people who did not, in fact, create them, but were kind of had it thrust upon them as they were white men, typically. So the Bauhaus movement was an example of that, according to the history in the book. And it was a female artist who'd kind of started the movement and was really responsible for a lot of the signature things you see in it, but wasn't credited because she was a woman. And obviously, there is a lot of examples in there which definitely made me think about how women are viewed creatively anyway.
And that was only kind of exemplified for me even more reading the bits on textile art and quilting and oh my goodness, as a textile nerd myself, so I'm really into sewing. So those sections of the book I absolutely loved reading, especially because some of the quilts featured in there, oh my goodness. So intricate, so detailed, so just full of amazing things and I'd never heard of any of it. I think I'd occasionally seen one or two featured in museums and I think that's definitely only recently. It was definitely something I didn't see when I was younger, but it really made me reflect on how textile art is viewed because obviously there's a lot of talk in the book about how it wasn't really taken seriously and not considered to be true art in inverted commas, just because of the nature of it.
And it really reminded me of how society generally views craft and hobbies. I think they're still a very typically feminine skew to things. I think it's really only recently, in the last few years, maybe decade. I'm not even sure I'd go that far, to be honest, where we've kind of moved started to move away from the stereotypical WI, Women's Institute, way people view women's creativity.
I think that it's not just making our silly crafts, doing our silly knitting or whatever, but it is serious. It's not just a silly thing because it's stereotypically feminised. As much as TikTok gets a bad rep for certain things, I do think things like seeing people craft on TikTok and things like that have gradually started to pull away that stereotype of traditional crafting being just for women and just for older women as well.
So it was really interesting to kind of read about where that had come from and to yeah, I mean, it kind of kind of depressing, I'm not going to lie. There were a lot of parts of the book where I was kind of thinking, oh, my goodness. It was disheartening to see how little certain things had changed, actually, but also encouraging to kind of see that even with the publication of the book.
And I think the book was really popular and really successful, that things are kind of starting slowly to shift and to change, pulling it back to creativity as well. Another reason why I absolutely loved this book and found it so inspirational and engaging when I read it was obviously the amount of stories in there about these incredible women from all corners of the world, from all parts of history that had embraced the power of being creative even when it was incredibly difficult to do so.
And we're talking women producing art through dictatorships, through wartime, and obviously incredibly intense personal situations for a lot of these women as well. Not to say that good art only comes from suffering, because I don't believe that.
But if we're looking at kind of stories of women who really faced some incredibly challenging circumstances and situations, to see that they were able to channel that into making these incredible art pieces that in a lot of cases were nothing like that with other things that were being seen at the time. A real powerful testament to how powerful creativity is and how powerfully it can reflect the world around us as well, and how it tells a story and how it speaks to these amazing stories and how we can channel creativity to tell our stories.
And I think that's something that as human beings, we are always doing on a smaller scale. I think even if you don't consider yourself an artist or consider yourself someone who is stereotypically creative, I think we are always creating and we are always storytelling, like all the time. Even when we're on social media and we're producing content or in our businesses, when we're doing anything, I think we're always doing it.
I think even if it's not traditionally how it will look, it will be really interesting to see how this book affects art history going forward and how art history is going to look with obviously new forms and new things happening all the time. That's just modern life, right? Everything happening all the time.
So you might have been listening to this and maybe thinking, well, okay, that all sounds very good and well, but I am not an artist. I'm not someone who considers themselves a traditional creative. What I really want to reassure you about this book is that I'm not really that artistic either. But this book is fantastic because it's really accessible.
And it's really accessible in the way that there isn't a lot of text, there's not a lot of jargon. It is incredibly accessible and very easy to read and really easy to switch through. Like, if you had, for example, an interest in a particular portion of history, you could just go to that bit of the book. Everything's really well indexed, everything's quite searchable in there. So I would definitely recommend picking it up even if you don't think you're into art, because like I said, there's a lot of stories in there and a lot of elements of the book that I think everyone can find inspiration from.
I think it would be very, very difficult for people to kind of read through this and not gain something from it. Basically, if you're a fan of a chunky book, if you're a fan of a coffee table book, if you're a fan of, like, a nice nonfiction book you can have around where you can just flick through and just get from it whatever you need from it at that moment in time, then I would 100% recommend this one.
Like I said at the top of the show, this one doesn't feel like it feels like a bit of a weird recommendation in some ways just because obviously it's not a traditional art, not a traditional business book. But I really wanted to talk about books on here that were inspirational, creatively, not just from a business perspective, because I think there are plenty of business books out there, but not maybe so many books that are reflecting how it is to be creative and to run a creative business and to be more in touch with that part of you. And also, I think a lot of business books are like dry as hell, to be totally honest.
This book also smells really nice. So if you are someone and there will be people listening, I know that will know what I'm talking about and will appreciate it.
So, yeah, I'm going to leave it there. If you've read this one or picked it up, let me know what you think. I would love to chat about it. And if you haven't read it and you're fancy and checking out, also, let me know I will link to it in the show notes as well. If you want to pick it up and check it out for yourself, I will leave it at that. It's been so nice talking to you today.
I hope there was something in this episode that you found inspirational or useful. Please follow the show, share the show, let me know what you thought. You can always get a hold of me on Instagram at Caitlin the Creative or send me an email, visit the website, all the good stuff and I will be back next week. And next week I will be talking about Journaling and what an amazing creative practice is and how you can bring it into your everyday life.
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