Stuart Semple’s new book Make Art or Die Trying shows how anyone can become an artist. Part memoir, part manifesto, the book’s mix of personal stories, art history and creative exercises teaches readers how everyone can be an artist. Breaking down art concepts and the creative process to be accessible to all.
“I don’t care where you grew up, if you’ve been to art school, if you have a day job, if you’re in your teens or your nineties. Being an artist is possible for you right now. Everyone is an artist; every single human has a spark of creativity inside them.” – Stuart Semple
How Art Can Be Your Activism
Make Art or Die Trying: The Only Art Book You’ll Ever Need If You Want to Make Art That Changes the World shows budding artists how their art can be activism. Throughout his career Stuart’s most seminal work has often championed art-making as activism. Creating Gay Blood – inks and paints containing the real blood of gay men to protest a since-changed FDA rule in the US which banned gay men from donating blood amid a severe blood shortage.
In Share Something Amazing Stuart released hundreds of giant balloons made to look like eggs in seven cities across the UK. Fertility Partnership went on to say children were born from eggs donated by women inspired after seeing the installation. After noticing metal bars in the middle of public benches in his hometown, Stuart and local people experiencing homelessness decorated the benches, turning them into “love benches” and embarrassing the council into removing the metal bars in the process.
The Crisis in Arts Education
Make Art or Die Trying comes at a time when arts education in the UK is in crisis, with recent research from the University of Warwick and the Campaign for the Arts describing “catastrophic declines in participation and enrolment” and highlighting a slump in arts education and employment, with GCSE and A-level entries in arts subjects plummeting by 47% and 29% respectively since 2010. In this context, Stuart and other leading artists reaching out to a wider audience becomes essential.
This informative and inspiring book demystifies influential art concepts of the 20th and 21st centuries, including happenings, performance art, Bauhaus, and Fluxus, making them approachable and inviting you to learn, make art, and make change. It removes the jargon often used when talking about art, giving you the inside guide to creating art and change in your life and community.
Make Art or Die Trying by Stuart Semple. Published by Quarto. RRP £22
