The Art Courage Program
The Art Courage Program, Seattle: Jaded Ibis Press. ISBN 1937543633. (co-author Katherine Whitcomb) The Art Courage Program: Transmedia Edition, Seattle: Jaded Ibis Press. ISBN 9781937543662. Artists’ book (Edition of 100) containing audio cassette tape, MP3 download card, four artist-made fragrances, and printed aphorism book. (with Charmaine Banach and Katherine Whitcomb)
Praise for The Art Courage Program
“Every irony indicates a sincerity that is so deeply known or felt that it needs protection under the guise of distance. In Katharine Whitcomb and Brian Goelzenleuchter’s strange, timely and wonderful invention, we are shown a known truth: that art unsettles. This book and its smart creators draw our attention to the ways in which art undoes us in a culture that manufactures a rhetoric of concern, but ultimately leaves us to navigate on our own.
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“Part manifesto, part 12 step program—this program locates fear and loathing not in poverty, gun violence, climate change, human trafficking, but in the potential art might have in disturbing the smooth veneer of civilization. We deserve to feel okay! Art is not dangerous! The Art Courage Program will be required reading this semester in my class on the historical avant-garde.”
Description
The Art Courage Program is a hybrid book combining two literary genres: self-help and cultural criticism. This book offers readers the tools needed to overcome anxieties associated with all aspects of art. The step-by-step program encourages readers to move beyond negative art reactions, learn from and be healed by their experiences, and find acceptance and even appreciation of art.
The Art Courage Program is comprised of interactive chapters, which invite readers to assess the acuteness of their own “art anxiety” and to adopt various coping strategies for their affliction. Illustrations depicting scenarios of instances of “art anxiety” and the practice of therapeutic treatments are featured throughout the text.
Readers of The Art Courage Program are offered access to a transmedia edition of the book, which includes the COURAGE series of Wellness Fragrances, The Art Courage Program’s Book of Aphorisms, and The Art Courage Program Special Edition Audio Cassette with MP3 download card. The Art Courage Program book is just one of the iterations of the program—the reader is encouraged to experience the program in trans-media, through auditory, olfactory, physical, and literary modalities.
