Art Thinking: How to Carve Out Creative Space in a World of Schedules, Budgets, and Bosses

It’s easy to regard art and business as two wholly separate areas, but Whitaker (Museum Legs) shows how to seamlessly blend the two, offering a holistic and original approach to achieving success as an innovator. She explains that both creativity and planning are needed to establish and sustain any successful idea. At once philosophical and practical, this book challenges current perceptions of the ways that ideas (and their by-products) come to life. Whitaker insists that every great idea began “in the weeds”—that is, with the creator unsure whether the initial inspiration would ever bear fruit. Her examples include Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird; Thomas Fogarty’s balloon catheter, a revolutionary medical invention; and the start-up that eventually became Google. The main point Whitaker makes is that to turn a great idea into something tangible, it’s necessary to create a space for it by developing a business model and strategically investing time, energy, and money. For any readers nursing ideas they’d like to see become reality, this well-researched and engaging book is not to be missed. 60 line drawings. Agent: Pilar Queen, McCormick Literary. (July)