cover image Turn: 2the Journal of an Artist

Turn: 2the Journal of an Artist

Anne Truitt. Viking Books, $16.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-670-81175-5

Truitt's guilt over her husband's suicide, her subsequent bitterness and concern about being true to herself as a painter, the demands of parenting and acute observations on nature are interwoven in this sensitive journal. A sequel to Daybook, this also records the challenges she faced as acting director of an artists' colony. For the author, reality is something we must invent for ourselves, and our precarious hold on it hinges on the ability to invest our activities with love. As her children grow into their 20s, she joins with them in a mutual effort at self-understanding, which helps liberate her from the past. She decodes ciphers in nature: a nesting bird, a pale, sickle moon on Thanksgiving Day dawn renew hope. Her notes on travels from Paris to Padua to Venice will be of special interest to artists and art students. Truitt is a professor of art at the Univ. of Maryland. (November 6)