In this collection of short tales born in a creative writing group, Susan Widdicombe portrays the vicissitudes of an eclectic group of characters as they struggle to overcome life's many problems. A dog's fidelity to his mistress is put to the test in 'Taking Sides' while the joys and compromises of old age are highlighted in 'A Walk in the Park' and 'Sex and Love'. Some of the stories are set in Southern Africa while others take us to France, Italy or Spain. Some celebrate the comedy of the human experience while others highlight its tragedy. But all invite us to reflect on our options and on the consequences of our choices as we navigate through the changing kaleidoscope of our individual lives on Planet Earth and elsewhere. Tales of Inner Turmoil I offers us a set of quirky short stories as entertaining as they are thought-provoking.

What Urig offers us in his book "Tips for the Contemporary Painter" is his version of artistic truths in painting. He has personally tested them all. He explains that we as artists need to set a good example. Developing a "Painters Code" will help rid our profession of myths and half-truths. Painters have an important role. What we create should add value and beauty to our world while providing respect for the painter and his work.

Notions of crisis have long charged the study of the European avant-garde and modernism, reflecting the often turbulent nature of their development. Throughout their history, the avant-garde and modernists have both confronted and instigated crises, be they economic or political, aesthetic or philosophical, collective or individual, local or global, short or perennial. The seventh volume in the series European Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies addresses the myriad ways in which the avant-garde and modernism have responded and related to crisis from the late nineteenth to the twenty-first century. How have Europe's avant-garde and modernist movements given aesthetic shape to their crisis-laden trajectory? Given the many different watershed moments the avant-garde and modernism have faced over the centuries, what common threads link the critical points of their development? Alternatively, what kinds of crises have their experimental practices and critical modes yielded? The volume assembles case studies reflecting upon these questions and more from across all areas of avant-garde and modernist activity, including visual art, literature, music, architecture, photography, theatre, performance, curatorial practice, fashion and design.

This book demonstrates the significance of transnationality for studying and writing the lives of artists. While painters, musicians and writers have long been cast as symbols of their associated nations, recent research is increasingly drawing attention to those aspects of their lives and works that resist or challenge the national framework. The volume showcases different ways of treating transnationality in life writing by and about artists, investigating how the transnational can offer intriguing new insights on artists who straddle different nations and cultures. It further explores ways of adopting transnational perspectives in artists' biographies in order to deal with experiences of cultural otherness or international influences, and analyses cross-cultural representations of artists in biography and biofiction. Gathering together insights from biographers and scholars with expertise in literature, music and the visual arts, Transnational Perspectives on Artists' Lives opens up rich avenues for researching transnationality in the cultural domain at large.

Emotions, creativity, aesthetics, artistic behavior, divergent thoughts, and curiosity are both fundamental to the human experience and instrumental in the development of human-centered artificial intelligence systems that can relate, communicate, and understand human motivations, desires, and needs. In this book the editors put forward two core propositions: creative artistic behavior is one of the key challenges of artificial intelligence research, and computer-assisted creativity and human-centered artificial intelligence systems are the driving forces for research in this area. The invited chapters examine computational creativity and more specifically systems that exhibit artistic behavior or can improve humans' creative and artistic abilities. The authors synthesize and reflect on current trends, identify core challenges and opportunities, and present novel contributions and applications in domains such as the visual arts, music, 3D environments, and games. The book will be valuable for researchers, creatives, and others engaged with the relationship between artificial intelligence and the arts.

Art is one of the best parts of your life... are you ready to make it your living? Whether you are an art student, an aspiring artist or a longtime hobbyist, Margaret Peot offers experienced advice and empowerment for taking that next step. Chapter by chapter, she'll help you map out a personalized route toward the creative life of your dreams. With real-world advice on everything from bidding for freelance jobs and pricing artwork, to filing for taxes, to building a network of connections within the community, readers will learn to navigate the business of being an artist. Exercises and worksheets help readers figure out where their interests and strengths lie and how to use these to their advantage. Interviews with artists who have carved out successful careers for themselves and an index of useful organisations and list of additional reading provide further resources to would-be professional artists. In a world where artists are stereotyped as struggling and starving, this upbeat, down-to-earth guide will help you shape your goals, identify opportunities and earn a productive, joyful living with your artwork. Embrace your passion and shape your every day into a work of art!

A lot of songs, filled with fun and sung things of that sort, happy, sad, glad, mad, a time to share, a time to be anything you want. How about a chance? It is fun! Fun in the sun. Fun everywhere. Have a good day. Talk Show in book format by Mirjana Nikolovski.