Rick Rubin

From the legendary music producer, a master at helping people connect with the wellsprings of their creativity, comes a beautifully crafted book many years in the making that offers that same deep wisdom to all of us.

A Way of Being

The Creative Act

Many famed music producers are known for a particular sound that has its day and then ages out. Rick Rubin is known for something else: creating a space where artists of all different genres and traditions can home in on who they really are and what they really offer. He has made a practice of helping people transcend their self-imposed expectations in order to reconnect with a state of innocence from which the surprising becomes inevitable. Over the years, as he has thought deeply about where creativity comes from and where it doesn’t, he has learned that being an artist isn’t about your specific output; it’s about your relationship to the world. Creativity has a place in everyone’s life, and everyone can make that place larger. In fact, there are few more important responsibilities. The Creative Act is a beautiful and generous course of study that illuminates the path of the artist as a road we all can follow. It distils the wisdom gleaned from a lifetime’s work into a luminous reading experience that puts the power to create moments – and lifetimes – of exhilaration and transcendence within closer reach for all of us.

Dhrumil Patel

Through the ordinary state of being, we’re already creators in the most profound way, creating our experience of reality and composing the world we perceive.

From the legendary music producer, a savant at helping people connect with the wellsprings of their creativity, comes a beautifully crafted book, many years in the making, that offers that same deep wisdom to all of us. TARGET CONSUMER: Readers of THE ARTIST'S WAY and BIG MAGIC “I set out to write a book about what to do to make a great work of art. Instead, it revealed itself to be a book on how to be.” —Rick Rubin Many famed music producers, however brilliant, become known for a particular sound which has its day and then ages out. Rick Rubin, on the other hand, is most famous for something else: for creating a strong safe space where artists of wildly different genres and traditions can home in on who they really are and what they really offer. To surprise themselves, and thus the world. Rubin’s true art is for helping people get out of their own way and commune with the powerful creative signal that is their birthright. Over the years, Rubin has thought deeply about where creativity comes from and where it doesn’t, about what it takes to strike a deep nerve within ourselves. Perhaps above all, he has learned that being an artist isn’t about your specific output, it’s a relationship to the world. Creativity has a space in everyone’s life, and everyone has the opportunity to make that space stronger. Indeed, it may be our most important responsibility. More than five years in the making, The Creative Act is a series of meditations that illuminate the path of the artist as a road we all can follow. It is a beautifully generous offering of the wisdom gleaned from a lifetime’s work spent in the service of exhilaration and transcendence, distilled into a timeless classic that puts those feelings within closer reach for all of us.

Kyler Phillips

What you make doesn’t have to be witnessed, recorded, sold or encased in glass for it to be a work of art

Sebastian Stockmarr

The way we do anything is the way we do everything.

The universe is only as large as our perception of it. When we cultivate our awareness, we are expanding the universe. This expands the scope, not just of the material at our disposal to create from, but of the life we get to live.

Art is a work in progress. It’s helpful to see the piece we’re working on as an experiment. One in which we can’t predict the outcome. Whatever the result, we will receive useful information that will benefit the next experiment. If you start from the position that there is no right or wrong, no good or bad, and creativity is just free play with no rules, it’s easier to submerge yourself joyfully in the process of making things. We’re not playing to win, we’re playing to play. And ultimately, playing is fun. Perfectionism gets in the way of fun. A more skillful goal might be to find comfort in the process. To make and put out successive works with ease.

Ali Angco

As artists, we’re called to let go of these stories and blindly put our faith into the curious energy drawing us down the path… the artwork is the point where all these elements come together: the universe, the prism of self, the magic and discipline of transmuting idea to flesh. 

As we move into deeper into alignment with fundamental harmonic principles in our craft, we might be able to recognize them everywhere we look. By working in the specific, our tastes become refined in the general as well. 

When we’re unable to recognize the harmony in the universe around us, it’s probably because we’re not taking in enough data. 

Faith is rewarded, perhaps even more than talent or ability. After all, how can we offer the art what it needs without blind trust? We are required to believe in something that doesn't exist in order to allow it to come into being.

Fred Rivett

The world of reason can be narrow and filled with dead ends, while a spiritual viewpoint is limitless and invites fantastic possibilities. The unseen world is boundless.

If something strikes me as interesting or beautiful, first I live that experience. Only afterward might I attempt to understand it.

If you have an idea you're excited about and you don't bring it to life, it's not uncommon for the idea to find its voice through another maker. This isn't because the other artist stole your idea, but because the idea's time has come.

Just as trees grow flowers and fruits, humanity creates works of art.

You exist as a creative being in a creative universe. A singular work of art.

julien thibeaut

No matter what tools you use to create, the true instrument is you. And through you, the universe that surrounds us all comes into focus.

Anton Sten

Our thoughts, feelings, processes, and unconscious beliefs have an energy that is hidden in the work. This unseen, unmeasurable force gives each piece its magnetism. A completed project is only made up of our intention and our experiments around it. Remove intention and all that's left is the ornamental shell.

Though the artist may have a number of goals and moti-vations, there is only one intention. This is the grand gesture of the work.

Randomly flipped to this page and eyes settled on this passage after reading the “Look for Clues” chapter. So relevant. 

Piper Loyd

A child has no set of premises it relies on to make sense of the world. lt may serve you to do the same. Any label you a ssume before sitting doWn to create, even one as founda- tional as sculptor, rapper, author, or entrepreneur, could be doing more harm than good. Strip away the labels. Now how do you see the world? 

It’s amazing how a lot of reflections in this book are verbatim to what I’ve arrived at on my own. So that was nice to experience. However, there’s something about the way this book is written that annoys me and feels shallow or superficial. I don’t much like the short, pithy meditations. I think I’d prefer to have these reflections more grounded in personal experiences or storytelling, or just more pages. Something about this feels like I’m flipping through a Chicken Soup for the Soul book, if that makes sense. It’s like reading Twitter threads. 

Karissa 

Roisin O'Flaherty 

Really inspiring book on the creative process. I read it cover to cover but I think it would be better suited to a book you read when stuck in a creative rut. The chapters are short and snappy so you could get a chunk of inspiration when you need it.

i think i missed the part where this book was gonna be spiritual. i tried to get into it but i didn’t feel like i learned anything. meditative though 

krystal

Daniel Gynn

Probably should have had his appendix out

It's beautiful in a slightly woo woo sense of the word. Some parts of what I've experienced in the creative act ring true, though I really have to open my third eye wide open to see it. But true none the less.

For me, this book mostly makes sense looking backwards and less so when trying to deduct tools for going forward.

It's beautiful in a slightly woo woo sense of the word. Some parts of what I've experienced in the creative act ring true, though I really have to open my third eye wide open to see it. But true none the less.

For me, this book mostly makes sense looking backwards and less so when trying to deduct tools for going forward.

Anyhow, enjoyable read.

A meditative journey with Rubin as he describes the creative act. Much like any spiritual practice, it was a bit awkward at first but as you spend more time and reflecting, your inner artist is ready to get up and create once more. 

Obviously Rubin has good insight into the creative processes of hundreds of artists, however he presents his anecdotes and allegories too broadly. Lacks coherence and narrative element. 

The Creative Act A Way of Being

Reviews

Highlights