Mood Swings, A Painter's Life

Mood Swings, A Painter’s Life is the fourth book by pioneering artist Tony Robbin. In this beautifully written book, Robbin looks back on a life full of the exhilaration of participating in the creation of two new art movements, the satisfaction of collaborating with some of America’s best-known artists and mathematicians, and the thrill of peak adventures such as mountain climbing and scuba diving. Written after the death of his son and before the outcome of his cancer was known, he reflects on human fragility and the sadness of living with loss, but he never loses his sense of humor or ceases to marvel at the ups and downs of life. The through-line is creativity—where it comes from, how it arises—and the ways in which the creative individual is connected to his or her generation, and to society as a whole. Whether exhibiting in the exciting New York art world of the 1970s, writing innovative computer programs for four-dimensional geometry in the 1980s, constructing a huge sculpture in Denmark in the 1990s, or experiencing the deep solace of canoeing in the Adirondacks in 2010, Robbin was there, did that, and now he shares some of his reflections on it all in vivid, incisive prose.