The question: Is art enough? -- Yes. Because... : Art is inheritance: Madge and Dick Griest & Sheryl Oring, Road Trips Across the USA ; Art is a spiritual orgasm: Protima Gauri Bedi & Surupa Sen & Bijayini Satpathy in Nrityagram, India ; Art is reconciliation: Hope Azeda & Malaika Uwamahoro & Gakire Katese Odile in Kigali, Rwanda ; Art is dissent: Florica Prevenda & Marilena Preda Sânc & Anca Petrescu in Bucarest, Romania ; Art is self-actualization: Fatma Al Shebani & Hana Al Saadi & Carolina Aranibar-Fernández in Doha, Qatar ; Art is a waltz in the palace of the moon: Wendy Whelan in New York, New York ; Art is revenge: Vilborg Davíðsdóttir & Björk in Reykjavik, Iceland ; Art is medicine: Cielo in Lima, Peru, and Carrboro, North Carolina ; Art is unzipping your body: Tiffany "Hanan" Madera & Gretel Sanchez Llabre & Myra Krien & Tamalyn Dallal & Esraa Warda in Miami, Florida and Havana, Cuba ; Art is a house of your own: Sandra Cisneros in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico ; Art is lineage: Māmā Mihirangi in Aotearoa/New Zealand ; Art is love: Ayana Evans in Brooklyn, New York ; Art is immortality: Dick Griest & Analina Pilar Devora & Sheryl Oring & Shira Nitara Oring Emanuel, Road Trips Across the USA -- The answer(s) -- The resources -- The acknowledgments

"Introduces us to legendary writers, visual artists, dancers, and musicians across the globe, who talk intimately about their art, what it requires, what it gifts them, and what it costs them"--

"Meet queer, BIPOC, and women artists around the world as they discuss the gifts, costs, and redemptive power of pursuing a creative life. Is the all-encompassing quest to become a self-sustaining artist worth the sacrifices it often requires? Throughout her 20s and 30s, Stephanie Elizondo Griest could not help worrying if constantly prioritizing her writing over everything else--from postponing children to living nomadically to save on rent--was leading her to fulfillment or regret. After a break-up and serious health crisis in her early 40s, she decided to turn to other women artists for their perspectives on that perennial question: is art enough? Art Above Everything introduces us to legendary writers, visual artists, dancers, and musicians across the globe, who talk intimately about their art, what it requires, what it gifts them, and what it costs them. Opening in a classical Indian dance village, Elizondo Griest goes on to meet 100+ artists in Rwanda, Romania, Qatar, Iceland, Mexico, New Zealand, Cuba, and the United States. She discovers artists from Rwandan playwright Hope Azeda, who navigated ethnic tensions as she attempted to bring about reconciliation through theater in the aftermath of genocide; to Romanian painter Florica Prevenda, who got assigned to a provincial factory during Ceaușescu's dictatorship but never relinquished her brushes. Art is inheritance, dissent, devotion, revenge, celebration, and more. Yet though each artist's relationship to their craft is different, their need to create in the face of economic hardship, misogyny, sexual violence, and family ostracization is wholly akin. Bold and inspiring, Art Above Everything never pretends that the artist's path is easy--but it illuminates the infinite ways we can wield creativity as a vitalizing force." -- Baker & Taylor