About the Book

Persist: In Praise of The Creative Spirit In A World Gone Mad With Commerce

The title, "Persist," together with the subtitle, "In Praise of the Creative Spirit in a World Gone Mad with Commerce,” pretty much says it all.  The book is a collection of essays, written over the past thirty years, addressing in a variety of ways the predicament of the artist (read: writer, musician, actor, dancer...) in a cultural climate in which celebrity and established commercial track record too often count for more than talent and quality of work.  Yet artists of all kinds have to "do it"--if only because that's who they are.  The book describes strategies the author himself has found to be indispensible in learning to “persist” beyond the all too familiar obstacles: he has found those resources in practice, the exercise of mental and logistical discipline, and building community. 

 What People Have to Say About Persist:

"Clothier is on a mission to reinforce the artistic spirit in the face of relentless commercialism from which no one is immune. Yes, the starving artist is a heroic image, and the many millions of us who create art daily, while supporting themselves with a mundane ‘day job,’ draw comfort from this image. But he goes further and describes a yet deeper layer of the artistic spirit—the act of resisting the notion that our works are successful only if they sell. This is not merely a mistaken belief that one can throw off with a shrug, but a relentless current of the society in which we live and against which we must persistently strive; not just an act of will but a meditative endeavour in which we look past what’s presented as self-evident in search of a deeper truth."

—Stephen Schettini, author, The Naked Monk

"This extraordinary, much-needed, perfectly-timed book of essays becomes even more extraordinary by Mr. Clothier’s manner of presentation. He writes in the style of Montaigne’s the quotidian-is-sublime manner as he plumbs his own life aiming at (and hitting) what he keenly calls the intersection of mortality and infinity. The pieces are sensitive, they are frank… [Persist] should be made compulsory reading for art schools (read: factories) to counterbalance art star aspirations as it brings us back to First Principles that level the art world’s Us/Them playing field."

—James Scarborough, theater critic, What the Butler Saw

"Peter Clothier's Persist: In Praise of the Creative Spirit in a World Gone Mad with Commerce arrives at the perfect time. As the art world tries to reinvent itself in the current economic malaise, Clothier's book inspires us to see the soul and spirit inherent in the creative process. Money may not be the root of all evil but it is the root of a lot of bad art. Peter Clothier challenges artists, writers, actors and filmmakers to value artistic process as a goal in itself rather than a path to wealth and power. Most of all, Clothier urges us to keep on creating - to never give up. The world would be a lesser place without the arts. A beautiful, inspiring book. Highly recommended."

 – Gregg Chadwick, Speed of Life

"As you read these pages, it's easy to feel that Peter is in the room talking with you — with you, not to you — in a warm gentle cadence in which the conversation unfolds not as a set of polemics, but his experience and thoughts about art, poetry, and writing, about meeting the creative challenge as captured in Duane Michals' line "While I am not afraid...", working from the hurt or difficult places as in Rumi's "Keep your eye on the bandaged place", or about not being a critic but one who translates, taking a painting or a poem, and expressing it in another medium." 

–Ken McLeod, author, Wake Up to Your Life

For More Online Reviews of Persist Visit the Following Links:

The Buddhist Blog

The Naked Monk

What The Butler Saw

Speed of Life 
Contemporary Art Dialogue


For The Persist Media Release Please Visit:
Persist Media Release


To Purchase Your Copy:
Parami Press