The Smile at the Heart of Things

Inside this book
What are the essential ingredients of a creative life? How does an artist become an artist? Can art and religion find common ground? What does it mean to be an individual, and as individuals can we be separate and singular as well as communal and connected?

Brian H. Peterson wrestles with these questions and offers some answers in The Smile at the Heart of Things, a wide-ranging and deeply satisfying collection of personal essays, journal entries, and reflections on art, artists, and art museums. Drawing on his experiences as a musician, visual artist, scholar, and museum curator, Peterson connects his own search for growth and meaning with larger issues of creativity and the human spirit, often by simply telling stories about his own life and the lives of artists, friends, and family members.
Forty-seven full-color images of well-known paintings and photographs enrich these stories and underscore their celebration of humor and sadness, grief and joy.