I received a copy of this book from the author for review. It's a novel, but it purports to be a pseudo-biography of a contemporary painter, Christopher Freeze. While it is an intriguing concept (a biographical novel told in a combination of journal entries, biographical entries, and published reviews), it falls short of its goal. Plus, I think the author missed some opportunities to develop the story more fully and in more interesting directions. It simply seems like only part of a novel. ( )

A Painter's Life is the story of artist Christopher Freeze as told in snippets from his journal, excerpts from his biography as told by an unsympathetic academic, as well as bits of reviews of his work. As it happens, though, it seems Freeze is not so much the focus of the book so much as his friends, his work, and his snappy inner monologue is. Freeze's journals are littered with all sorts of commentary about people and situations that rings totally true and demands to speak for itself.

A Painter's Life is full of keen human insight that is so dead on that you can't help but laugh as you recognize your own more ridiculous characteristics as well as the foibles of the people you know. At the same time, it is a treatise on creativity, the fleeting nature of inspiration, and the difficulty of producing art that is personally meaningful while still being able to make a living. As if that weren't plenty of ground to cover in a book that is a mere 143 pages long, Dixon also manages to craft a bit of a satire that takes on the fine line between coherent critiques and the bizarre flights of fancy of art critics, that, if we're honest with ourselves, carries over into anyone who attempts to sit down and review something in a way that presumes to sound educated but ultimately results in reviewers floating away from any clear meaning on the sea of words they've created.

Dixon has an impressive grasp of human nature, a convincing view of the creative process, and a sense of humor about it all. A Painter's Life is well worth reading for anyone who has ever striven to create something of worth as well as anyone who's ever attempted to critique someone else's creation. ( )

It’s hard to put a novel like K.B. Dixon’s A Painter’s Life in a neat, tidy box. In fact, I think that would be impossible. It’s a short, almost genre-less glimpse of the life of one man — the titular painter — and his struggles with creativity, success and marriage, and the vignettes that serve as the novel’s story are crisp and thought-provoking.

Christopher Freeze has achieved notoriety in art circles for his unconventional, often surprising works of art, and the novel functions as a glimpse of both the man and the artist. Through a series of vignettes, each chapter opens with a portion of Freeze’s biography, a work-in-progress by a professor who speaks with Freeze regularly. The artist has a hard time understanding why anyone would want to know who he is personally, so his stories and snippets of conversation with Alan Barnes come across as caustic. But we know Freeze isn’t really that way.

Interspersed with the biographical information are excerpts from Freeze’s “unpublished journals” — spaces in which he can tell his own story. These passages range in content from stories about dinner with friends to musings on the art world and criticism to recountings of troubles with his art dealer, Charles Safadi, and are often unintentionally humorous. As a reader, I got the sense that Christopher wouldn’t want me to think he was funny — not at all, in fact — but he seems like just the serious-faced character who would utter a random, hilarious line and make me laugh my head off.

But the book certainly didn’t send me into spasms of laughter. Freeze’s quotes — and the story of his life — were very interesting, but often tinged with sadness. I found myself pausing over most of his journal snippets to think about art, life and love. Christopher seems lonely and isolated, though he’s always meeting with friends or talking with Sarah, his wife. At several points in the story, our narrator admits that life with him must be difficult — and I wondered more about Sarah and her personal struggles. We’re only given a look at her experiences through Christopher’s own journal entries.

I did occasionally feel disoriented while reading, as if I were handed a stack of random Polaroids — all taken from a different moment in one man’s life — and asked to assemble them chronologically. But I have a feeling this was intentional — and part of the magic of the story. While the novel doesn’t exactly take a “twist” in its final chapters, Dixon does divulge some information about Freeze’s past that made me completely rethink who he was as an artist and a person — and I thought that was pretty masterful.

Lovers of art and those interested in the "process" of creativity will find plenty to enjoy in A Painter’s Life. Overall, a novel I’ll be thinking about more as time goes on — and probably return to when I want to ponder art for art’s sake. ( )