Famous Artists Make Terrible Role Models

History remembers famous artists as geniuses, rebels, martyrs, and models of creative courage, but their real lives were too contradictory and chaotic to function as instruction manuals. Drawing on Mary Shelley, James Baldwin, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, Yayoi Kusama, and others, author Ryan T. Pozzi examines what gets lost when difficult lives become oversimplified legends. This program is built for both practicing artists and curious general readers and will leave the audience with a useful framework for interpreting famous lives.

Ryan T. Pozzi is a nonfiction author based in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Ryan lives in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and has spent most of his creative career in Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska, building arts and literary communities across the region. His debut book, The Mess That Made Them, published by Bloomsbury Academic Press, examines the difficult, uncertain periods behind 24 celebrated creative lives.