“Most artists work alone, with little to steer them save crummy ‘how to’ guides.” So writes author and curator Hettie Judah in her new book, How to Enter the Art World.

At first glance, the book’s presentation might mislead the reader into believing it to be another giant crumb from the loaf of bad guidance. The title is set out in an authoritative, broadsheet newspaper font, the sort with decorative feet attached to the longer strokes: a font of wisdom. Dashed beneath this is an apparently hand-scrawled note: “AFTER a late start, a first career, illness, raising children, a crisis of confidence, leaving it in disgust…”

Throughout, the book is punctuated with day-glow reminders of the complexity of life. These break the book into bite-size chunks and, I imagine, establish rapport. This softening of authority’s edges, metaphorically the transition from serif to scrawl, can also be detected in occasional parenthetical discursions and statements of bland goodwill:

It’s brutal out there. I would wish for all artists to be able to support themselves through their art, whatever it may involve. (OK, perhaps not forgery. Or photorealism.)

It’s brutal out there. I would wish for all artists to be able to support themselves through their art, whatever it may involve. (OK, perhaps not forgery. Or photorealism.)

Don’t be put off. The design, illustrations and occasional digressions notwithstanding, the book is a........

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