Creativity: The Perfect Crime, Paperback

In the vein of The Creative Habit and The Artist's Way, a manifesto on the creative process from a master of the impossible.

Since well before his epic (and illegal) 1974 walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, Philippe Petit had become an artist who answered first to the demands of his craft--and not just on the high wire, but also as a magician, street juggler, visual artist, builder, and writer. He was a rebel and an autodidact, cultivating the attitudes, resources, and techniques to tackle even seemingly impossible feats. His outlaw sensibility spawned a unique approach to the creative process--an approach he shares, with characteristic enthusiasm, irreverence, and originality, in Creativity: The Perfect Crime.

With the reader as his accomplice, Petit reveals fresh and unconventional ways of going about the artistic endeavor, from generating and shaping ideas to practicing, problem-solving, and ultimately pulling off the "coup" itself--executing a finished work. His strategies and insights will resonate with performers of every stripe (actors, musicians, dancers), practitioners of the non-performing arts (writers, artists), professionals in search of new ways of meeting challenges, and individuals simply engaged in the art of living creatively.

Philippe Petit has performed on the high wire more than eighty times around the world; he is also a magician, street juggler, visual artist, builder, lecturer, and writer. A frequent contributor to TED and other national venues, he is the author and illustrator of several books, including To Reach the Clouds, the basis of the 2009 Academy Award-winning documentary Man on Wire. Petit lives in upstate New York.