“I like Betsy Ross as a model, too, the quilting bee, sitting around with your friends making art, asking what they think, so that you get the benefit of everyone's opinions and so it's not just about you in your you-dom.” ThinkingArtOpinionBenefitsModelsSittingAskingBeesSitting AroundDomsQuiltingBetsy Ross Author:Kiki Smith
“Some people think or expect that you should make the same kinds of art forever because it creates a convenient narrative... I want my work to embody my inherent contradictions.” PeopleThinkingWantShouldKindArtForeverCreatingNarrativeContradictionExpectingInherentConvenientEmbodimentFamous ArtistContradicting Author:Kiki Smith
“One's self is always shifting in relationship to beauty and you always have to be able to incorporate yourself or your new self into life. Like your skin starts hanging off your arms and stuff, and then you have to think, well that's really beautiful too. It just isn't beautiful in a way that I knew it was beautiful before.” ThinkingWayWellsSelfAbleBeautifulStuffLike YouArmsSkinsShiftingReally BeautifulNew Self Author:Kiki Smith
“I think that sense of always traveling has something to do with anonymity and privacy and pleasure in having a very clear, very reductive life.” ThinkingPleasureClearPrivacyAnonymity Author:Kiki Smith
“You start with a generic body, but I think the first wall you hit with portraiture is comprised of history and storytelling and the nature of characters - whether they are historical or coming from literature or documentation. Those are the references we have to people, besides your family, and the intimacy of portraiture is in the specifics of individuals. For me, it came out of doing things about animals.” PeopleThinkingFirstsCharacterBodyLiteratureIndividualAnimalWallHistoricalStorytellingIntimacyOur FamilyGenericPortraitureDocumentationSpecifics Author:Kiki Smith
“I think making things beautiful is important. But often what's first considered ugly is beautiful, too.” ThinkingFirstsArtImportantBeautifulUgly Book:Kiki Smith: a gathering, 1980-2005 Source: Kiki Smith: a gathering, 1980-2005
“I think that objects have memories. I’m always thinking that I’ll go to the museum and see something and have a big memory about some other lifetime.” ThinkingBigsMemoriesObjectsLifetimeMuseumsAlways Thinking Author:Kiki Smith
“Prints mimic what we are as humans: we are all the same and yet every one is different. I think there's a spiritual power in repetition, a devotional quality, like saying rosaries.” ThinkingHumansDifferentSpiritualQualityPrintRepetitionDevotionalRosarySpiritual Power Author:Kiki Smith
