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Quote by Edward Salem

“Certain non-decorative artworks render the artist an administrator, one’s own secretary, busy with calls and logistics. The artistry is in the idea, it’s all downhill from there.”

Quote by Edward Salem

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Edward Salem

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“My mother believed in God's will for many years. It was af if she had turned on a celestial faucet and goodness kept pouring out. She said it was faith that kept all these good things coming our way, only I thought she said "fate" because she couldn't pronounce the "th" sound in "faith". And later I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow you're in control. I found out the most I could have was hope, and with that I wasn't denying any possibility, good or bad. I was just saying, If there is a choice, dear God or whatever you are, here's where the odds should be placed. I remember the day I started thinking this, it was such a revelation to me. It was the day my mother lost her faith in God. She found that things of unquestioned certainty could never be trusted again. We had gone to the beach, to a secluded spot south of the city near Devil's Slide. My father had read in Sunset magazine that this was a good place to catch ocean perch. And although my father was not a fisherman but a pharmacist's assistant who had once been a doctor in China, he believed in his nenkan, his ability to do anything he put his mind to. My mother believed she had nenkan to cook anything my father had a mind to catch. It was this belief in their nenkan that had brought my parents to America. It had enabled them to have seven children and buy a house in Sunset district with very little money. It had given them the confidence to believe their luck would never run out, that God was on their side, that house gods had only benevolent things to report and our ancestors were pleased, that lifetime warranties meant our lucky streak would never break, that all the elements were now in balance, the right amount of wind and water.”

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Book:The Joy Luck Club
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“Het huis vertegenwoordigde zijn gouden eeuw, toen alles fris en ongerept was, eer hij de wereld had veroverd en tot de ontdekking kwam, dat de verovering wederkerig was , dat het er veelal meer op leek dat de wereld hem veroverd had. Telkens wanneer de ironie van deze paradox zsich sterk genoeg aan hem opdrong, was hij bereid om al het mogelijke te ondernemen,dat in staat leek hem naar zijn gouden eeuw terug te leiden.”

Art
Book:Žila som s Picassom
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“THE ROSES One day in summer when everything has already been more than enough the wild beds start exploding open along the berm of the sea; day after day you sit near them; day after day, the honey keeps on coming in the red cups and the bees like amber drops roll in the petals: there is no end, believe me! to the inventions of summer, to the happiness your body is willing to bear.”

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Book:Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
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“Ambiguity is your ally: an interpretive dance with universal truths, not an observation post. An artist enlightens; the interpreter chooses to bathe in that light. Or, fearing being 'wrong' or lacking critical thinking, they await spoon-feeding. Being Irving The Explainer is not the artist's job. You don't go to an art gallery to ask a painter what their painting means (they have wisely left the scene of the crime!). You either get it or you don't, and it should wash over you and be appreciated either way. Impose the tyranny of explanation upon it, and you may kill any meaning, if there is any to unearth. Artists may not even know their intentions when putting something out into the cosmos. Ambiguity, then, is the fertile hinterland between The Emperor's New Clothes and the Highlands of Pretentiousness.”

ArtCreativityMysteryExistentialismInterpretationAmbiguitySubjectivityMeaning Of ArtPhilosophy Of ArtArtistic Critique
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“The worst thing you can do to an artist is demand they explain themselves. Stanislavsky said a raised voice has no place in art — nor does cross-examination. An ambiguous space to breathe in is the lifeblood of all creativity. Despite the implied tag of ownership from financial benefactors, the artist must resist becoming a preserved butterfly on a pin for study.”

ArtMysteryInterpretationAmbiguitySubjectivityArtistic FreedomMeaning Of ArtPhilosophy Of ArtArt CriticismCreative Resistance
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“It's probably for the best that Van Gogh isn't around to see his work selling for squillions of dollars, as he'd probably start painting for that market. He may have lost an ear, but he'd still have that magic eye and a new nose for a deal. We're denied access to this poor man's genius by having the richest people on earth hanging his life's work in their mansions.”

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Author:Stewart Stafford
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“When you're restless, you're alive and awake, not sleepwalking in your life or in your creative practice. You value independent thinking of compliance, experimentation, and risk over the sure thing. Restless riders are flexible and nimble; they resist doing the same thing again, and again, even if that thing was successful and well received. They refused to rest on their laurels.”

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Book:Dear Writer: Pep Talks and Practical Advice for the Creative Life
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“He painted trees as by some special divining instinct of their essential qualities. He understood them. He knew why in an oak forest, for instance, each individual was utterly distinct from its fellows, and why no two beeches in the whole world were alike. People asked him down to paint a favorite lime or silver birch, for he caught the individuality of a tree as some catch the individuality of a horse. How he managed it was something of a puzzle, for he never had painting lessons, his drawing was often wildly inaccurate, and, while his perception of a Tree Personality was true and vivid, his rendering of it might almost approach the ludicrous. Yet the character and personality of that particular tree stood there alive beneath his brush—shining, frowning, dreaming, as the case might be, friendly or hostile, good or evil. It emerged.”

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Book:Pan’s Garden: a Volume of Nature Stories
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