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Artist Quotes

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Artist Quotes

“You see so many artists who are so talented end up living sad, empty lives. This industry takes so much out of you that without the accountability and leaving God in the center, you can be left so empty and void.”

Ends Artist Left Industry Empty Leaving Accountability Void Empty Life

Author:Stacie Orrico

“The biographies of great artists make it abundantly clear that the creative urge is often so imperious that it battens on their humanity and yokes everything to the service of the work, even at the cost of health and ordinary human happiness. The unborn work in the psyche of the artist is a force of nature that achieves its end either with tyrannical might or with the subtle cunning of nature herself, quite regardless of the personal fate of the man who is its vehicle.”

“I think it's harder than ever to be an artist. I think that you end up, especially as a middle-aged person, you pay such big consequences for saying, 'I'm just going to devote my life to making art,' or 'I'm going to devote my life to writing novels.' You end up with no resources.”

Thinking Writing Persons Art Ends Bigs Artist Pay Novel Middle Consequence Resources Harder Middle Aged

Author:Dana Spiotta

“For me, if the music is good, whether the artist is famous or unknown, I love being part of the music and contributing what I can to the bass end.”

Ifs I Can Ends Artist Love Is Music Is Bass Contributing

Author:Tony Levin

“I'm a controversial artist, one who dares to have an opinion and bothers to create music and videos that challenge people's ideas in a world that is watered-down and hollow. In my work I examine the America we live in, and I've always tried to show people that the devil we blame our atrocities on is really just each one of us. So don't expect the end of the world to come one day out of the blue – it's been happening every day for a long time.”

People World Long Ideas Ends Shows America Artist Challenges Opinion One Day Long Time Happenings Devil Down And Blue Blame Dare Video Bother End Of The World Hollow Controversial Atrocities

Author:Marilyn Manson

“Video artists being at the low end of the totem pole economically, one of the ways we survive is to go around showing work and giving these talks.”

Way Giving Ends Artist Lows Video Totems

Author:Bill Viola

“I came of age at the end of the 1960s, just when video was also coming into the world. Companies such as Sony and Panasonic were starting to market it and we artists immediately knew how it could be used.”

World Ends Age Used Artist Company Starting Video 1960s Sony

Author:Bill Viola

“I was always aware, reading Chesterton, that there was someone writing this who rejoiced in words, who deployed them on the page as an artist deploys his paints upon his palette. Behind every Chesterton sentence there was someone painting with words, and it seemed to me that at the end of any particularly good sentence or any perfectly-put paradox, you could hear the author, somewhere behind the scenes, giggling with delight.”

Writing Ends Joy Artist Reading Behinds Scene Pages Paint Delight Sentences Paradox Behind The Scenes Palette

Book:The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction

Source: The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction

“We tend to think of the Faustian man, the one who fabricates, manipulates, seduces and ends up destroying. But the new image will be man the creator, the artist, the player.”

Thinking Men Ends Play Artist Player Creator Destroying Manipulate Seducing Fabricate

Author:Jean Houston

“An odd contradiction, if the layman were correct in his unconscious assumption that an artist begins with reality and ends with art: the converse is true - to the degree that this dichotomy has any truth - the artist begins with art, and through it arrives at reality.”

Ifs Art Ends Reality Artist Degrees Odd Assumption Unconscious Contradiction Converses Dichotomy Layman

Author:Robert Motherwell

“I learned the tricks... If you want to do academic things, you can do them. It is not difficult. Yet it is from this difficulty - the mistakes and dead ends - that artists develop, not through the quick solutions and not from something you learn and apply.”

Ifs Want Ends Artist Difficult Can Do Mistake Solutions Difficulty Tricks Academic Dead Ends

Author:Isamu Noguchi

“Even at this late date, I go into my studio, and I think 'Is this going to be it? Is it the end?' You see, nearly everything terrorizes me. When an artist loses that terror, he's through.”

Thinking Ends Artist Fear Loses Late Terror Studios

Author:Robert Rauschenberg

“Perhaps the ideal life is that of the week-end artist, who preserves the integrity of his own aesthetic ideals because of his economic independence... If his daily grind is hateful he has his weekly solace in art.”

Ifs Art Ends Life Is Artist Week Economic Integrity Ideals Independence Profession Preserves Aesthetic Hateful Grind Solace Ideal Life Daily Grind Economic Independence Week End

Author:Walter J. Phillips

“It goes against an artist's grain to retire. But whether he retires or not, he will age... What work will get done in the remaining time? ...Can he find a little peace in this twilight? Or must he still rush on, restlessly and hungrily, to the very end?”

Littles Stills Ends Done Age Artist Retiring Twilight Grain

Author:Eric Maisel

“The paradox of the culture wars is that they have made celebrities out of some artists who would otherwise vanish. Censorship has become a growth industry. This may be the best argument, in the end, for unfettered freedom of expression.”

May Made War Ends Artist Culture Growth Freedom Expression Industry Argument Being The Best Paradox Censorship Freedom Of Expression

Author:Michael Kimmelman

“I think designers are starting to realize that we're all in the same industry. We're making clothes - we aren't saving the world. I'm not saying that designers aren't artists, but at the end of the day, we make clothes.”

Thinking World Ends Artist Realizing Industry Clothes Starting Saving Designer The End Of The Day Save The World

Author:Joseph Altuzarra

“There is no communication with any public whatsoever. The artist can ask no question, and he makes no statement; he offers no information, and his work cannot be used. It is the end product which counts.”

Ends Used Artist Asks Information Products Communication Offers Statements No Communication

Book:Baselitz, paintings 1960-83

Source: Baselitz, paintings 1960-83

“It is an artist's duty to be on the wrong end of the see-saw.”

Ends Artist Saws Duty

Author:Billy Childish

“In the end, I feel that one has to have a bit of neurosis to go on being an artist. A balanced human seldom produces art. It's that imbalance which impels us... The artist lives with anxiety.”

Feels Humans Art Ends Artist Bits Produce Goes On Anxiety Balanced Neurosis Being An Artist Imbalance

Author:Beverly Pepper

“I buy based on emotion, because I am fascinated with an object that I simply cannot live without. Although I often end up acquiring two or three works by an artist who particularly interests me, it's more for fear that a single one might get too lonely.”

Two Ends Might Artist Three Interest Emotion Objects Lonely Selling Fascinated

Author:Michael Audain

“It is the specialist's task to talk about means, about centimeters. An artist's task is to talk about the goal, about kilometers, thousands of kilometers. The organizing role of art consists of infecting the reader, of arousing him with pathos or irony -- the cathode and anode in literature. But irony that is measured in centimeters is pathetic, and centimeter-sized pathos is ridiculous. No one can be carried away by it. To stir the reader, the artist must speak not of means but of ends, of the great goal toward which mankind is moving.”

Inspirational Mean Art Ends Moving Artist Literature Speak Goal Roles Mankind Reader Tasks Ridiculous Irony Pathetic Specialists Carried Away Pathos

Author:Yevgeny Zamyatin

“As a comic book artist, once you become a master, you end up a slave. In fine art you're always free... since I couldn't make it at Marvel, I made my life a carnival.”

Art Made Book Ends Artist Masters Fine Slave Comic Comic Book Fine Arts Carnivals

Author:Mark Kostabi

“The edge of a painting is its frontier... where the artist negotiates his boundaries with the real world... where art begins and ends and where the eye enters and leaves the image. It determines, in an infinitely subtle number of ways, how you read a painting - which, unlike a book or a piece of music, has no pre-determined beginning or end.”

World Way Art Book Real Ends Eye Artist Numbers Pieces Painting Art Is Edges Determine Determined Boundaries Subtle Real World Frontiers

Author:Andrew Graham-Dixon

“I have an office full of product from brands trying to be in videos and an inbox full of songs from artists, but at the end of the day if the artist doesn't support the brand or it doesn't make sense for the song, then it will never work. What we do is try to pair them up so that both sides are happy.”

Ifs Trying Ends Artist Song Sides Support Products Office Video Brands Make Sense The End Of The Day Pairs Both Sides Inbox

Author:Adam Kluger

“Those who are to follow the arts should have a training in what is called poverty. Given a comfortable middle-class start in life, the artist is almost sure to end up by becoming a bellyacher, constantly complaining because the public does not rush forward at once to proclaim him.”

Should Doe Art Ends Artist Given Class Poverty Middle Becoming Comfortable Training Should Have Complaining Middle Class

Book:A Story Teller's Story: The Tale of an American Writer's Journey Through His Own Imaginative World and Through the World of Facts, with Many of His Experiences and Impressions Among Other Writers--told in Many Notes--in Four Books--and an Epilogue

Source: A Story Teller's Story: The Tale of an American Writer's Journey Through His Own Imaginative World and Through the World of Facts, with Many of His Experiences and Impressions Among Other Writers--told in Many Notes--in Four Books--and an Epilogue

“I'm opening a store at the end of the month in the New York meatpacking district. I'm launching a line of bedding this summer, and I am writing a book that will be out next January.”

Writing Book Ends Artist Next Lines New York Months Summer Stores Opening Writing A Book January Launching Bedding

Author:Genevieve Gorder

“The deal is that you can do it, you don't really owe me anything, but at the end of it, I own the film. Then I can actually go out and reprint or not reprint if it I want.”

Ifs Want I Can Ends Film Artist Can Do Deals You Can Do It

Author:Todd McFarlane

“I think for a lot of artists, if you're lucky enough to have a kind of career, especially toward the end, you start to think about what the whole ensemble looks like. It's the whole that counts. The parts are given, but you don't know how the whole thing's going to look when it's all put together.”

Ifs Thinking Knows Looks Kind Ends Enough Whole Together Artist Given Careers Know How Lucky Ensemble

Author:Frank Stella

“In the cycle of a great civilization, the artist begins as priest, and ends as a clown or buffoon.”

Ends Artist Civilization Cycles Priests Clown Buffoons

Book:The End of Christendom

Source: The End of Christendom

“Roth Unbound is filled with intelligent readings and smart judgments. Because of the author's sympathy and sharp mind, it offers real insight into the creative process itself, and into Philip Roth's high calling as a great American artist. The book is, in some ways, a radical rereading of Roth's life and his work. It is impossible, by the end, not to feel a tender admiration for Roth as a novelist and indeed for Claudia Roth Pierpont as an empathetic and brilliant critic.”

“I once asked a distinguished artist what place he gave to labor in art. "Labor," he in effect said, "is the beginning, the middle, and the end of art." Turning then to another--"And you," I inquired, "what do you consider as the great force in art?" "Love," he replied. In their two answers I found but one truth.”

Art Said Two Ends Artist Found Force Answers Middle Effects Labor Distinguished Art Love

Book:Intuitions and Summaries of Thought

Source: Intuitions and Summaries of Thought

“It is the striving after perfection that makes one an artist. It is the sense that one is imperfect, unfulfilled, unfinished. One attempts by a superhuman effort to fill the gap, to leap over it, to finish it in another medium. And one creates a third and separate thing: 'Adventure rarely reaches its predetermined end. Columbus never reached China. But he discovered America.”

Ends America Artist Effort Adventure Perfection Thirds Strive China Mediums Over It Gaps Leap Imperfect Unfinished Columbus Superhuman Predetermined

Book:War within and without: diaries and letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1939-1944

Source: War within and without: diaries and letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1939-1944

“My greatest fear in working is always the end. Lately I have taken to tricking myself into finishing by leaving a hole in the middle somewhere, then stitching the two pieces together - the Union Pacific approach.”

Two Ends Together Artist Taken Pieces Middle Approach Unions Leaving Holes Finishing Pacific Greatest Fear

Book:Push Comes to Shove

Source: Push Comes to Shove

“Some say it appears that painting has come to an end. I say the problem is that the painters' curiosity has come to an end, and this is more observable in the West and not in the East, since in the East there are plenty of untouched and unexplored spaces that could still inspire an artist as sources of creativity.”

Stills Ends Problem Artist Space Creativity Inspire Painting Source West Curiosity East Painter Plenty Unexplored

Author:Guity Novin

“The 'Cercle et Carré' group owes its existence to my encounter with the Uruguayan painter Torrès-Gracia in 1929... However difficult our relationship, his obstinacy matching my patience, this unholy team of fire and water was bound to produce something. Towards the end of the year, after consulting sundry artists, including Arp, Mondrian, and Van Doesburg, we drew up the program for a new group and launched a magazine which was be called 'Cercle et Carré'.”

Years Ends Artist Difficult Water Existence Fire Groups Team Produce Program Bounds Including Painter Magazines Encounters Our Relationship Vans Consulting Matching Obstinacy

Author:Michel Seuphor

“Mary is God's masterpiece. Have you ever walked into a museum where an artist was displaying his work? Can you imagine him being offended if you were viewing what he considered to be his masterpiece? Would he resent your looking at that instead of at him? 'Hey, you should be looking at me!' Rather, the artist would receive honor because of the attention you were giving his work. And Mary is God's work, from beginning to end.”

Ifs Giving Should Ends Artist Attention Imagine Honor Hey Museums Mary Masterpiece Offended Resent Hey You

Book:Rome Sweet Home: Our Journey to Catholicism

Source: Rome Sweet Home: Our Journey to Catholicism