Joshua L. Goldberg Quotes

To be the authentic is to be detached and stand aside from oneself and the work so that the working process can take on an untrammeled life of its own. Labored self-involvement, contrivance, ulterior motives, even the extraordinary facility that one may have, must be let go.

Master water first and then paint.

Allow the brush to 'wander' above the realm of conventional judgement and practice.

Representational painters: loosen the grip of inflexibility! Abstract painters: tighten your hold on crafting your images! In both types of painting students need to unlearn what one has acquired.

Dismiss thoughts of 'good, bad, right, wrong, success, failure' - be spontaneous.

Reconcile the loss of the painting - no matter how many times it may happen - with the joy of beginning again.

Seeing nothing one sees everything.

Identify in your work opposites of color, form, compositional arrangements, space, etc.

Rapid-collage prevents any elevating movement toward a fixed goal. To 'be nowhere' is to let oneself be.

Nurture doubt as a creative strategy.

Playful arising is authorized by both risk and trust in the process and in oneself. To be truly playful and improvisational one must not look for results.

Respond to others about your work with equanimity.

Ask yourself, 'What is obstructing my vision?' What is the difference between seeing and looking?

Painting is so close, so personal, so immediate, and so ordinary... It is the ordinary resurrections that define your painting.

The great square has no corners and the great implement completes nothing.

Representational painters: place your works in a larger context. Give your work not only breadth but breath. Do not 'copy' what you see outwardly but give it 'spirit.

Abstract painters: redefine your perspectives. Think in terms of the whole, not simply its parts.