Popular quotes about Artist! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 25
There questions of wanting to be an artist, and what does that mean, what makes you an artist? Are you an artist if you're in a gallery in New York and not an artist if you're doing it at home? Do you need legitimation to count? If you've been acculturated to believe that you have certain obligations - familial, social, human - if multitasking has been your forte and that's what's been praised and rewarded, where do you find the single-mindedness, the selfishness to do something like art? I think those are questions that arise differently for women and for men.
Claire MessudI wouldnโt want to be labelled unless it was something much broader and inclusive such as an ecological artist or a visionary artist, but thereโs a constraint in the definition of a feminist artist, youโre an artist and youโre a feminist.
Carolee SchneemannBeing an artist doesn't mean that you're a good artist. That was the bargain I first made with myself: I'd say, I'm an artist, but I'm not really very good.
Paul SimonI like to believe a true fan of music or an artist has a genuine respect for what the artist does and has a distinct understanding of their actions. In that buying an album they are helping the artist to continue making music. It's hard because everyone wants something to be free.
Ben Howard[The artist's aim is] not to instruct the viewer, but to give him information... . The artist would follow his predetermined premise to its conclusion, avoiding subjectivity. Chance, taste, or unconsciously remembered forms would play no part in the outcome. The serial artist does not attempt to produce a beautiful or mysterious object but functions merely as a clerk cataloguing the results of his premise.
Sol LeWittThere's no diploma in the world that declares you as an artistโit's not like becoming a doctor. You can declare yourself an artist and then figure out how to be an artist.
Kara WalkerAn artist is always alone - if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness.
Henry MillerYou are not an artist simply because you paint or sculpt or make pots that cannot be used. An artist is a poet in his or her own medium. And when an artist produces a good piece, that work has mystery, an unsaid quality; it is alive.
Toshiko TakaezuA photographer is a photographer and an artist is an artist. I don't believe in labels or titles. Why should a painter or sculptor who has probably never challenged the rules be an artist just because his title and an art school education automatically make him one.
Peter LindberghI think great art goes beyond the control of the artist. In some ways, art often makes itself and reveals things about that artist that maybe the artist is not fully conscious of.
Lisa YuskavageMy work is always based on reality. I'm not an artist that creates works of fiction. I'm not an artist who is in my studio inventing things out of my imagination - everything is based on reality, on real facts.
Alfredo JaarThe personality of the artist, at first a cry or a cadence or a mood and then a fluid, and lambent narrative, finally refines itself out of existence, impersonalises itself, so to speak. The aesthetic image in the dramatic form is life purified in and reprojected from the human imagination. The mystery of aesthetic like that of material creation is accomplished. The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.
James JoyceFor instance, I may bring a certain feminist perspective to my songwriting, because that's how I see life. I'm interested in art, poetry, and music. As that kind of artist, I can do anything. I can say anything. It's about self-expression. It knows no package - there's no such thing. That's what being an artist is.
Laura NyroClearly the hardest thing for the working artist is to create his own conception and follow it, unafraid of the strictures it imposes, however rigid these may be... I see it as the clearest evidence of genius when an artist follows his conception, his idea, his principle, so unswervingly that he has this truth of his constantly in his control, never letting go of it even for the sake of his own enjoyment of his work.
Andrei TarkovskyIt is not about which artist is more skilled than which other artist. It is about creating what is in you to create. A lack of confidence in oneself is like a thief, It steals from the world that which might be worthy.
Derek R. AudetteBasically, the prosecutor who led case against me and that administration were trying to say that an actor can be held responsible for his acting, thousands of miles away from where he did the acting. The analogy would be if an artist painted a nude painting in New York City, and it was met with accolades and great reviews. And suddenly, somebody from Texas bought it and put it in their shoe store and it was found to be obscene in Texas, the artist in New York is responsible, and goes to jail because it's obscene in Texas.
Harry ReemsIt's always an interesting thing that happens between an artist and their work. People collapse the two, and for any artist, there will be a long period of being considered one thing before being considered another - whether despicable, rhetorical, or poetic. But we all know that these things are made with a huge amount of will and intention. Yet ultimately they're out of our control.
Sarah MorrisIf you want to be an artist, you have to know that art is an ongoing practice, that you're part of a long line. Take this test: if someone offered you a billion dollars, but you could never draw another illustration or write another word, would you take it? If you reject it, you need to find another way to pay the bills, but you're still an artist.
Nicole GeorgesThere is nothing harder for an Artist than to retain his Artistic integrity in the tomb of success. A tomb, nevertheless, which nearly every Artist: whether he admits it or not; naturally wants to get into.
Caitlin ThomasWhy is it every other person you meet says they're an artist? A real artist doesn't need to gas on about it, he doesn't have time. He does his work and sweats it out in silence, and no one can help him at all.
Paula McLainI mean, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, I think the young kids sell lot of records. But for an older kind of artist, more of a sort of heritage, vintage type of artist, you have to think outside the box.
Boy GeorgeI think it's what any artist would want: to feel like their work can be taken in on a level of experience beyond the headline or the press release. I don't think any artist wants to be reduced to a press release. We have a whole industry whose function it is to process and present information. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's not the thing.
David SalleI have a master plan as an artist. I've always said I'm not going to be punching nobody's clock. I will work as an artist to survive in this world.
Erykah BaduThere's actually a disdain for the conversation about audience in the art world. Artist to artist, if you say, "What do you think about audience?" they would probably say, "I don't think about audience, I only think about my work," yet the audience is such an important part.
Eric FischlI discovered that it was a lonely world being a solo artist. Then I started working with another solo artist, Rod Stewart, and he used to tell me how lonely he was!
Andrew TaylorTHING TO TRY: If you are asked to describe a suspect to a police sketch artist, describe in precise detail, the features of the police sketch artist. This is one of the rare instances where two people can do one self-portrait.
Demetri MartinTo all appearances the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way out to a clearing. If we give the attributes of a medium to the artist, we must then deny him the state of consciousness on the aesthetic plane about what he is doing or why he is doing it. All this decisions in the artistic execution of the work rest with pure intuition and cannot be translated into a self-analysis, spoken or written, or even thought out.
Marcel DuchampThe really cool thing about reggae music is that I can get away with saying spiritual things as a reggae influenced artist that I couldn't get away with saying as a rock artist. Reggae has such spiritual roots and people almost expect to hear spiritual things.
Dominic BalliI can't think outside of [bein' an artist]. That's how deep I am into this, and so focused that I really can't think, like, if I wasn't an artist, what I'd be doin' in school. I'm pretty sure I'd be doin' it - if I didn't go into music, I'd be working, have a regular job or something probably, and goin' to school like everybody else and all my other peers around my age.
TygaFifteen minutes of fame doesn't make a career. An article in a magazine, newspaper, interview on television or multiple print ads may stroke your ego, but nothing much else. An artist's career is a lifetime venture. Just because an artist is on top doesn't mean they are sheltered from a crash. As has been stated, the higher you climb, the harder you fall.
Jack WhiteI'd really want to - just from my own experience as an artist working with a writer, I'd want to do everything I could to tailor it to the artist I was working with.
David FinchI always thought Cyrano De Bergerac was a coward. He could fight a hundred swordsmen, but he was afraid of his nose, and he was afraid of Roxanne. Jam as cowardly as anybody about facing my fears. So, you spend your you years as an artist fighting those hundred people that you happen not to fear. Then you wake up one morning and realize all this time you're afraid of your nose. That's what you're going to have to face for the rest of your life. And you don't feel very courageous. But, if you don't face it, you dry up as an artist.
Michael VenturaIt shouldn't matter what your sexual orientation is, you just need to be great at what you do. If you're an artist, be a great artist.
Ty HerndonEvery successful artist comes from a family - parents or siblings or both - who, although equally gifted, chose not to pursue the treacherous and difficult path of the artist.
Chris AbaniA life lived in chaos is an impossibility for the artist. No matter how unstructured may seem the painter's garret in Paris or the poet's pad in Greenwich Village, the artist must have some kind of order or he will proudce a very small body of work. To create a work of art, great or small, is work, hard work, and work requires discipline and order.
Madeleine L'EngleGuillermo del Toro. He's in his pure artist's stroke. He's just hitting it out of the park. I would go anywhere to work with him. He's a real artist.
Jeffrey TamborI think there should be a reworking of the value structure of art. The value is when the artist makes a first engagement with society. That work has the most value. That is the function of the artist. That result.
Lawrence WeinerThe real risks for any artist are taken in pushing the work to the limits of what is possible, in the attempt to increase the sum of what it is possible to think. Books become good when they go to this edge and risk falling over it -when they endanger the artist by reason of what he has, or has not, artistically dared.
Salman RushdieThe visual world has blown up, the world of writing has blown up; there's so much text online. Anyone and everyone can express themselves. It's a lot to think about as an artist. Also, that the persona of the artist might actually be of some importance. When I came of age, it was important to be quiet and hang back and be mysterious. I knew artists who didn't even want to show up at their own openings. They never wanted to have their picture taken, didn't want to autograph a book, didn't want to answer a question. I came of age in a world where it was "Let the work speak for itself."
Laurie SimmonsThe key is what is within the artist. The artist can only paint what she or he is about.
Lee KrasnerOnly the brave should teach....Teaching is a vocation. It is as sacred as priesthood; as innate a desire, as inescapable as the genius which compels a great artist. If he has not the concern for humanity, the love of living creatures, the vision of the priest and the artist, he must not teach.
Pearl S. Buck