Popular quotes about Artist! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 30
I don't think you have to earn your income as an artist to be an artist. But if you are an artist, then art is what you do, whether or not you're paid for doing it; it is what you do, not what you are. I regard artist not as a description of temperament but as a category of profession, of vocation.
Tony KushnerWhen you are writing for an artist you are trying to get into that artist's point of view. What does that artist want to say? What do they care about? And musically, you want to show off that artist.
Frank WildhornI 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 HowardI can get inspired just off the energy of Soulja Boy, just his energy, you have to take something from an artist. Everyone may not look at an artist the same way, but it's something that artist is doing that's creating his success.
NellyThe artist uses the talent he has, wishing he had more talent. The talent uses the artist it has, wishing it had more artist.
Robert BreaultAn artist's career doesn't happen in the cycle of one week of news. An artist's career happens in a lifetime, and if you're a true artist you're willing to die for what you believe in.
Kanye WestYou 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 TakaezuThe Best of the artist's art, which will one day be in a Museum wall, the Painting that sets the artist apart of all other artist artists.
Kelly MillerIt's a good feeling to be at a place where you know who you are as an artist. I didn't know back then, I just wanted to give my family a better life and myself. I wanted to sing, but I didn't know as an artist who I wanted to be and because of all those experiences, it helped shape me into who I am and what I've now realized and what it is that brings me happiness which is when I pick up the guitar and do records.
Tiffany VillarrealClearly 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 TarkovskyThe great Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa said that to be an artist means never to avert your eyes. And that's the hardest thing, because we want to flinch. The artist must go into the white hot center of himself, and our impulse when we get there is to look away and avert our eyes.
Robert Olen ButlerThe only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation.
Ezra PoundThe stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.
Willa CatherI decided that the whole idea of what it means to be an artist was that somehow you are ontologically oriented toward poverty : "As an artist, you don't make money." I had to figure out some kind of way to guarantee that I'd be able to continue doing the work that I wanted to do, whether I made money from the work I was doing or not.
Kerry James MarshallWhitney Houston is my idol and my mentor and my dream forever, like she will always be my favorite artist, ever, on the planet. Like I don't think I'll ever feel that way about another artist.
Brandy NorwoodThe idea of using media for expressing yourself artistically is kind of something I learned from my mother and my father. So for me, I think growing up wanting to be an artist, I always imagined myself sort of crossing over or mixing media and so it was a natural evolution for me to try to express in a filmic way or in a visual way. It just kind of seems like a natural sort of progression for me in terms of what I'm trying to do as an artist.
Sean LennonEven though everybody who looked at me would call me a Chinese artist, that's the 1980s. New York in the '80s was not so interesting. I think it's quite narrow-minded. There wasn't much encouragement or opportunities for any artist - not just Chinese artists.
Ai WeiweiI said earlier that I do not believe an artist's life throws much light upon his works. I do believe, however, that, more often than most people realize, his works may throw light upon his life. An artist with certain imaginative ideas in his head may then involve himself in relationships which are congenial to them.
W. H. AudenThat is the creative artist - a penalty of the creative artist - wanting to make order out of chaos.
Ursula NordstromMy whole family is very art-based. My sister runs a gallery, my other sister works for PACE in New York, my other sister is a sculptor. I'd say the ending one is me because that's the artist and the artist feels a lot.
Rose McGowanOne of the things that I am happy about in my life as an artist is that I am not considered a Hispanic artist.
Andres SerranoThe director is the most overrated artist in the world. He is the only artist who, with no talent whatsoever, can be a success for 50 years without his lack of talent ever being discovered.
Orson WellesThe war between the artist and writer and government or orthodoxy is one of the tragedies of humankind. One chief enemy is stupidity and failure to understand anything about the creative mind. For a bureaucratic politician to presume to tell any artist or writer how to get his mind functioning is the ultimate in asininity.
Helen Foster SnowI wasn't born an artist. I was really good in science as a kid. I probably shouldn't have been an artist because I'm much more interested in science. But I was raised by artists. I can't really escape it.
Julie DelpyAn artist has to train his responses more than other people do. He has to be as disciplined as a mathematician. Discipline is not a restriction but an aid to freedom. It prepares an artist to choose his own limitations.
Wayne ThiebaudAn artist is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artist takes it personally.
Seth GodinI'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 FinchWhen a painting is finished, it's like a new born child, and the artist himself must have time for understanding. How then do you expect an amateur to understand that which the artist dos not yet comprehend.
Henri MatisseI 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 RushdieI work as an artist, and I think the audience of one, which is the self, and I have to satisfy myself as an artist. So I always say that I write for the same people that Picasso painted for. I think he painted for himself.
August WilsonShe became politically conscious thanks to Studs Terkel and the radio. She started reading all the books we brought home from college and was a great fan of Noam Chomsky. She was a real lefty and yet was not able to meet her dream of becoming an artist. She got drafted into motherhood big time - seven kids - and that wasn't the life that she had planned. So she opened the path so that I could be the artist that she wanted to be.
Sandra CisnerosThere is the falsely mystical view of art that assumes a kind of supernatural inspiration, a possession by universal forces unrelated to questions of power and privilege or the artist's relation to bread and blood. In this view, the channel of art can only become clogged and misdirected by the artist's concern with merely temporary and local disturbances. The song is higher than the struggle.
Adrienne RichAmerica is no place for an artist: to be an artist is to be a moral leper, an economic misfit, a social liability. A corn-fed hog enjoys a better life than a creative writer, painter or musician. To be a rabbit is better still.
Henry MillerI'm not conditioned to be an entertainer. An entertainer pleases others while an artist only has to please himself. The problem with that is artists are misunderstood by all. I'm not interested in the clarinet but in music. we speak our emotions into music. An artist should write for himself and not for an audience. If the audience likes it, great. If not, they can keep away. My situation is the same. Let them concentrate on my music and not on me. I like the music. I love it and live it, in fact. But for me, the business part of music just plain stinks.
Artie ShawWithout music I wouldn't have the ability to be in business. The opportunity to be in business came with the finances from music and the notoriety that comes with being successful as an artist. So I see myself as an artist first, but I'm absolutely conscious of business.
Curtis JacksonWhat an artist is trying to do for people is bring them closer to something, because of course art is about sharing. You wouldn't be an artist unless you wanted to share an experience, a thought.
David HockneyIf the man who paints only the tree, or flower, or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artists would be the photographer. It is for the artist to do something beyond this.
James WhistlerAs an artist it's exciting to know that you've made someone's life decision after them listening to your song. To get married or un-married, when you realize that people are listening it brings a feel of responsibility that can't be ignored or denied. There's someone watching us. Whether an artist wants to admit that or not.
Kelly PriceI think that there was a fad where everyone said, "I want you to create a signature step for my artist." The thing is, for me, music creates the step. The artist commands the step, you know?
Laurieann GibsonThe woman who needs to create works of art is born with a kind of psychic tension in her which drives her unmercifully to find a way to balance, to make herself whole. Every human being has this need: in the artist it is mandatory. Unable to fulfill it, he goes mad. But when the artist is a woman she fulfills it at the expense of herself as a woman.
May SartonThe moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist.
Oscar WildeThe artist himself is actually the subject in everything after, say, 1900. Eventually, art becomes so removed from the community that you have to know about the artist before you can even look at the painting, because there is a conceptual idea going on.
Gus Van Sant