Quotes About Artists

Artists look at the environment, and the best artists correctly diagnose the problem. I'm not saying artists can't be leaders, but that's not the job of art, to lead. Bob Marley, Nina Simone, Harry Belafonte - there are artists all through history who have become leaders, but that was already in them, nothing to do with their art.

I've watched so many women, from Kathleen Hanna all the way up to Taylor Swift, whether they're pop artists or rock stars or fine artists or writers, it is the subhistory of female artists that if you're going to make art, you're also going to have a full-time job of defending your right to make art.

I find artists like Tim Barry, Cory Branan, and Jenny Owen Youngs, these current artists that are doing what they're doing now are my idols, my generation's incredible songwriters. I've listened to so much music on the whole ride and I'm inspired by a lot of classic artists, but it's the people right next to me singing songs that are blowing my mind, if that makes any sense.

Artists raise their kids differently. We communicate to the point where we probably annoy our children. We have art around the house, we have books, we go to plays, we talk. Our focus is art and painting and dress-up and singing. It's what we love. So I think you can see how artists in some way raise other artists.

I've noticed a lot of younger artists have less fear of doing different sorts of things, whether it's various types of music, or gallery artists moving between video and sculpture and drawing.

I think I've been able to witness Canadian hip-hop get a lot more respect from our own people. I think some of the artists that came before me were doing their thing but lacked a strong next generation of artists to help them capitalize.

I feel like that I'm learning all the time. I'm learning from new artists, from established artists... every time I listen to '70s rock 'n' roll records, I'm learning. And I think that I'm just now starting to get a hold on what I do.

Actors in any capacity, artists of any stripe, are inspired by their curiosity, by their desire to explore all quarters of life, in light and in dark, and reflect what they find in their work. Artists instinctively want to reflect humanity, their own and each other's, in all its intermittent virtue and vitality, frailty and fallibility.

Artists don't talk about art. Artists talk about work. If I have anything to say to young writers, it's stop thinking of writing as art. Think of it as work.

An artists job is to see. And to go out in the world and see it firsthand, just as it is; to report with line and words what is seen. To be in the world, not just study about the world, that is the artists task

Artists don't need criticism, artists need love

I'm against government giving money to artists, but I'm not against artists taking money. Just like I don't have a moral problem with people taking healthcare from the government, but I don't think government should give it.

Part of the blame can be put at the artists' door, too - no question. But I see our involvement more as a consequence. When there is too much money at stake, the whole system gets corrupted. Artists can be very vulnerable to these mechanisms.

I don't have any sympathy for the subject matter, [but] I have great respect for rap artists. In fact, not for the rap artists, but the people who make the music over which they rap. Rap music - the music itself is incredible - but [the people that make the music] are hardly ever credited.

I have often heard the statement made by foreign singers, as a demonstrated fact, that the German artists are artists in feeling indeed, and serious in their devotion, but that their singing is crude.

Only recently serious research into the relationship between photography and art has taken place. Why has it been so long in coming ? In some respects historical research is analogous with that of science. The bringing to light of factual material and the development of ideas is to a large extent cumulative. But when artists themselves were, from about 1910, beginning to tear down the bastions protecting Art in its ivory tower, questioning the idea of Art with a capital 'A', photography was inevitably to assume a new stature both in the eyes of artists and the public, too.

I think for us, we don't feel like the future of music is in the act of being a record company. We feel like the future of the music business is in empowering artists to have better and better tools to communicate with their fans. We want to be people who are saying to artists, "Look, you don't need that company over there to release your album. You can do it this way." Almost more of a band partnership than a label-artist relationship. Not about ownership of content, but about empowerment.

I'd prefer to invite the artists simply to work and have fun with Guatemalan artists. To share missions of life. Maybe that is more important than seeing an exhibition.

I feel like because black Cuban artists don't have the kind of pressure to thematize race in the way that African-American artists do, there's more space for them to do their art without having to discuss it in terms of racial identity.

I think music should be free. I think all communication should be free. I think people should respect artists, and there should be a certain respect for artists who give their music away for free. If your music winds up on Napster and you approve of it, then the person downloading your music should at least go to your concert, should at least purchase your songs.

Since the time of the ancient Greeks a democracy has depended on its philosophers and creative artists. It can only flourish by continuous probing, prodding, and questioning of the social conditions under which man exists and tries to better himself. One of the first moves of a dictatorship is to stifle the artists and thinkers who have the ability to stir up dissent from any prescribed dogma which might enslave them. Because the artist can arouse the curiosity and conscience of his community, he becomes a threat to those who have taken power.

And I hate to see artists who are real safe. I love to see artists swing for the fences sometimes.

I always want to be doing both to travel as a teacher and lecturer, and to be a musician. I think in this generation institutionalizing the art form and spreading it to the younger generation through education is really important for all artists to have some hand in. Right now in popular culture and the mainstream, it's not a big part at all. I think education by young artists talking to young people, not just older people talking to young people, it gives an experience never felt before. I think over the years it will do a lot for the music.

We had Chinese artists that would put in elements for the Chinese audience like the calligraphy actually means something so the audience when they read it they'll understand. So there were definitely little things we were able to do that specifically leveraged the artists' talents.

Working with artists and other poets has made me aware that there was a bigger "me" that I hadn't been quite aware of. Plus we had a good time. It's so much fun to write, for example, with a big brush on a giant piece of paper and to help create visually attractive and surprising objects, which is not what you normally do when you're writing a poem. It's wonderful to create these pieces with artists.

I never really listen to what people say. My thing is that my favorite artists are artists that are theatrical. Obviously when you are doing a recording, things aren't gonna translate as over-the-top.

It's interesting to see the world's fascination with a troubled artist. The artists sure wouldn't share their enthusiasm.

Country artists, I met a lot of them when I was five, six years old. I had an uncle who was a country and western singer and I met Lefty Frizzell when I was five or six years old in those shows that would come through Toronto from Nashville.

If the affairs of the world were put in the hands of the screwball artists, it couldn’t be in a worse state than it is now !

My dream artists to collaborate with are probably Cee Lo Green and Imogen Heap. They're completely out of my genre but they're both musical geniuses.

I made it easier for many artists to play in certain areas.

Friends, we have now won....I say to Aymaras, Quechuas, Chiquitaos, and Guaranis: for the first time we are going to be presidents. And I want to say to businesses, intellectual professionals, and artists: do not abandon us.

It's a sign of this film's greatness that the enormous sadness that accompanies the final leave-taking of the circus interior is a good deal more than the conclusion of an unpretentious evening's entertainments; it's a sublime and awesome coda to the career of one of this century's greatest artists.

Everybody is looking for a hit single but what the artists really need is an executive producer to help put better albums out.

Europe isn't something connected by the Euro. Every little dimension of Europe is so hugely different, and I think America is different in its states as well, so I never really think of things in big blocks, in terms of other artists.

Now I'm a symbol of what to be and how hard to work. I have heads of major labels say, "I wish you could teach our artists how to do it." At one point I was the punching bag of what not to be, and now I'm the model of what to be.

Artists say that paintings are never done. I sort of feel the same way about music. I would never say something is perfect. There are performances that can generate a lot of emotion in me when I hear them, but I can't say if anything is perfect.

A lot of times, when a band finds success with a certain style or sound, they have a really hard time breaking away from that to grow as artists.

I think we listen to music because we want to be changed. Music is not solely for our entertainment. Music has such tremendous power to bring joy. To me, that's our job as artists. Not happiness, not a groove, whatever. You must bring joy. I think that's the assignment. I have no doubt about it.

Fine artists deal with finery, but I deal with painful material.

God uses millions of no-name influencers every day in the simplest selfless acts of service. They are the teachers whose names will never be in the newspaper, pastors who will never author a book, managers who will never be profiled in a magazine, artists whose work is buried in layers of collaboration, writers whose sphere of influence is a few dozen people who read their blogs. But they are the army that makes things happen. To them devotion is its own reward. For them influence is a continual act of giving, nothing more complicated than that.

As I've picked up more responsibilities in life, I've found nearly every one of those extra burdens drains me in a way that makes writing more difficult. That may not be the case for everyone - I know plenty of writers and artists who seem to have energy in abundance for all the facets of life; but are they producing anything worthwhile?

I have been influenced by the greatest artists in jazz, pop, reggae, traditional, ballards, pop, and all types of music, taking the best from each to represent my own personality. Whitney Houston, George Michaels, Sade, Phil Collins, and many others have influenced me.

Art schools are partly the villain here. (Never mind that I teach in them.) This generation of artists is the first to have been so widely credentialed, and its young members so fetishize the work beloved by their teachers that their work ceases to talk about anything else. Instead of enlarging our view of being human, it contains safe rehashing of received ideas about received ideas. This is a melancholy romance with artistic ruins, homesickness for a bygone era. This yearning may be earnest, but it stunts their work, and by turn the broader culture.

I love the beginnings of artists when all they've got is raw talent and nothing else.

I see myself and many artists like me as the torchbearers through these dark ages.

We've always believed that popular culture and populist politics go hand in hand. It's an honor to be working with so many respected and influential artists, and we're indebted to them for having the courage to speak out at a time when our country so desperately needs change. For our 2.5 million members and far beyond, the Vote for Change tour will have a seismic cultural impact.

I just want to kind of tackle every kind of form that exists in the comedy world; whether it be stand-up or hidden camera or parody. Kind of slap it in a movie with hip-hop artists and actors, comedians and girls. I just want to do something fun.