Besides for the obvious joy I get out of my own creative process, I get some sort of joy from reading into the minds of the artists I look up to,to hear what other artists have to say about art. I have collected lists of their quotes, everywhere.
Despite their ability to constrict and limit real understanding as I have understood from Ludwig Wittgenstein's Theory of Language, words nonetheless give a means for communicating what otherwise remains a very expansive but isolating realm. It's the ah-huh moment. They've done it, they are artists, these are their words and it strikes a chord in me. In "The Argonauts", by Maggie Nelson this sentiment is expressed,
" Before we met, I had spent a lifetime devoted to Wittgenstein's idea that the inexpressible is contained inexpressively!- in the expressed. This idea gets less air time then his more reverential Whereof one cannot speak thereof must be silent, but it is, I think, the deeper idea. "
So here I am shifting through all the quotes I have accumulated over time. I will share some of them. I will share others over time.
" We are too quick to put labels on things. It is my profession. I get up and paint. Everyone wants to put a label on it, but I am a free spirit, so I fight against that". Geoffrey Holder
" It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child". Pablo Picasso
" When I say artist I mean the one who is building things … some with a brush – some with a shovel – some choose a pen." Jackson Pollock
" Art doesn’t have to be pretty. It has to be meaningful." Duane Hanson
" A piece of art is never a finished work. It answers a question which has been asked, and asks a new question." Robert Engman
" To be an artist is to believe in life." Henry Moore
" Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better. " André Gide
" Art is not a thing, it is a way. " Elbert Hubbard
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