“Effigy,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 26″ x 20″

* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.

People make things – make art or things that are akin to art – as a way of expressing their need for contact, or their fear of it; people make objects as a way of coming to terms with shame, with grief.  People make objects to strip themselves down, to survey their scars, and people make objects to resist oppression, to create a space in which they can move freely.  Art doesn’t have to have a reparative function, any more than it has a duty to be beautiful or moral.

Olivia Laing in The Lonely City:  Adventures in the Art of Being Alone

Comments are welcome!