Barbara’s studio

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

Artists will, in their long education of sifting through what they like and respond to and what they don’t, find they “see” an artist’s work in the environment.  They see a Corot or a Hopper.  They know then that they have found a good subject because of the similarity of poetic attraction.  They see with a set of limits or conventions that speak to them.

But as time goes on and you continue working, you find you do not consider those subjects any longer but they still register.  They belong to someone else.  You have found other affinities.  Or perhaps more importantly you have found your own.  You respond now to your own internal song.  Art is about art as much as it is about nature.  Everything we respond to has passed through our filter of artistic influences.

Ian Roberts in Creative Authenticity:  16 Principles to Clarify and Deepen Your Artistic Vision

Comments are welcome!