Category Archives: An Artist’s Life
Pearls from artists* # 512

* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Let inspiration lead you wherever it wants to lead you. Keep in mind that for most of history people just made things, and they didn’t make a big freaking deal about it.
We make things because we like making things.
We pursue the interesting and the novel because we like the interesting and the novel.
Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Comments are welcome!
Q: Where do you create your art? (Question from artamour)

A: In April 1997 an opportunity to move to New York City arose and I didn’t look back. By then I was showing in a good 57th Street gallery, Brewster Gallery (they focused exclusively on Latin American Masters so I was in the company of Leonora Carrington, Rufino Tamayo, Diego Rivera, etc.). Also, I had managed to find an excellent New York artists/agent, Leah Poller, with whom to collaborate. (Leah and I are still dear friends).
I looked at only one other space before finding my West 29th Street studio and knew instantly it was the one! An old friend of Bryan’s from Cal Tech rented the space next door and he had told us it was available. Initially the studio was a sublet. The lease-holder was a painter headed to northern California to work temporarily for George Lucas at the Lucas Ranch. After several years she decided to stay so I was able to take over the lease. I feel extremely fortunate to have been in my West 29th Street, New York City space now for twenty-five years. In a city where old buildings are knocked down to make way for new ones this is rare.
My studio is an oasis in a chaotic city, a place to make art, to read, and to think. I love to walk in the door every morning and I feel calmer the moment I arrive. It is still my absolute favorite place in New York! Sometimes I think of it as my best creation.
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 507

* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Intellectual work sometimes, spiritual work certainly, artistic work always – these are forces that fall within its [uncertainty and the unknown] grasp, forces that must travel beyond the realm of the hour and the restraint of the habit. Nor can the actual work be well separated from the entire life. Like the Knights of the Middle Ages, there is little the creatively inclined person can do but prepare himself, body and spirit, for the labor to come – for his adventures are all unknown. And no artist could go about his work, or would want to, with less than extraordinary energy and concentration. The extraordinary is what art is about.
Mary Oliver in Upstream: Selected Essays
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 504

* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
… if a project doesn’t work out, you can always think of it as having been a worthwhile and constructive experiment. You can resist the seductions of grandiosity, blame, and shame. You can support other people in their creative efforts, acknowledge the truth that there’s plenty of room for everyone. You can measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failure. You can battle your demons (through therapy, recovery, prayer, or humility) instead of battling your gifts – in part by realizing that your demons were never the ones doing the work, anyhow. You can believe that you are neither a slave to inspiration nor its master, but something far more interesting – its partner – and that the two of you are working together toward something intriguing and worthwhile. You can live a long life, moving and doing really cool things the entire time. You might earn a living with your pursuits or you might not, but you can recognize that this is not really the point. And at the end of your days, you can thank creativity for having blessed you with a charmed, interesting, passionate existence.
Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Comments are welcome!