Category Archives: Art in general
Pearls from artists* # 699
Panorama of 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.
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the advanced there are few. You are an artist and it’s too late to back out. You have no choice, now or in a year or two, but to take aim upon your life and discard all the debris that holds you back from doing what you know you have to do.
Letter from Ted Orland to Sally Mann in Art Work: On the Creative Life by Sally Mann
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Pearls from artists* # 698
With “Overlord,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 70” x 50”
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
When you learn to trust your own voice, it is like stepping up to claim your rightful place in the universe. Remaining true to yourself as an artist is one of the most difficult things to do: temptations to compromise are everywhere. It is through standing in the fire that you build and maintain your core essence. You cease to be afraid of your largeness, your power. You begin to wield your audacity in service of a vision that is larger than yourself. In doing so, you empower others to do the same. Every day, that call to rise to your highest self comes for you, and you get to choose. You can step over the threshold to locate the voice that you know, deep in your gut, has been becoming you… for years, or even decades. ‘Here I am,’ it says. ‘You sought me out. You are finally ready. Let’s do this!’
– Kate Kretz in Art From Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice
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Q: Many artists can’t bear to face “a blank canvas.” How do you feel about starting a new piece?
A: That’s an interesting question because I happen to be reading The War of Art by Steven Pressfield and this morning I saw this:
You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts and later to the school of architecture. Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I’ll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas.
I’ve never understood this fear of “the blank canvas” because I am always excited about beginning a new painting. When you think about it, every professional artist can say, “In the history of the planet no one has ever made what I am about to make!” Once again I am looking at something new on my easel, even if it is only a blank 40” x 60” piece of sandpaper clipped to a slightly larger piece of foam core. Unlike artists who are paralyzed before “a blank canvas,” I am energized by the imagined possibilities of all that empty space! I spend up to three months on a painting so this experience of looking at a blank piece of paper on my easel happens four or five times a year at most. Excluding travel to remote places, which is essential to my work and endlessly fascinating, the first day I get to spend blocking in a new painting is the most exhilarating part of my whole creative process. This is art-making at its freest! I select the pastel colors quickly, without thinking about them, first imagining them, then feeling, looking, and reacting intuitively to what I’ve done, always correcting and trying to make the painting look better.
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Pearls from artists* # 693
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Earlier I wrote that I as an artist must concern myself with painting and not waste energy on trying to decipher other people’s intentions or motives. I still believe this to be correct.
(My main purpose in life is to paint, this is my profession. I am most happy when I am alone in the studio working. The other problems of politics exist outside my studio.)
note: I am not sure of this. I am sure of one thing that I am most happy when I am alone working in the studio. The distance between art + politics is one of grey. I have thought of my involvement in art as being one of combat—the paintings are weapons designed to destroy oppressors i.e., the establishment. Art is none of This! Art is Art.
A painting does not represent anything but itself. It shouldn’t look like anything else or make for any allusions. A painting is a painting just as a Rose is a Rose! May God bless Gertrude Stein!
Jack Whitten Notes From the Woodshed
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Pearls from artists* # 691
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.
Repeatedly standing in the fire is a requirement of the art life. The initial act of choosing this vocation requires courage, as does sticking with it when others think you should give up. We prioritize an endeavor that strikes the rest of the world as absurd. We repeatedly risk failure and frustration in the drive to grow our practice. We are visionaries at the front of the breaking wave in our culture, calling out difficult realities that no one wants to think about, and we are often beaten back in attempts to silence us for that role.
Kate Kretz in Art From Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice
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Pearls from artists* # 690
“Showman,” 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.
PC: And today, don’t you think a picture communicates primarily through its metiére? A mysterious transubstantiation takes place between the thing itself and the way in which our eye receives it. Or, more precisely, a painter’s metiére has life in it, as if it were still laden with the artist’s passion. You feel his pulse beating in it, his need to register the victory of his presence in physical space but outside the reach of time.
HM: Every painter with real talent has his own metiére, a way of laying on the paint with relish, with a certain voluptuous feel, which means that you could say that metiére of this or that painter is like velvet, or satin, or taffeta. As to manner… No one knows where this comes from. It’s magic. It’s not something you can learn. There are very rich paintings, like those of Cézanne, and others very lightly painted that have real density all the same: Velazquez, for example, with his Phillip IV. He uses a scumble for the landscape, which is very beautiful and solid with matiére—the scumble is so well proportioned that it combines with the background and harmonizes perfectly; the Rubens painting on wood in the Louvre, Portrait of Hélène Fourmont and Her Children, is painted mainly in colored oils, yet how deep and solid the colors seem!
Chatting with Henri Matisse: The Lost 1941 Interview, Henri Matisse and Pierre Courthion, edited by Serge Guilbaut
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Pearls from artists* # 689
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
This is what I wish someone had told me years ago:
The art world is not a meritocracy. Like the world at large, it is a system based on hoarded capital and exploited labor. This system owes you nothing, even if you have extraordinary talent, work tremendously hard, never give up, and do all the right things. There are no ‘extra points’ for effort, earnestness, dedication, or sacrifice.
(We ALL think WE are going to be the exception.)
Unless you have fantastic connections or pedigree, after you build and maintain the basics of making strong work and getting the word out, a great deal depends on luck. Many of the artists you admire are likely living difficult lives you might not be willing to live, making sacrifices you might not be willing to make. Many who appear to support themselves with their work are in fact, partially or fully supported by spouses, family money, or jobs they do not discuss. They keep these jobs secret because some art world players refuse to validate your work if you are not ‘seriously committed’ enough to be a full-time artist. (Of course, artists who were not born wealthy need validation from these very players to be ABLE to create full-time.)
Kate Kretz in Art From Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice
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Pearls from artists* # 687
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.
PC: Talking about sales, when it comes down to it, don’t you find that most of the time, the true art lovers, the disinterested amateurs, are the ones who can’t afford to buy?
HM: Yes, the man who buys, buys for speculative reasons, and after a year or two says to himself – what’s my painting worth? – he wants to cash in. But who knows whether a picture can be sold profitably at any given point? I have friends who begrudged me the fact that I persuaded them to buy a beautiful painting.
Henri Matisse in Chatting With Matisse: The Lost 1941 Interview, Henri Matisse with Pierre Courthion, edited by Serge Guilbault
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Pearls from artists* # 682
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Following Julie’s lead, I’d started viewing the everyday the way I looked at art – with an extra beat, with an inquisitive eye, with a willingness to linger on form and ask why. I’d gone into her studio hoping to see art differently. Bit by bit, I saw everything differently. Have you contemplated the forlorn beauty of a stripped-down storefront glowing white on a dark street? Or watched tarps draped on construction sites shiver with the wind? Like nibbling on a magic mushroom, turning an eye on reality makes you feel as if the world is performing just for you.
Bianca Booker in Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey Among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Friends Who Taught Me How to See
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Pearls from artists* # 681
Giverny by DH, 2023, in David Hockney 25, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris
*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 you want to lose faith in the concept of “good” art, just consider all the artists who were brushed aside as feckless losers in their own day – El Greco, Van Gogh, Monet, Gauguin, Cézanne, the list goes on – only to get their own museum wings and their paintings plastered on tote bags today.
Bianca Booker in Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey Among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Friends Who Taught Me How to See
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