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Pearls from artists* # 446

At the studio. Photo: Kimberly Kevorkian

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

What stops us in our tracks? I am rarely stopped by something or someone I can instantly know. In fact, I have always been attracted to the challenge of getting to know what I cannot instantly categorize or dismiss, whether an actor’s presence, a painting, a piece of music, or a personal relationship. It is the journey towards the object of attraction that interests me. We stand in relation to one another. We long for the relationship that will change our vistas. Attraction is an invitation to an evanescent journey, to a new way of experiencing life or perceiving reality.

An authentic work of art embodies intense energy. It demands response. You can either avoid it, shut it out, or meet it and tussle. It contains attractive and complicated energy fields and a logic all its own. It does not create desire or movement in the receiver, rather it engenders what James Joyce labelled ‘aesthetic interest.’ You are stopped in your tracks. You cannot easily walk by it and go on with your life. You find yourself in relation to something that you cannot readily dismiss.

Anne Bogart in A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theater

Comments are welcome!

Pearls from artists* # 187

"Big Wow," soft pastel on sandpaper, 38" x 58"

“Big Wow,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 38″ x 58″

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

As George Grosz said, at that last meeting he attended at the National Institute, “How did I come to be an artist?  Endless curiosity, observation, research – and a great amount of joy in the thing.”  It was a matter of taking a liking to things.  Things that were in accordance with your taste.  I think that was it.  And we didn’t care how unhomogenous they might seem.  Didn’t Aristotle say that it is the mark of a poet to see resemblances between apparently incongruous things?  There was any amount of attraction about it.

Marianne Moore in Writers at Work:  The Paris Review Interviews  Second Series, edited by George Plimpton

Comments are welcome! 

Pearls from artists* # 76

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

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

What stops us in our tracks?   I am rarely stopped by something or someone I can instantly know.  In fact, I have always been attracted to the challenge of getting to know what I cannot instantly categorize or dismiss, whether an actor’s presence, a painting, a piece of music, or a personal relationship.  It is the journey towards the object of attraction that interests me.  We stand in relation to one another.  We long for the relationships that will change our vistas.  Attraction is an invitation to an evanescent journey, to a new way of experiencing life or perceiving reality.

An authentic work of art embodies intense energy.  It demands response.  You can either avoid it, shut it out, or meet it and tussle.  It contains attractive and complicated energy fields and a logic all its own.  It does not create desire or movement in the receiver, rather it engenders what James Joyce labeled ‘aesthetic arrest.’ You are stopped in your tracks.  You cannot easily walk by it and go on with your life.  You find yourself in relation to something that you cannot readily dismiss.

Anne Bogart in A Director Prepares:  Seven Essays on Art and Theater 

Comments are welcome!   

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