Blog Archives

Pearls from artists* # 720

“Gatecrasher” (in progress), soft pastel on sandpaper, 58” x 38”

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

An artist without a vision is like an individual programmed just to live, breathe fresh air, eat, and then move on. It is that important vision that we see with our mind’s eye and believe in that society cannot live without. The artist with foresight is the one who is responsible for making it possible. Vision encourages us to pursue art and it gives us reasons to live a purposeful life. But without a conscious effort to maintain and focus our vision, some unimportant thing can sway us from our path and persuade the artist to become something else. And without technical skills to clarify what we think is purposeful and meaningful, the artist can be misunderstood.

Samuel Adoquei in Origin of Inspiration: Seven Short Essays for Creative People

Comments are welcome!

Pearls from artists* # 104

View of Roden Crater

View of Roden Crater

* 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 the art historian Jack Flam has noted:  ‘Art constantly reinvents itself.  As time passes, new audiences find new ideas and inspiration in it and keep reframing its meanings and significance in fresh ways.  Art also encourages new mental attitudes and ways of looking as it travels across space; some of these attitudes and beliefs might have been inconceivable to the people who created it, but the art nonetheless manages to speak persuasively and to create fresh images in other collective imaginations.’

Quoted in Man Ray, African Art, and the Modernist Lens by Wendy A. Grossman

Comments are welcome!