Blog Archives

Pearls from artists* # 554

Explaining my work. Photo: David De Hannay

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

We’ve all taken advantage of the unlimited instant access that the wired world claims to provide. So it’s not surprising that many artists are reluctant to contemplate, much less accept, any self-imposed limitations. Painters and sculptors who remain in their studios grapple with the fundamentals and fine points of representation or abstraction – worrying about Renaissance theories of perspective or Klee’s or Kandinsky’s ideas about plane geometry – can be accused of having their heads in the sand. But there comes a time when certain questions must be asked. What are the artistic traditions that mean the most to you? What is your artistic heritage? Where do you stand?

Between Abstraction and Representation
by Jed Perl in The New York Review of Books, November 24, 2022

Comments are welcome!

Pearls from artists* # 525

“The Enigma,” Soft Pastel on Sandpaper, 26″ x 20″ Image, 35″ x 28.5″ Framed

* 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 reflects the inner necessity of the arts, the creative spirit’s determination to make something that can stand on its own, precisely because it’s rooted in rules, systems, and processes that are immune to the vagaries of politics, society, and day-to-day life. It’s the discipline of art that frees the artist to go public with the most private thoughts and feelings. No matter how the world encroaches on the artist, the artist in the act of creation must stand firm in the knowledge that art has its own laws and logic. These are the fundamentals of the creative vocation.

Jed Perl in Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts

Comments are welcome!