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Pearls from artists* # 676
In the 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.
Henry James once said, ‘The great thing […] the sense of having done the best […] the sense which is the real life of the artist and the absence of which is his death, is having drawn from his own instrument the finest music that nature had hidden in it, of having played it as it should be played. He either does that or he doesn’t […]. and if he doesn’t he isn’t worth speaking of.
Kate Kretz in Art From Your core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice
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Pearls from artists* # 665
*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 are wordlessly persuaded and taught outright to hide so much of what we have unearthed in our lives. But artists throughout the centuries have described the power of using anguish as a catalyst to fuel their creativity. In Greek epic poetry, ‘Kleos’ refers to immortal renown. Unlike present-day fame, this term referred exclusively to heroes who had surmounted a great obstacle or persevered through tremendous difficulties. There is a certain authority that comes from those who have endured hardship. They have earned the depth of their work.
Darkness contains a great deal of energy. We can use it for destruction or creativity. Only those who tolerate it are able to illuminate the shadowy corners, revealing the nefariousness that hopes to stay hidden. We cannot change our past, or any hell that we have been through. But art provides the means to exorcise the pain that has taken up residence in our body and fashion it into a form outside ourselves, in an infinitely affirmative gesture. The darkness we have passed through was not endured in vain if we mold it into a vision that lights the way out… for us, and for all the other souls who undoubtedly need it.
Kate Kretz in Art From Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice
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Pearls from artists* # 572
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
The use of color to paint the Chinchorro mummies is interesting. According to anthropologist Victor Turner (1970), colors are experiences of social relationships. The use of particular colors in prehistory, then, has meaning even if today we cannot comprehend these meanings. Turner said that white, red, and black are the earliest colors produced by humans and they “provide a kind of primordial classification of reality” (Turner, 1970:90). This color trilogy is associated with reproduction, life, and death. Obviously, in the case of Chinchorros, black and red colors predominated. Black is equated with darkness, like the night, invisible yet present. Black is what is hidden, it is a mystical transition (Turner, 1970:109, 89-73). Black represents death, but not the end of a cycle, not an annihilating, rather a change of status and existence (Turner, 1970:71-72). Red on the other hand is equal to membership, change, blood, and social place (Turner, 1970:90). Red can be associated with life, here and in the afterworld.
The use of colors as symbols is rather universal, but the meaning of each color varies from culture to culture. In western societies black may be worn to symbolize mourning, but on other occasions it signifies relevance. The Yahgan Indians in South America used body painting with intricate patterns of black, white, and red to show their sadness and grief when someone died (Gusinde, 1937). Black was the color to symbolize mourning among the Incas (Montez, 1929:222; Zuidema, 1992:23).
Bernardo T. Arrizabalaga in Beyond Death: The Chinchorro Mummies of Ancient Chile
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Pearls from artists* # 503
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
… your life is short and rare and amazing and miraculous, and you want to do really interesting things and make really interesting things while you’re still here. I know that’s what you want for yourself, because that’s what I want for myself, too.
And you have treasures hidden within you – extraordinary treasures – and so do I and so does everyone around us. And bringing these treasures to light takes work and faith and focus and courage and hours of devotion, and the clock is ticking, and the world is spinning, and we simply do not have time anymore to think small.
Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
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Pearls from artists* # 501
* 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 I talk about “creative living” here, please understand that I am not necessarily talking about pursuing a life that is professionally or exclusively devoted to the arts. I’m not saying that you must become a poet who lives on a mountaintop in Greece, or that you must perform at Carnegie Hall, or that you must win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. (Though if you want to attempt any of these feats, have at it. I love to watch people swing for the bleachers.) No, when I refer to “creative living,” I am speaking more broadly. I’m talking about living a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear.
... A creative life is an amplified life. It’s a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life. Living in this manner – continually and stubbornly bringing forth the jewels that are hidden within you – is a fine art, in and of itself.
Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
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Q: Have you always signed your work on the front? (Question from Anna Rybat)
A: Yes, I have no other choice. I frame all of my pastel paintings under plexiglas soon after they’re completed. Were I to sign on the reverse, as do many painters, my signature would be hidden. Moreover, I sign using pastel pencils so the letters would get smudged.
As I compose and work to complete a pastel painting, I reserve a specific location for my signature. I sign discreetly so as not to interfere with the depicted imagery. In most cases you have to look closely to see my name.
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Pearls from artists* # 488
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
To be astonished is to be caught unawares by the revelation of realities denied or repressed in the everyday. Astonishment has an intellectual as well as an emotional component – in it, the brain and the heart come together. Far from distracting us from the strange and the uncanny in life, the astonishment evoked by great artistic works puts them square in our sights. The work demands that we feel and think the mystery of our passage through this body, on this earth, in this universe. We realize afterward that the world is not what we thought it was: something hidden, impossible to communicate though clearly expressed in the work has risen into the light of awareness, and the share of the Real to which we are privy is proportionately expanded.
JF Martel in Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice: A Treatise, Critique, and Call to Action
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Pearls from artists* # 483
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
The editor has a unique relationship with the actors. I never try to go on to the set to see the actors out of costume or out of character – and also just not to see the set. I only want to see what there is on screen. Ultimately, that’s all the audience is ever going to see. Everyone else working on the film at that stage is party to everything going on around the filmed scene: how cold it was when that scene was shot; who was mad at whom; who is in love with whom; how quickly something was done; what was standing just to the left of the frame. An editor particularly has to be careful that those things don’t exert a hidden influence on the way the film is constructed, can (and should in my view) remain ignorant of all that stuff – in order to find value where others might not see value, and on the other hand, to diminish the value of certain things that other people see as too important. It’s one o the crucial functions of the editor. To take, as far as it is possible, the view of the audience, who is seeing the film without any knowledge of all the things that went into its construction.
On Editing Actors, by Walter Murch in The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film, by Michael Ondaatje
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Q: What’s on the easel today?
A: I just started a large 58″ x 38″ pastel painting based on the same reference photograph I used for “Shamanic,” 26″ x 20.” Sometimes ideas for new projects arrive in prosaic ways. I saw a mockup of “Shamanic” on my New Delhi gallery’s Instagram page. The mockup depicted my pastel painting as considerably larger than it actually is. I became intrigued with this unexpected format and decided to create a new one in a larger size.
For now I have turned Shamanic” to the wall so that it does not inadvertently influence my color choices. The two pastel paintings are already looking quite different.
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Pearls from artists* #447
Cameron Crowe: I think this collection is a powerful gift, especially to young artists. It’s a portrait of you at a certain time in your life when you were having success. You could have plateaued at this stage for an entire career. Many did. But I listen to this and think the hidden message is don’t stop growing. Don’t stop heading to those deeper waters… challenge yourself… look where it may take you.
Joni Mitchell: That’s what the Van Gogh exhibition was to me. When I went to see the Van Gogh exhibition they had all his paintings arranged chronologically, and you’d watch the growth as you walk along. That was so inspiring to me, and I started to paint again. If it serves that purpose, that would be great. Really, that would make me very happy. It shows that from this… because the latter work is much richer and deeper and smarter, and the arrangements are interesting, too. Musically I grow, and I grow as a lyricist, so there’s a lot of growth taking place. The early stuff – I shouldn’t be such a snob against it. A lot of these songs, I just lost them. They fell away. They only exist in these recordings. For so long I rebelled against the term: “I was never a folk singer.” I would get pissed off if they put that label on me. I didn’t think it was a good description of what I was. And then I listened, and… it was beautiful. It made me forgive my beginnings. And I had this realization…
CC: What was it?
Joni: Oh God! (Laughs) I was a folksinger!
In A Conversation with Joni Mitchell by Cameron Crowe from Joni Mitchell Archives Volume I: The Early Years (1963-1967) 5 CD set
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