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Pearls from artists* # 553
Starting a new pastel painting
*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 think of the procrastinator as lazy and inactive, but procrastination is active. Not to get all psychological and heavy on you, but procrastination is actually “active avoidance.” I like the word active because it shows just how powerful your avoidance tendencies are.
It takes all kinds of forms – writer’s block and disorganization are two of the most common. I’ve known people who have mild forms of it, and I’ve known people who are absolutely crippled by it, who never accomplish what they set out to do.
… the most heavy-handed thing I can say is: If you procrastinate, you are only robbing yourself.
Anna Deavere Smith in Letters to a Young Artist: Straight-up Advice on Making a Living in the Arts – For Actors, Performers, Writers, and Artists of Every Kind
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 145
“Stalemate,” 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.
It is a mistake for a sculptor or a painter to speak or write very often about his work. It releases tension needed for his job. By trying to express his aims with rounded-off logical exactness, he can easily become a theorist whose actual work is only a caged-in exposition of conceptions evolved in terms of logic and words.
But though the nonlogical, instinctive, subconscious part of the mind must play its part in his work, he also has a conscious mind which is not inactive. The artist works with a concentration of his whole personality, and the conscious part of it resolves conflicts, organizes memories, and prevents him from trying to walk in two directions at the same time.
Henry Moore: Notes on Sculpture in The Creative Process, edited by Brewster Ghiselin
Comments are welcome!
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