Blog Archives
Pearls from artists* # 684
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
I often think that we should invent another word altogether for what real artists are doing… outside of, and despite, the market, so we could divorce ourselves from what ‘Art’ has devolved into. I aspire to create a new and visionary paradigm far away from the old one. I wish all the art magazines and blogs would declare that there is no longer any money to be made or any fame to be had, so all the people who were in for the wrong reasons would simply go away.
I want artists everywhere to figure out how to tap into their own deep well, the unpredictable source inside that can keep their work fresh and alive. I hope they build confidence to consistently preserve their integrity and independence. I long for them to trust their own intuition, to keep them on their true path as their work evolves. Finally, I yearn for them to reject anything that gets in the way of actualizing their deepest voice, so they might step into that expansive space that the universe has intended for them since the day they appeared on this earth.
Kate Kretz in Art From Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice
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Travel photo of the month*
“The Three Wise Men,” Jimoh Buraimoh, Glass beads, plastic cylinders, cotton, epoxy, plywood, 1991
* Favorite travel and other photographs that have not yet appeared in this blog.
A: I saw this painting at the Baltimore Museum of Art and was intrigued by the intracacy and textures of the beads, cylinders, and other items used by Jimoh Buraimoh, a Nigerian modernist. The figures are his portrayal of the three men who traveled to England in 1960 to negotiate Nigeria’s independence. Buraimoh honors the nation’s founders with materials that glorify Yoruba heritage and artistic traditions. His title also associates the men with the three wise men of the Bible. I enjoy this work very much and couldn’t help being reminded of imagery by Picasso.
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Pearls from artists* # 203
“Palaver,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 26″ x 20″
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
One day, looking for something that might interest those few buyers there were, Marquet and I decided to reconnoiter. So we went to the Pavillon de Rohan, to the Galeries de Rivoli, where there were dealers in engraving and in all kinds of curiosities that might attract foreign customers. We each came back with an idea: mine was to do a park landscape with swans. I went to the Bois de Boulogne to do a study of the lake. Then I went to buy a photo showing swans and tried to combine the two. Only it was very bad; I didn’t like it – in fact nobody liked it; it was impossible; it was stodgy. I couldn’t change; I couldn’t counterfeit the frame of mind of the customers on the rue de Rivoli or anywhere else. So I put my foot through it.
I understood then that I had no business painting to please other people; it wasn’t possible. Either way, when I started a canvas, I painted it the way I wanted with things that interested me. I knew very well that it wouldn’t sell, and I kept putting off the confection of a picture that would sell. And then the same thing would happen the next time.
There are plenty of artists who think it’s smart to make paintings to sell. Then – when they have acquired a certain reputation, a degree of independence – they want to paint things for themselves. But that simply isn’t possible. Painting’s an uphill task and if you want to find out what you’re capable of, you can’t dillydally on the way.
Chatting with Henri Matisse: The Lost 1941 Interview, Henri Matisse with Pierre Courthion, edited by Serge Guilbaut, translated by Chris Miller
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Pearls from artists* # 177
Barbara’s 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.
Everyone but a lunatic has a reason for what he does. Yes, in that sense I am a determinist. But I believe, with Kant, that the mind is self-determined. That is, I believe intensely in the creative freedom of the mind. That is indeed absolutely essential to man’s security in a chaotic world of change. He is faced all the time with unique complex problems. To sum them up for action is an act of creative imagination. He fits the different elements together in a coherent whole and invents a rational act to deal with it. He requires to be free, he requires his independence and solitude of mind, he requires his freedom of mind and imagination. Free will is another matter – it is a term, or rather a contradiction in terms, which leads to continual trouble. The will is never free – it is always attached to an object, a purpose. It is simply the engine in the car – it can’t steer. It is the mind, the reason, the imagination that steers.
Joyce Carey in The Paris Review Interviews: Writers at work 1st Series, edited and with an introduction by Malcolm Cowley
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