Blog Archives

Pearls from artists* # 537

Dropping work off at the framer

*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 often as the artist is criticized, he’s probably more often rejected. If you produce a product for which there is only a limited demand, if you ignore the requirements of the workplace, if you’re unlucky and unconnected, if you do work that is objectively inferior to the work of other artists in your territory, if you venture into new territory, if your message isn’t a bland one, then you’re more likely to experience rejection. The producer Don Simpson described life as a production executive at Paramount: ”You’re tired all the time, and you’re never in a great mood because you have to say no to 200 people a week. Ninety percent of your judgments are no. You offend people, you hurt people, you may damage people.”

Eric Maisel in A Life in the Arts: Practical Guidance and Inspiration for Creative and Performing Artists

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Pearls from artists* # 202

 

Soft pastels

Soft pastels

* 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 you’re working on something, you always wonder, “Can I get away with this?  Is it working?”  It’s the space between that I’ve been interested in for a long time.  I think that when I started to make, say, a triptych that came from an observation of a little Picasso drawing, the spaces in between became as important as the three actual pieces.  It’s especially true of the Wallpaper piece.  But most of the changes in my own work really evolve from one piece to the next:  from looking at my own work, the works of others, and things in my studio.  It happens when you see something that you didn’t see previously, like those scraps of clay that became the wall pieces.  It’s similar to the space that I’ve explored for years and years between artist and craftsperson, which is both interesting and challenging, and I don’t think that one thing is inferior to the other.  Each has a different goal, a different function.  Its my responsibility how nd where my work is viewed in different contexts.

In Conversation:  Betty Woodman with Phong Bui, The Brooklyn Rail, April 2016

Comments are welcome!