Blog Archives
Pearls from artists* # 653
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Watching online markers of approval climb into high numbers releases dopamine in our brains, which can become addictive. If we crave ‘likes,’ and consciously or unconsciously make more of what our audience wants, we become supply-and-demand widget makers. We start catering to the lowest common denominator, asking ourselves what kind of widget will get the most likes or shares. Would you allow a committee into your studio to dictate your next work, to tell you what goes and what stays? How is catering to ‘likes’ any different?
… Every time your work grows, you will gain and lose fans. The more followers you have, the more individuals will need to adjust to the shifts that are happening. Some are guaranteed to disapprove of any new direction, regardless of content. Those who cannot tolerate change will be replaced by supporters of a higher caliber who approve and encourage you to grow.
Kate Kretz in Art From Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 607
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Why paint at all? A question well worth asking all those thousands who, in the catacombs or the garrets of Paris and New York, in the tombs of Egypt or the monasteries of the East, have throughout the ages covered millions of yards of surface with the panoramas of their imaginings. The hopes of immortality and reward, I dare say, might claim their share of motivation. Yet immortality is nigardly, and we know that in many ages the dispensers of official immortality have specifically withheld their gifts from the makers of images. No man of business would admit that the possibilities of gain are ever worth such a risk.
Mark Rothko in The Artist’s Reality: Philosophies of Art
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 511
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
You do not need anyone’s permission to live a creative life.
Maybe you didn’t receive this kind of message when you were growing up. Maybe your parents were terrified of risk in any form. Maybe your parents were obsessive-compulsive rule-followers, or maybe they were too busy being melancholic depressives, or addicts, or abusers to ever use their imaginations towards creativity. Maybe they were afraid of what the neighbors would say. Maybe your parents weren’t makers in the least. Maybe they were pure consumers. Maybe you grew up in an environment where people just sat around watching tv and waiting for stuff to happen to them.
Forget about it. It doesn’t matter.
Look a little further back in your family’s history. Look at your grandparents: Odds are pretty good they were makers. No? Not yet? Keep looking back, then. Go back further still. Look at your great-grandparents. Look at your ancestors. Look at the ones who were immigrants, or slaves, or soldiers, or farmers, or sailors, or the original people who watched the ships arrive with the strangers onboard. Go back far enough and you will find people who were not consumers. People who were not passively waiting for stuff to happen to them. You will find people who spent their lives making things.
This is where you come from.
This is where we all come from.
Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 508
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Wherever I’ve lived my room and soon
the entire house is filled with books;
poems, stories, histories, prayers of
all kinds stand up gracefully or are
heaped on shelves, on the floor, on
the bed. Strangers old and new offering
their words bountifully and thoughtfully,
lifting my heart.
But wait! I’ve made a mistake! How
could these makers of so many books
that have given so much to my life –
how could they possibly be strangers?
Mary Oliver in Upstream: Selected Essays
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 205
National Gallery of Art with self-portrait
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Museums empower people when they are patrons for artists and thinkers; when they amplify civic discourse, accelerate cultural change and contribute to cultural intelligence among the great diversity of city dwellers, visitors, policy makers and leaders… Museums present beautiful, accessible and meaningful spaces in which communities and individuals can meet, exchange ideas and solve problems.
David J. Skorton, Director of the Smithsonian Institution in “What Do We Value?” Museum, May/June 2016
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 204
Barbara’s studio with work in progress
* 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 has been said that science helps us understand what we can do; the arts and humanities – our culture and values – help us decide what to do. Studying the arts and humanities develops critical-thinking skills and nimble habits of mind, provides historical and cultural perspective and fosters the ability to analyze, synthesize and communicate.
As author Daniel Pink observed, “The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind – computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers… The future belongs to a very different kind of mind – creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers. These people – artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big-picture thinkers – will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys.”
David J. Skorton, Director of the Smithsonian Institution in “What Do We Value?” Museum, May/June 2016
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* 178
Barbara’s studio with recent works in progress
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
Most individuals have never had enough time, and they’ve never had enough resources, and they’ve never had enough support or patronage or reward… and yet they still persist in creating. They persist because they care. They persist because they are called to be makers, by any means necessary.
…The essential ingredients for creativity remain exactly the same for everybody: courage, enchantment, permission, persistence, trust – and those elements are universally accessible. Which does not mean that creative living is always easy; it merely means that creative living is always possible.
Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Comments are welcome!
barbararachkoscoloreddust.com 