Blog Archives

Pearls from artists* # 654

West Village, New York, NY
West Village, New York, NY

*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 cynical art world, where ‘nothing is a miracle,’ benefits from disempowered artists who have been tricked into feeling devalued, and trained to live at the mercy of the marketplace. But the exact opposite is true. The art world would collapse without our coveted holy vision. Artists are born with unconventional gifts that mark them as innovative thought leaders. Society is only beginning to understand how these gifts may be employed. We possess the power to expose what is going on beneath the surface, initiate difficult conversations, and help people process an increasingly complex world. We fire bullets of truth to pierce the ever-thickening wall of relentless lies. We see things more clearly, precisely because we are on the outside. We foster empathy and point out our common humanity. We remind people that they do not have to go along with this; there are other ways to live. We have the conviction to scream at the top of our lungs when society is veering terribly off course. That the antidote to capitalism is meaning. At our best, through a rather miraculous process, artists change the world.

Kate Kretz in Art From Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice

Comments are welcome!

Pearls from artists* # 556

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.

The painter Paul Klee exclaimed in his diary, “Am I God? I have accumulated so many great things in me!” But we also remember these other words of Klee… “He who strives will never enjoy this life peacefully.” The lucky artist may be the one who, while in human measure a god, has nevertheless found satisfactory ways of escaping the relentless firing of his synapses.

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

Comments are welcome!

Pearls from artists* # 126

Self-portrait with "Blue Misterioso"

Self-portrait with “Blue Misterioso”

* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.

Photography is an elegiac art, a twilight art.  There is no subject the photographer might attempt that could not be touched with pathos.  All photogrpahs are memento mori.  To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability.  precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.

Photography by Susan Sontag in Anthology:  Selected Essays from Thirty Years of The New York Review of Books, edited by Robert S. Silvers and Barbara Epstein

Comments are welcome!