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Pearls from artists* # 270

Barbara's studio

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.

As Charlie Parker quipped, “If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.”  And it won’t register in your bearing:  this is the earned credit for trying to walk the daily tightrope and tell your story when you get to the other side.  

Joel Dinerstein in The Origins of Cool in Postwar America    

Comments are welcome

Pearls from artists* # 269

"White Star," soft pastel on sandpaper, 38" x 58"

“White Star,” 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.

In an artistic sense, cool came to refer to someone with a signature artistic style so integral as to exude an authentic mode-of-being in the world:  Miles, Bogart, Brando, Eastwood, Greco, Elvis, Lady Day, Sinatra.  Such a person created something from nothing and gave the world some new artistic or psychological “equipment for living,” to use a phrase of Kenneth Burke’s.  A signature style is yours and can only be carried by you:  it cannot be abstracted except through dilution and commodification since it reflects an individual’s complex personal experience.

Joel Dinerstein in The Origins of Cool in Postwar America    

Comments are welcome