Michele Cassou Quotes

You do not use art as a means to an end, but as a way to inhabit and explore the present. Right and wrong fade away; you recover your sense of what is authentic in you.

It is extraordinary to see how the discovery of one single free stroke of paint can fill you with such joy and amazement.

If you paint for product, you have to follow the rules that keep you on the track of your expectation. You have to calculate, organize, plan every move. When you paint for process, you listen to the magic of inner voices, you follow the basic human urge to experiment with the new, the unknown, the mysterious, the hidden. Process is adventure; product happens only within the parameters designed.

If you do not listen to your intuition, it will stop talking to you. Your intuition is like a sensitive friend. If you question it, censor it, judge it, it gets hurt and becomes silent.

Intuition comes from the whole person, from a place that includes the conscious and the unconscious. The total result of all feelings and perceptions manifests spontaneously through intuition. Intuition gives expression to the feelings; that expression is unique and perfectly fitted to the needs of the moment.

Chaos is the soul of creation. It plows the ground of intuition. Without chaos, nothing will grow.

To discover that you can paint without special talent is a great revelation. An endless stream runs through you, enough to paint for lifetimes. Talent is universal. You can dip into that source to your heart's content. Everyone is good at what comes to them spontaneously. If nothing is put in your way, talent will meet you there.

Your art is part of the big painting of your life. You are on your own, standing by yourself in the middle of creation. In the beauty of that aloneness, and in how you respond to it, you will find your passion.

To play is to listen to the imperative inner force that wants to take form and be acted out without reason. It is the joyful, spontaneous expression of one's self. The inner force materializes the feeling and perception without planning or effort. That is what play is.

What I want people to realize is that there is enough inside them, that everything that they really need in order to feel a sense of aliveness and creativity is already inside. And not only is it inside them, but if they allow it they will have an interesting life.

The unfolding of the unexpected becomes the energy that drives you. You discover how thirsty you are for exploration without analysis. You become strangely at home in a place you can't define. You are truly creating.

If you listen inside, the brush will want to run toward a color. What you really need and want is very close, and the brush goes to it quickly if you don't think.

When a seed sprouts, it's a violent process. The skin breaks and splits in two. Something dies and something is born. Anytime you paint a strong or violent image, you may be expressing that part of yourself that's opening in order to let the new emerge.

We have within us enormous reserves of trapped potential. Our natural urges have been so constrained by the accommodations of living that we each have a smoldering volcano just below the surface. To enable this force to erupt in a healthy, open, and positive manner is a momentous act.

Look upon paintings with eyes of mystery rather than judgement. Support the need to enter into the sacred space beyond evaluation.

When you set aside the mantle of control in the painting process, images arise from ancient layers of the psyche.

Painting for process is the visual equivalent of journal writing, done not for the sake of being seen or published, but purely for the telling itself.

When you have done your best, confronted your fear of committing to color and form, and dared to step over the threshold into the unknown, you will invariably find your own voice.

Painting is just a tool; it is nothing in itself. What counts is how you do it.

When we begin to lift the veils of censorship and repression in painting, a great deal of energy is unleashed.

To play is to listen to the imperative inner force that wants to take form and be acted out without reason.

There is this mysterious energy that wants us to keep growing.