Artist Quotes - Page 89

Artists are not cheerleaders, and we're not the heads of tourism boards. We expose and discuss what is problematic, what is contradictory, what is hurtful and what is silenced in the culture we're in.

Writers and artists never pay attention to advice given by their elders, quite rightly. The only worthwhile advice is the most general: Keep trying, don't give up, don't be discouraged, don't pay attention to detractors. Everyone knows this.

The melody that the loved one played upon the piano of your life will never be played quite that way again, but we must not close the keyboard and allow the instrument to gather dust. We must seek out other artists of the spirit, new friends who gradually will help us to find the road to life again, who will walk the road with us.

An artist is his own fault.

I've always viewed my career with some suspicion, like I don't want to count on it to be the only thing I do. Partly that has to do with feeling like an imposter, like we all do sometimes, and partly I like doing other things, and being a full-time artist takes a focus I recognise I don't have.

What happen to the pirates we are supposed to see? Then we go down the chutes, and it's where the pirates were. But they're all gone. There is nothing but skeletons down here!

I thought that it would be easier to learn that if I worked in motion pictures. So I went to work with one motion picture producer who was developing a color system. This didn't do to me much good. All I did was pick filters for the camera.

To the scientist Nature is a storehouse of facts, laws, processes; to the artist she is a storehouse of pictures; to the poet she is a storehouse of images, fancies, a source of inspiration; to the moralist she is a storehouse of precepts and parables; to all she may be a source of knowledge and joy.

The artist who is not also a craftsman is no good; but, alas, most of our artists are nothing else.

As actors we're like these vagabond artists, we have to be invited to perform so if you don't have a choice of options its very hard to define yourself.

I have some things that I've been workin' on, such as delivery, wordplay, breath control, just a lot of other things that artists work on, that the listener may not be listening for.

The truth is that from birth on we are, to one extent or another, a fairly sensual species.

As an artist, as I design and lay out a page, the less-important things, things I want you to spend less time looking at, I draw them very small, maybe even silhouette them. The more-important pivotal scenes, I draw them larger, maybe even a double-page spread.

Deadwood was a magical experience. It was an absolute culmination of everything Ive ever wanted to do as an actor as an artist, and I was enormously proud to have been involved with it.

Artists working for other artists is all about knowing, learning, unlearning, initiating long-term artistic dialogues, making connections, creating covens, and getting temporary shelter from the storm.

You put the right artist on the right track in the studio and leave the door open to let God in.

It is necessary that the object that the artist is shaping, whether it be a vase of clay or a fishing boat, be significant of something other than itself. This object must be a sign as well as an object; a meaning must animate it, and make it say more than it is.

My paintings do not have a center, but depend on the same amount of interest throughout.

I was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and am a product of a family that were jazz aficionados and also very interested in progressive politics. And so I had a lot of artists and musicians in my home. Lots of Latin music, folk, and jazz and blues, bluegrass-type of stuff. Painters and stuff like that.

I've never been able to say I've been influenced by a list of artists I like because I like thousands and thousands and I've been influenced in some way by all of them.

How I wished I'd have had a camera of my own, a mad mental camera that could register pictorial shots, of the photographic artist himself prowling about for his ultimate shot - an epic in itself. (On the road with Robert Frank, 1958)

Every artist is an unhappy lover. And unhappy lovers want to tell their story.

I'm not a political artist in any way, but if an idea takes me somewhere or something is emotionally impactful, I find a way to make a painting that encapsulates it.

I think it's really the job of the composer, the artist, the painter, the writer to present people with options. I'm just really reflecting the thoughts and actions around me.

The physical characteristics of the child Jesus will always remain a point of discussion. No artist has ever produced a type, nor ever will, that has in it all that the varying minds of all time will acknowledge as complete.