Artist Quotes - Page 96

There are many aspects about what and why we photograph: visual pleasure, personal empathy, intellectual stimulation, technical excellence, etc. Serious photographers and artists will try to create works that are original. Over a career period they may develop a singular identity in their images.

The record companies really do conspire against the artists. Especially the black artists

Even though I build buildings and I pursue my architecture, I pursue it as an artist. I deliberately keep a tiny studio. I don't want to be an architectural firm. I want to remain an artist.

Part of the blame can be put at the artists' door, too - no question. But I see our involvement more as a consequence. When there is too much money at stake, the whole system gets corrupted. Artists can be very vulnerable to these mechanisms.

Don't worry if people think you're good. Make this your experience. And find out what makes you unique as an artist. You don't get the opportunity to do that as much in the real world.

The term 'giant' is used too often to describe artists. But in the case of Akira Kurosawa, we have one of the rare instances where the term fits.

Every artist's problem today is: What will we do with the human?

When I did "Seven Easy Pieces," I actually re-performed the performances of other artists. It was such difficult work because I had to really go through the documentation, look through the sources, to ask the witnesses who saw it.

My story is really an affirmation of my strength and my luck. To live with a great artist like Ted Hughes or Mick Jagger is a very, very destructive role for a woman trying to be herself. In fact, it can't be done.

To be an artist is to fail, as no other dare to fail... failure is his world and the shrink from it desertion

The life of a chess master is much more difficult than that of an artist - much more depressing. An artist knows that someday there'll be recognition and monetary reward, but for the chess master there is little public recognition and absolutely no hope of supporting himself by his endeavors. If Bobby Fischer came to me for advice, I certainly would not discourage him - as if anyone could - but I would try to make it positively clear that he will never have any money from chess, live a monk-like existence and know more rejection than any artist ever has, struggling to be known and accepted.

I'm not going to compromise my artistic integrity.

As an artist myself, I know what it's like to put your heart and soul into something. You can feel the presence of another person.

I am a graphic artist heart and soul, though I find the term artist rather embarrassing.

The painter's obsession with his subject is all that he needs to drive him to work.

It is not a torment to be an artist. It is a privilege.

Another thing about creation is that every day it is like it gave birth, and it's always kind of an innocent and refreshing. So it's always virginal to me, and it's always a surprise. ... Each piece seems to have a life of its own. Every little piece or every big piece that I make becomes a very living thing to me, very living. I could make a million pieces; the next piece gives me a whole new thing. It is a new center. Life is total at that particular time. And that's why it's right. That reaffirms my life.

It's easy to attack an artist as misogynist, but that's really such a facile epithet. And if an artist is constantly worrying about how others will judge a work, it can end up being a block to investigating certain areas of human nature or certain truths about sexuality.

I was one of two first cultural exchange artists been allowed to go to the West. I knew it was such a rare opportunity and I had to treasure it by giving my utter most to achieve excellence.

I played an artist in a comedy called 'Rooster.' It was a zany film by Glen Larson, a friend who produced several successful television series including 'Magnum PI.

To a large degree, we are still bound to the modern scientific spirit, that characterizes reality merely by its material and mechanic aspects, without including life, consciousness and the intimate communion with that which poets, musicians and artists bring us in their magnificent works.

The artist of the future will live the ordinary life of a human being, earning his living by some kind of labour. He will strive to give the fruit of that supreme spiritual force which passes through him to the greatest number of people, because this conveying of the feelings that have been born in him to the greatest number of people is his joy and his reward. The artist of the future will not even understand how it is possible for an artist, whose joy consists in the widest dissemination of his works, to give these works only in exchange for a certain payment.

There is no such thing as failure for an artist, unless failure is the refusal to attempt, the unwillingness to dream.

What do you say when someone has truly inspired you? How do you express to an artist how deeply their work has affected you?

I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, 'The Beatles did.