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| quotes on art and creativity |
| Quotes on Adversity |
| Quotes on Misconceptions |
| Quotes on Acting Like an Artist |
| Quotes on The Way |
| Be Saturated |
| The First Tool is Ourselves |
| Looking, Seeing and Perception |
| Imagination |
| Spirit |
You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try. Beverly Sills I worry no matter how cynical you become, it’s never enough to keep up. Jane Wagner Life shrinks or expands in proportion to ones courage. Anais Nin In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. Albert Einstein Anxiety is a fuel. We can use it to write with, paint with work with. Julia Cameron It’s a funny thing about life: if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. Somerset Maugham If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track, which has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Joseph Cameron Before embarking on his life as an artist, Vincent van Gough wrote of his yearning to be creative, which caused him to feel like “the man . . . whose heart is imprisoned in something. Because he hasn’t got what he needs to be creative . . . Such a man often doesn’t know what he might do, but he feels instinctively: yet I am good for something, yet I am aware of some reason for existing! . . . something is alive in me: what can it be!” Quoted in BREWSTER GHISWLIN Ed. The Creative Process I must not begin with hypothesis, but with specific instances. Paul Klee I don’t have a lot of respect for talent. Talent is generic. It’s what you do with it that counts. Martin Ritt There is no must in art because art is free. Wassily Kandinski I cannot expect even my own art to provide all the answers - only to hope it keeps asking the right questions. Grace Hartigan Talent is a slippery concept. Gerard Gollwitzer, The Joy of Drawing There are truths but no truth. I can perfectly well asset two completely contradictory things, and be right in both cases. One ought not to weigh one’s insight against one another- each is a life of its own. Robert Musil An act that produces effective surprise this I shall take as the hallmark of creative enterprise… effective surprises . . .have the quality of obviousness about them when they occur, producing a shock of recognition following which there is no longer astonishment. Jerome Bruner, The Conditions of Creativity I shall become a master of this art only after a great deal of practice. Erich Fromim Where the spirit does not work in the hand there is no ART. Leonardo Da Vinci If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track, which has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Joseph Campbell Artists view themselves as culture builders. Laurence Boltd Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. TS Elliot Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what people fear the most. Fydor Dostoyevski Trust in yourself you are often far more accurate than you are willing to believe. Claudia Black Shoot for the moon, even if you miss it you will land among the stars. Les Brown Celebration is the enemy of originality in art. Martin Ritt Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess we may be wrong, but we take a leap in the dark anyway. Agnes De Mille Artist who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything. Eugene Delecroix The student must set understanding as her goal, not self-expression; the latter will arise naturally from the former. In this light we can see that there is not one of us that could not profit from the education of our vision. Edward Hill, The Language of Drawing Two uses of drawing have been emphasised: first its use as a means of intellectual expression which differs so essentially from verbal language and therefore offers a unique method of analysing and dealing with subjects and showing them in a new light; second, its use as a form of aesthetic expression, a means of developing artistic appreciation, and an avenue to the sources of aesthetic enjoyment. Elizabeth E Miller, How Children Learn to Draw Like ideas and words gestures have a life of their own. Gestures are a channel of communication that makes up what is an elaborate and secret code that is written nowhere, known to none, and understood by all. Laurence Wylie The essence of mystery is to preserve a state of ambivalence, through double and triple possible interpretations, through mere hints of interpretations (images within images) through forms that will materialize, but will do so only in the consciousness of the spectator. Odilion Redon It seems, then, to be one of the paradoxes of creativity that in order to think originally we must familiarize ourselves with the ideas of others. George Knetter, The art and science of Creativity Creativity is activated by such stabs as “what if? . . . what about? . . . what else? And again “What else? . . . AF Osborn, Applied Imagination There are times, after all, when one word is worth a thousand pictures Professor Don Damr . . .always the beautiful answer that asks a more beautiful question. EE Cummings Creativity, as has been said, consists largely of rearranging what we know in order to find out what we do not know ... Hence, to think creatively we must be able to look afresh art what we normally take for granted. George Kneller It is impossible to undertake any kind or research without being perpetually made aware that the truth is plying us with suggestions, the past prodding us with hints, and if no benefits result from such assistance, it is not the fault of our heavenly helpers, but of all our to human obtuseness. Cyril Connor, Previous Convictions The unconsciousness, though one cannot force it, will not produce new ideas unless it has been painstakingly stuffed full of facts, impressions, concepts and an endless series of conscious ruminations and attempted solutions. On this we have the testimony of many creative people. Morton Hunt, The Universe Within The saturation phase of creativity is a thorough investigation of the possibilities of the germinal idea. Before attempting the ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, Coleridge read widely in the literature of travel. To prepare for Moby Dick Melville immersed himself in accounts of whaling from classical time to his own. George Kneller, Art and Science of Creativity How can one learn the truth by thinking? As one leans to see a face better if one draws it. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Making and Thinking We are unknown, we knowers, ourselves to ourselves. We have never searched for ourselves- how should it then come to pass, that we should ever find ourselves…or what we have to say. Frederich Nietzsche We know more than we know we know. Michael Polanyi, philosopher Looking, Seeing and Perception I shut my eyes in order to see. Paul Gaugan There is more to the world than what meets the eye. The world fails to dissolve at the edge into myth and dream, because one wills it not to. Better to know oneself than to work miracles said an early monk. Laurence Freeman If brains work by representing, as we believe, that perceptions are representations, then we need to know the code- the rules of representation. On this account, physics is almost entirely unimportant, just as the physics of chess is unimportant. RL Gregory Art is the technique of communication. The image is the most complete technique of all communication. Claus Oldernberg The arts are neglected because they are based on perception, and perception is disdained because it not assumed to involve thought . . . Arnheim Form in the narrow sense, is the boundary between one surface and another: that is its external meaning. But it has also an internal significance, of varying intensity: and properly speaking form is the external expression of inner meaning Wassily Kandinsky Ever creative act involves . . . a new innocence of perception, liberated from the cataract of accepted belief Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation Look and seeing both start with sense perception, but there the similarity ends. When I look at the world and label its phenomena, I make immediate choices, instant appraisal- I like or dislike, I accept or reject what I look at, according to its usefulness to Me the purpose of looking is to survive, to cope, to manipulate. . .this we are trained to do from our first day. When on the other hand I SEE, suddenly I am al eyes, I forget this Me am liberated from it and dive into the reality that confronts me. Frederick Frank, The Zen of Seeing Imagination is more important than knowledge. Albert Einstein Perhaps the imagination is on the verge of recovering its rights. If the depths of our minds conceal strange forces capable of augmenting or conquering those on the surface, it is in our greatest interest to capture them and later to submit to them, should the occasion arise, to the control of reason. Andre Breton You have the same faculty as I (the visionary) only you do not trust or cultivate it. You can se what I do, if you choose ... you only have to work up imagination to the state of vision and the thing is done. William Blake The world of reality has itslimits; the world of imagination is boundless. Jean-Jacques Rousseau Everything passes, and what remains of former times, what remains of life, is the spiritual. In everything we do, the claim of the Absolute is unchanging. Paul Klee Whoever does not detach himself from the ego never attains the Absolute and never deciphers life. Constantin Brancusi If the universal is the essential, then it is the basis of all life and art. Recognizing and uniting with the universal therefore gives us the greatest aesthetic satisfaction, the greatest emotion of beauty. The more this union with the universal is felt, the more individual subjectivity declines. Piet Mondrian Construction on a purely spiritual basis is a slow business... The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul… Wasssily Kandinsky Something sacred, that's it. We ought to be able to say that such and such a painting is as it is, with its capacity for power, because it is "touched by God." Pablo Picasso Firmament and planets both disappeared, but the mighty breath which gives life to all things and in which all is bound up remained. Vincent Van Gogh(describing starry night) |
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