more--de Stael

All my life, I had a need to think painting, to paint in order to liberate myself from all the impressions, all the feelings, and all the anxieties of which the only solution I know is painting. Nicholas de Stael

Connections

Nicholas de Stael.
Nicholas de Stael.

You never paint what you see or think you see. You paint with a thousand vibrations the blow that has struck you: how can you be struck and not cry out in anger? (Nicholas de Stael)

Since the first time I saw his work I have always felt a strong connection to Nicholas de Stael.
There are artists that move you and artists that attract you, others who you like their work. But, there are some which get into your head with their thousand vibrations and you feel as if you have known them forever.

Creation

Hans Hoffman

Creation is dominated by three absolutely different factors: First, nature, which works upon us by its laws; second, the artist, who creates a spiritual contact with nature and his materials; third, the medium of expression through which the artist translates his inner world. Hans Hoffman

Happiness

" Of course, your definition of happiness will depend upon who you are-but do you have a sense of peace in you heart, a feeling of security about your future and a feeling of anticipation when you wake up in the morning?" Masaru Emoto

Angst

Winslow Homer
"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; . . . If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same . . . Yours is the earth and everything that's in it."Rudyard Kipling

Lessons on Art--Calder

Alexander Calder
Pay attention to these two quotes by Alexander Calder. They mean everything.
Remember you want life in your work.

"The sense of motion in painting and sculpture has long been considered as one of the primary elements of the composition."
and
"When an artist explains what he is doing he usually has to do one of two things: either scrap what he has explained, or make his subsequent work fit in with the explanation."

Too much talk about the art work leads to too much talk. Art needs to be viewed. benda

Curiosity

John Singer Sargent
You can't do sketches enough. Sketch everything and keep your curiosity fresh. (John Singer Sargent)
John Singer Sargent

Security/Insecurity

Mary Cassett
Sometimes it made him [Degas] furious that he could not find a chink in my armour, and there would be months when we just could not see each other, and then something I painted would bring us together again. (Mary Cassatt)

I always have a curious sort of feeling about some of my things – I hate to show them – I am perfectly inconsistent about it – I am afraid people won't understand – and I hope they won't – and am afraid they will. (Georgia O'Keeffe)

Georgia O'Keeffe

Attitude

Is blue a state of mind?
Milton Avery
Joan Mitchell
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb

To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. ~George Santayana

Play

Jeff Koons
stainless steel, soil, geotextile fabric, internal irrigation system, live flowering plants
486 x 486 x 256 inches
1234.4 x 1234.4 x 650.2 cm
Rockefeller Center NYC

Creative people are curious, flexible, persistent and independent with a tremendous spirit of adventure and a love of play. (Henri Matisse)

Find someone to play with it will enrich your life, enhance your art and you will grow young.
PIA (playfulness in art)

John Chamberlain
Cautious Maniac, 2001
painted, chromed and stainless steel
52-3/4" x 63" x 41-1/4" (134 cm x 160 cm x 104.8 cm)

Talent

Gauguin

Perhaps I have no talent, but all vanity aside – I do not believe that anyone makes an artistic attempt, no matter how small, without having a little – or there are many fools. (Paul Gauguin)
Even at best, talent remains a constant, and those who rely upon that gift alone, without developing further, peak quickly and soon fade to obscurity. (David Bayles and Ted Orland)

Truth

Matisse
Truth and reality in art begin at the point where the artist ceases to understand what he is doing and capable of doing – yet feels in himself a force that becomes steadily stronger... and more concentrated. (Henri Matisse)

Wandering

ruhl-benda
JRR Tolkien 'Not all those who wander are lost.'

Wander: 1) to move or go aimlessly without plan or fixed destination; ramble, roam, 2) to lose one's way; to stray, 3) to meander, 4) to go to a place by anyway or any pace that suits ones fancy.

All artists need to wander at times, it is not a bad thing, for most of us it is part of the process. It can be unsettling.

Symbols

benda


The history of art cannot be properly understood without some reference to the history of science. In both we are studying the symbols by which man affirms his mental scheme, and these symbols, be they pictorial or mathematical, a fable or formula, will reflect the same changes. (Kenneth Clark)

More on risk taking

"The depth of your need to make things establishes the level of risk in not making them."
From the book Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland

Artists take the greatest risk in exposing themselves. Can you think of any other profession where
the way you see the world is open for criticism and scrutiny, or where you open yourself up to judgment on you stability?