Balancing chaos
“It’s very spiritual because you’re suddenly seeing the coherence and the interconnectedness of everything — left to right, top to bottom, front to back. It’s […]
ideas
Birds on a rooftop
“Complete isolation — that is what the Outsider is driving at. He knows that, if he could only achieve it, there is a completely different […]
Out of nothing
To me, one way of looking at this odd building is as some strange creature peering out over the makeshift wooden fence. It’s not threatening […]
Mirrors and Windows
Recently I’ve been thinking about John Szarkowski‘s idea of photographs as either windows or mirrors. It’s interesting to think of one’s own work and the […]
Hope/Faith
Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that […]
No thing is beautiful
“The real study of an art student is more of a development of that sensitive nature and appreciative imagination with which he was so fully […]
They made their language. You make yours.
Quotes from The Art Spirit, by Robert Henri: “The work of the art student is no light matter. Few have the courage and stamina to […]
Stones to step on or stones to avoid
“Every student should put down in some form or other his findings. All any man can hope to do is to add his fragment to […]
Beauty rests in the expression
“Artists are sometimes asked, “Why do you paint ugly and not beautiful things?” The questioner rarely hesitates in his judgment of what is beautiful and […]
An artist has got to get acquainted with himself
“I know I have said a lot when I say, “You can do anything you want to do.” But I mean it. There is reason […]
Approved taste
“One of the great difficulties of an art student is to decide between his own natural impressions and what he thinks should be his impressions. […]
There are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual
“There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual — become clairvoyant. We reach […]
To apprehend beauty is to work for it
“The appreciation of art should not be considered as merely a pleasurable pastime. To apprehend beauty is to work for it. It is a mighty […]
To find the idea for which I can live and die
“To be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as a certain understanding […]
It takes wit, and interest and energy to be happy
“Appreciation of life is not easy. One says he must earn a living — but why? Why live? It seems as though a great many […]