Painting's not important. The important thing is keeping busy. — Grandma Moses The summer has been good to me, because at long last I've made a daily practice of painting. It was a goal I set for myself two years ago, then discarded like an unwanted penny. It took...
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. — Ecclesiastes A fellow artist expressed to me yesterday her disappointment that realist painters—even of the caliber of Monet and Van Gogh—never add anything original to our...
Every painting, no matter how successful, leaves the artist with another chance to paint what she had in mind. — Robert Brault "Blessed is he who expects nothing," goes Alexander Pope's Ninth Beatitude, "for he shall never be disappointed." Painters who've worked in industry seem to know when to...
Hold onto your taste, even when you're embarrassed by it. — Jerry Saltz Connoisseurs and critics often look down on art that's driven by pop culture (the source of the "pop" in the term "pop art"). Not me. I guess I'm a child of the '60s, because I love pop...
Unlike a painting, food is an impermanent, fleeting art form. ― Julie Piatt Ever since the cave painters of Lascaux, painters have depicted food. Picasso was no exception. But while depictions of food in still-lifes had traditionally celebrated abundance, Picasso's depictions—at least during World War II—were meant to remind...
Despondency breaks off its course. Anguish breaks off its course. The vulture breaks off its flight. The eager light streams out, Even the ghosts take a draught. And our paintings see daylight. — Tomas Tranströmer Painting is like a walk in the woods. You set out full of hope with only a blank canvas....
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business. — T.S. Eliot Businesspeople are always citing Voltaire's advice, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." They know you'll never earn a profit, if you do. I wish more painters felt that way. Instead,...
All you have to do is show up. — Constantine Brancusi My worst enemy is indolence. You could call it my favorite hobby. Writer Ernest Hemingway famously beat indolence by leaving his last sentence unfinished every night. Sculptor Constantine Brancusi beat it by arriving early at his studio in the mornings...
Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort. — Franklin D. Roosevelt On Saturday, I had the distinct pleasure of painting en plein air outside the studio of N.C. Wyeth in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, under the guidance of my realism teacher, Randall Graham. The afternoon was warm,...
Inspiration is for amateurs. — Chuck Close Old objects and the personal memories associated with them inspire most of my paintings. I'm content to call it nostalgia. Like weight-gain, nostalgia is an affliction of the aged and can rapidly get out of hand. I especially loathe the kind that...