Ifs Quotes - Page 18

• Art is not special sauce applied to ordinary cooking; it is the cooking itself if it is good.

  William Lethaby

  Art, Cooking, Special

  William Richard Lethaby (1982). “Lethaby, a Continuing Presence: Seven Essays Taken from Form in Civilization”

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• If one is constantly challenged, one grows. If one becomes complacent, one stultifies.

  Catherine Stock

  Growth, Complacent, Grows

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• If art could be absolutely verified as to importance in, say, the way gold can be judged for purity and weight, then it would of course be finished as mythic activity. Free of doubt, controversy, and the inexplicable fluctuation of reputation, art-making would bear the same relationship to creativity as cake mix does to baking.

  Harold Town

  Art, Creativity, Cake

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• In the mid-fifties, a revolution occurred and a new word entered the vocabulary of commercial art. Concept... But the change was not entirely good. Our gain was also a loss... There was great value in something well observed and carefully delineated. If the head and heart were often absent, there was something to be said for the presence of a hand.

  R. O. Blechman

  Art, Loss, Hands

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• If you send your work to the magazines, you may be in for a shock. You may get a rejection note. The worst kind. A printed form. And probably you will be shattered. Shattered.

  R. O. Blechman

  Rejection, Magazines, May

  R. O. Blechman (2009). “Dear James: Letters to a Young Illustrator”, p.4, Simon and Schuster

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• If you know the differences between an oak and a poplar, a spruce and a pine, down to the needles... you are able to paint that tree with more conviction, even if done with a few broad strokes.

  T. Allen Lawson

  Differences, Tree, Done

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• Turn the paper. A piece looks better if every mark is not made while the surface is in the same orientation.

  Jean Wilson

  Looks, Pieces, Paper

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• For the surface, I'm not interested in painterly convention. It's more interesting if it looks like it painted itself.

  Wanda Koop

  Interesting, Looks, Conventions

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• When I start doing a body of work I feel vulnerable, fearful. If I stopped trusting the process, I would stop doing art.

  Wanda Koop

  Art, Body, Vulnerable

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• Please yourself, not others... It must first work for you if it is ever to be useful to others.

  Paul Laseau

  Firsts, Please, Please Yourself

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• There are quite a lot of people asking for a painting so I'm not able to fulfil all their wishes. And this gives me a lot of freedom, because if I cannot please them at all I don't have to start to try.

  Norbert Bisky

  People, Giving, Wish

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• You take that leap of faith. You have to be willing to follow, blindly, wherever it takes you. If you know where you're going beforehand, you're not going to end up with anything worth knowing.

  Sam Messer

  Faith, Knowing, Ends

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• In a very small way, painting addresses the 'Big Questions' to which we'll never find the answers. You do what you have to do even if it seems hopeless.

  Sam Messer

  Answers, Addresses, Way

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• Women to whom one has just been introduced think that it breaks the ice if they scream, 'Goodness, you're tall!' How would they like it if I broke the ice first, by screaming 'Goodness, what thick ankles!' or 'Goodness, what a bust!

  Tyrone Guthrie

  Thinking, Ice, Ankles

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• Work can only be universal if it is rooted in a part of its creator which is most privately and particularly himself.

  Tyrone Guthrie

  Work, Creator, Universal

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• Even if so inclined, an artist has no business to marry. For a man, it may be well enough, but for a woman, on whom matrimonial duties and cares weigh more heavily, it is a moral wrong, for she must either neglect her family, or her profession.

  Harriet Hosmer

  Artist, Men, Care

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• If you don't know how to look, you'll end up putting down the wrong things, which only dilutes or cancels the power of your artwork.

  George L. Carlson

  Looks, Ends, Artwork

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• The best ideas come unexpectedly from a conversation or a common activity like watering the garden. These can get lost or slip away if not acted on when they occur.

  Ruth Asawa

  Garden, Ideas, Common

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• Eliminate the impossible. Then if nothing remains, some part of the 'impossible' was possible.

  Anthony Boucher

  Impossible, Remains

  Rocket to the Morgue Interlude (1942) See Arthur Conan Doyle 10

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• Today, I will try to remember to regret the past. I will think of how many mistakes I have made throughout my life. I will say to myself, "If only I could go back in time and make different choices, so that my life could be the way it should have been." Then I will remind myself that I cannot.

  John S. Hall

  Regret, Mistake, Past

  "Daily Negations". Book by John S. Hall, 2007.

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• Tonight, I should watch the sun set, and think of the impending darkness as a metaphor for my wasted life: once it was bright, and full of potential, and now it is dark and hopeless and bleak. I should not make the mistake of thinking that the moon and the stars represent slim glimmers of hope, or evidence that there is light on the other side. Even if there is light somewhere I will never walk in it again.

  John S. Hall

  Stars, Mistake, Dark

  "Daily Negations". Book by John S. Hall, 2007.

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• In the editing process, I delete what I do not want to use, move what remains around if necessary and add elements that I feel will make my visual statement as clear and understandable as possible.

  Gerald Brommer

  Moving, Editing, Add

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• If an artist and a scientist have a common point, it is probably in the need for some kind of imaginative thinking to interpret the material they have.

  Catherine Yass

  Artist, Thinking, Needs

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• If you've got a deadline and you're an artist, you've just got to be on the case - nothing else can come in the way, or you won't make good work... the people around you just have to understand.

  Catherine Yass

  Artist, People, Priorities

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• What you're always trying to achieve in a creative relationship is one that is egoless... ideas belong to the collective. If you can disassociate your own ego from your idea, then, almost always, everybody will arrive at the same decision as to what is best.

  Dave Genn

  Ideas, Always Trying, Creative

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