American Artist Quotes

The older I get, the one thing I can trust in myself more than anything else is the way I feel about something. When I photograph I try to be as aware of my feelings as I can be to somehow try and get them out of me and onto the film in terms of the way I am responding or seeing the world.

There is much wisdom that may be learned before a peat fire.

Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle

How to paint the landscape: First you make your bow to the landscape. Then you wait, and if the landscape bows to you, then, and only then, can you paint the landscape.

I once read in a Bible commentary that the word "Christian" means "little Christs." What an honor to share Christ's name! We can be bold to call ourselves Christians and bear the stamp of his character and reputation. When people find out the you are a Christian, they should already have an idea of who you are and what you are like simply because you bear such a precious name.

Joni Eareckson Tada

What we really want to do is serve happiness. We want everyone to be happy, never unhappy even for a moment. We want the animals to be happy. The happiness of every living thing is what we want.

I unconsciously decided that, even if it wasn't an ideal world, it should be. So I painted only the ideal aspects of it - pictures in which there are no drunken slatterns or self-centered mothers... only foxy grandpas who played baseball with the kids and boys who fished from logs and got up circuses in the backyard.

Norman Rockwell

Most of us are animal lovers. We insist that we love all animals equally - the hamster, the weasel, and the zebra - but if pressed, we will admit to being either a cat person or a dog person.

Nicole Hollander

I value the referential quality of art, the fact that a work can allude to things or states of being without in any way representing them.

It was clear, I was not Manet's type. Picasso—who had a way with women—only used me & Duchamp never even considered me.

Carrie Mae Weems

Beautiful view. Is there one for the enlisted men?

If I prove extravagant, I shall be more so from ignorance than willfulness. I am not wholly insensible to the pleasures of the world, therefore shall not be governed entirely by necessity; but I flatter myself, at least, in being able to restrain their gratification within due bonds.

Washington Allston

The Super-City, where everyone mutinies but no one deserts.

Harry Hershfield

His mother saw that he was not lonesome, and because she was an understanding mother, even though she was a cow, she let him just sit there and be happy.

Eventually I discovered for myself the utterly simple prescription for creativity; be intensely yourself. Don't try to be outstanding; don't try to be a success; don't try to do pictures for others to look at- just please yourself.

Success based on anything but internal fulfillment is bound to be empty.

Martha Friedman

A professor I had in college used to tell me that if someone won't listen to what you have to say because you're not wearing a tie, then put on a tie, 'cause what you have to say is more important than not wearing a tie. He was right.

I wanted to get it all down, maybe out of my system. I wanted to be able to say, Everything's possible-if you believe and can get excited.

But then, I am always being overwhelmed. I require it to sustain life.

Paintings are memories. Memories of the painter who painted them. Memories that can be shared as well. Paintings are things to remember things by.

James Rosenquist

Experience has shown that the more fascinating the subject, the less observant the photographer.

Andreas Feininger

There's an arc of being. There's a beginning, then the peak is reached and then there's the end. It's like the pole vaulter who begins his run, shoots up, then comes down. At the peak there is no movement. He's neither going up nor going down. It is that moment I wait for.

It's a mistake to ask a work of art to be all things to all people.

I TOOK THE PIECES YOU THREW AWAY AND
PUT THEM TOGATHER [sic] BY NIGHT AND DAY
WASHED BY RAIN DRIED BY SUN A MILLION PIECES ALL IN ONE

No to spectacle no to virtuosity no to transformations and magic and make believe no to glamour and transcendency of the star image no to the heroic no to the anti-heroic no to trash imagery no to involvement of performer or spectator no to style no to camp no to seduction of spectator by the wiles of the performer no to eccentricity no to moving or being moved.

A lot of my work has to do with not allowing my characters to have an ego in a way that the stomach doesn't have an ego when it's wanting to throw up. It just does it.