Eric Maisel Quotes
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Chaos is everywhere - and artists, to fashion art and live truthfully, have no choice but to invite this unwanted guest right into the studio.
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You can't plan in advance for everything - every mood swing, every mistake you might make in execution, every shift in your circumstances. But you can keep updating your plan.
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The artist must possess at least as much conviction as does his enemy, the dogmatic, mealy-mouthed, anti-art bigot.
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Settle into mystery as you would settle into your most comfortable chair. Listen. Have visions. Lose yourself.
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The artist, who must venture into the studio and risk there, and then venture into the marketplace and risk again, is obliged to learn how her defences work, so that she can drop and raise her guard instantly.
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A key to a long, productive writing life is finding ways to support that life, emotionally and existentially.
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There are an infinite number of rewards you could bestow on yourself for working at your creative projects, and you deserve every one of them.
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Boredom is the thing that regularly arrives between excitements and episodes of meaning: it is as natural as the tides, and in it an artist can drown.
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Ambition is vital, but dangerous: it is a keen motive and a driving force, but over what edge can it drive the artist?
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Dream, but expect nothing. Desire, but expect nothing. Hope, but expect nothing. Release your need to control and gain real control.
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A composition is an arrangement, built out of parts, that aims at seamlessness.
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To obsess too virulently is to walk alone in anxiety. But to obsess too little is to wall oneself off from one's own creativity.
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The wise artist makes peace with the fact that he will understand less than he had anticipated.
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Rekindling hope, engaging in inner work, and venturing into the world amount to a complete plan for picking yourself up when you're down.
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When a thing is not done, continuing to work is the strength; but when it is done, the strength lies in stopping.
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An artist must struggle to accept the shape of this universe - and achieve some important successes.
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Even though we require flexibility to negotiate our changing circumstances, we are rather built to anxiously turn away from alternatives.
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Hurray for criticism, if it means that an artist's voice is heard. Let the wise artist invite criticism and survive it when it comes.
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Whatever pain and suffering you've experienced in your life has been a blessing at least in this one regard: you now know some true things that you couldn't have learned any other way.
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Keenly aware of their limitations, artists often remain insecure even as their list of successes grows.
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The artist dreams of works of real breadth; but, limited by his personality and the nature of his medium, limited by inner disturbances and loss of purpose, he often works more narrowly than he'd intended.
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Isn't today a day to devote to craft? Isn't tomorrow? Isn't every day, routinely, until the end of time?
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When you flow like water you bring all of your talents and resources to your creative work... Flow around every obstacle you encounter, including any you've erected yourself.
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I am a human being and an artist: I really, simply, surely am.