Artist Quotes
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Nowadays, an artist is someone who makes art mean the things he does.
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Gauguin says that when sailors have to move a heavy load or raise an anchor, they all sing together to keep them up and give them vim. That's just what artists lack!
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To be contemporary actually means to be an artist. [But] I do not feel contemporary in my work. I perceive my work as old-fashioned. It does not have a frame of actuality in our time or locality.
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Few artists have influenced the sound and trajectory of popular music more distinctly, or touched quite so many people with their talent. A strong spirit transcends rules,' Prince once said - and nobody's spirit was stronger, bolder, or more creative. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, his band, and all who loved him.
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An artist doesn't necesetharily have to get acclaim from the outside. Maybe it is much better if he can get validation from within.
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For a while I felt like I spoke a different language than my immediate family. It wasn't until my teens that I met and got to know better members of my extended family (my cousin Alma in particular) that self- identified as artists. Something in us clicked together; in the way we thought, in the language we chose to use, in what we enjoyed. She helped me see and appreciate a lot both about myself and my loved ones.
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Being an artist is a lifestyle.
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I've never been known as a riff kind of artist.
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I wish I was a great writer or a great journalist or a great scientist or a great artist; I'm not.
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I consider myself an artist. God granted me some gifts so that I could express myself artistically.
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As an artist, I think it's critical for keeping yourself alive that you try to get your hands into something a little bit more intensely. It's one of the reasons why I love theater because you never actually let go of it and it never feels like there's a tremendous distance between the process and the product.
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An artist's career doesn't happen in the cycle of one week of news. An artist's career happens in a lifetime, and if you're a true artist you're willing to die for what you believe in.
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I have to be really honest: People who say they can't escape the paparazzi are full of sh*t. Let me just be the artist to throw everybody under the bus. I don't spend lots of money on houses or lots of cars, but I do spend money on security and they never find me.
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True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.
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When I'm picking songs for an album I always want a song that I can relate to and that I have experienced. There's nothing worse than watching an artist try and sell a song that isn't believable coming from them.
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It's an extreme to go from an artist like myself to a commercial artist with art directors looking over your shoulder, or any other knucklehead telling you what your art should look like.
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Do you want to be an artist and a writer, or a wife and a lover? With kids, your focus changes. I don't want to go to PTA meetings.
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I want a performance style that's more cerebral and emotional than physical. I want to be a creative artist, not a whirling dervish.
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You can't change people's minds, we are not God. We can do our best to do what we do, whatever job we have to bring sort of goodness out there. But we can't change people. As an artist what I can do is to communicate!
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Sometimes touring can warp reality because you're never in one place long enough to get a feel for it. You don't interact with people long enough to know what real life is. That's why a lot of artists write songs about longing and missing people when they're on the road. I do my best to keep my mind open and I read a lot when I'm on tour, so I hope I have good things to write about. I'm constantly in the songwriting process.
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I put my name on that Occupy Musicians list because someone wrote to me and said, "Would you do this?" I said, "Yeah sure, I support this." What artist wouldn't support that? What's the big deal? But then people wrote to me, "Wow! You're on that list!" And I'm like, "Who isn't on that list?" That would be more shocking.
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A lot of artists use memories. A lot of prose writers, a lot of poets, a lot of songwriters, refer back to something. Generally it's all you've got, unless you're brilliant and can write totally in the now.
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I guess I cringe, because sometimes I don't even watch my live performances back. When I edit, it's this feeling of seeing my mistakes. It's always a mixture of loving characters, but being the artist that created it and not trying to go too deep in criticizing myself.
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In order to even begin to learn how to play his instrument, it takes the guitarist weeks to build calluses on his fingertips; it takes the saxophonist months to strengthen his lip so that he might play his instrument for only a five-minute stretch; it can take the pianist years to develop dual hand and multiple finger coordination. Why do writers assume they can just “write” with no training whatsoever-and then expect, on their first attempt, to be published internationally? What makes them think they're so much inherently greater, need so much less training than any other artists?
