What a neat thread. Here are two music quotes from sources I have forgotten:

An old acomplished artist once said of my work: "It dies of borning." Refering to a passage that I had worked to death.

Speaking of the synergy of music and painting....

Once Miles Davis overheard a musician knocking another for being too derivative--too much an unoriginal reflection of his influences--and in an uncharacteristically (for him) generous moment, said:

"Well, it takes a long time to learn to play like yourself."

To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labor.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson ~

I had mentioned the book [url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0894718347/astrokeofgeniusA/]Leonardo Da Vinci

This is a correction to a previous post. This is the corrected quote.

"Art is a form of self mastery."

Nietzsche

Do not be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated.
You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.

David Lloyd George

--from an article in the current New Yorker magazine, which recounts the anecdote that Winslow Homer tried to 'keep inquisitive ladies away from his outdoor easel' by posting a sign nearby that read "Snakes! Mice!"

I am entranced when I have the privilege of access to a Vandercook printing press, such as those at many regional centers for books arts, under the wing of the Library of Congress' Center for Book Arts. What finally led me to this was probably the experience thirty years earlier, carving linoleum blocks for printmaking in a high school art class.

Now, though it's been years since I set type by hand, I'm still very keen on woodblock printing. (This is what I've been doing again lately.) If you live long enough (to make as many mistakes as I have), you begin to discover parallels in everything (the glorious benefit of living this long), and I thought I'd pass along an observation from George A. Walker, the author of an eminent introduction to woodcut artistry.

I think you can get away with a lot of drawing and color-match failures in art, including portraiture, but I'm familiar with very few successful artists who can get away with omitting what Walker is talking about here -- contrast. Whether it's white paper and black ink, or warm and cool temperatures in hue, or soft and hard edges, or gradations in value in an appropriate range, I have come to believe that contrast is the coin of the realm when it comes to paying your way in art.

Again, this is written to woodcut artists, but it's broadly instructive:

"If you see it, draw it. If you don't see it, don't draw it."
 

James Finley lived at a Trappist monastery under the instruction of Thomas Merton. In a recording of his book, Thomas Merton's Path to the Palace of Nowhere , Finley recounts this event, which so exactly described my experience in taking drawing and painting instruction, that I thought it worthwhile to transcribe it here for those who might be interested:

[QUOTE]I once attended an art class by Frederick Franck, who wrote a book called

Ditto Steven, here's some more to expand on this:

All of us are watchers

Let there be Light
 

An extraordinary poem about light, featured on today's "Writer's Almanac." (For those not familiar with it, "Writer's Almanac" is a daily "literary moment" produced for public radio and distributed throughout the U.S.)



Light, at Thirty-Two
by Michael Blumenthal
from Days We Would Rather Know


It is the first thing God speaks of
when we meet Him, in the good book
of Genesis. And now, I think
I see it all in terms of light:

How, the other day at dusk
on Ossabaw Island, the marsh grass
was the color of the most beautiful hair
I had ever seen, or how

"The perceptual and the rational are qualitatively different, but are not divorced from each other; they are unified on the basis of practice. Our practice proves that what is perceived cannot at once be comprehended and that only what is comprehended can be more deeply perceived. Perception only solves the problem of phenomena; theory alone can solve the problem of essence. The solving of both these problems is not separable in the slightest degree from practice. Whoever wants to know a thing has no way of doing so except by coming into contact with it, that is, by living (practicing) in its environment."

Karin said something close to above paragraph.

Comments from writer Elizabeth Gilbert ("Eat, Pray, Love") about times when lack of recognition and financial success in your creative efforts leaves you feeling resentful, discouraged or unappreciated: [QUOTE]

Originality
 

From Robert Henri, in The Art Spirit

"Don't worry about your originality. You could not get rid of it even if you wanted to. It will stick to you and show you up for better or worse in spite of all you or anyone else can do."

"After you die
they'll be valuable,"
he tells the painter.

--Anon.

from Haiku Humor

"Ha! all you
critics and collectors --
I'm taking them with!"

-- I reply

Compromise?
 

This came on a day when I was beginning to consider getting a full time job and making some real money...

"Don't compromise, you're all you've got" - Janis Joplin


Who needs alot of money? It'll come....

3000 Proverbs
 

An artist lives everywhere.
Art is long, but life is short.

From 3000 PROVERBS
http://club.learning.sohu.com/r-engl...5-24-88-0.html

SB,
I liked # 2514. To see is to understand.

"When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss money."

Oscar Wilde

"When two friends have a common purse, one sings and the other weeps."

"Who holds the purse rules the house.
The love of money and the love of learning rarely meet.
Wisdom is more to be envied than riches."

http://megan915.tripod.com/meggiesfavoritequotes/

"Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up for work."

--Chuck Close

http://www.best-quotes-poems.com/Pablo-Picasso.html

We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given to us to understand.
Pablo Picasso

Bad artists copy. Good artists steal.
Pablo Picasso

Action is the foundational key to all success.
Pablo Picasso

Give me a museum and I'll fill it.
Pablo Picasso

The world today doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?
Pablo Picasso

To copy others is necessary, but to copy oneself is pathetic.
Pablo Picasso

Every positive value has its price in negative terms... the genius of Einstein leads to Hiroshima.
Pablo Picasso

Are we to paint what's on the face, what's inside the face, or what's behind it?
Pablo Picasso

Everything you can imagine is real.
Pablo Picasso

Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.
Pablo Picasso

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.
Pablo Picasso

It takes a long time to become young.
Pablo Picasso

Who sees the human face correctly: the photographer, the mirror, or the painter?
Pablo Picasso

It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.
Pablo Picasso

Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing? Can one really explain this? no. Just as one can never learn how to paint.
Pablo Picasso

I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.
Pablo Picasso

To draw you must close your eyes and sing.
Pablo Picasso

I don't believe in accidents. There are only encounters in history. There are no accidents.
Pablo Picasso

"Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic."

--Dave Barry

(I think this applies to art as well.)

About that Ark
 

Hi Tom, from Salisbury NC. I haven't been here for awile . Just wanted to say that your quote about the Ark and the Titanic couldn't have come at a better time for me. I have projects in my head and feeling a bit doubtful on some of thes. I will tack that one on my PC to view everyday. Hope you are good. I see where you are teaching but can't make it myself. Would you consider teaching in Salsibury, NC. Maybe we could bet something going?
Patt