What moves those of genius, what inspires their work is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.
I find in working always the disturbing intrusion of elements not a part of my most interested vision, and the inevitable obliteration and replacement of this vision by the work itself as it proceeds.
My friends and neighbors were always fixing their cars. Soldiers who felt restless wanted to work on something, and they understood cars. Me, I like to look at cars but I was never really a mechanic.
I don't look at the work of my contemporaries very much; I tend to look at pictures by dead artists. It's much easier to get near their paintings.
I like my drawings to be direct. I don't generally work on them for too long, but that doesn't mean that they are not works in their own right.
Today painters do not have to go to a subject matter outside of themselves. Most modern painters work from a different source. They work from within.
I guess I created LeRoy Neiman. Nobody else told me how to do it. Well, I'm a believer in the theory that the artist is as important as his work.
Usually I am on a work for a long stretch, until a moment arrives when the air of the arbitrary vanishes, and the paint falls into positions that feel destined.
Any system that sees aesthetics as irrelevant, that separates the artist from his product, that fragments the work of the individual, or creates by committee, or makes mincemeat of the creative process will, in the long run, diminish not only the pro...
I do everything. Of course, I have 50 people who work for me to do the drudgery of mold making and all the foundry. This is an enormous task. But every stroke in these sculptures is from my hands.
Sometimes when I walk into a gallery and I see someone's work, I think to myself, 'Gee, I wish I had done that.'
Association with my pupils has kept me young in my work. Criticism of their work has kept my own point of view clear.
When you work at a microscopic level, you have to control every part of your body movement - your fingertips, your joints, the pulse in your fingers.
It doesn't matter at all for me that I work in hospital or anywhere with limited space. Every day, I'm creating new works with all my might.
I make a point to never, ever point out my physical flaws... this is advice I give to women as often as I can. People don't notice the things we see in ourselves that we hate, so why direct them to it?
I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom; I am one who is fond of olden times and intense in quest of the sacred knowing of the ancients.
Een geboorte of een huwelijk mag dan een belangrijke gebeurtenis zijn, maar het garandeert geen plaats in het geheugen.' De hersens, een zeef. 'Knoop dat in uw oren: niets is zeker. Zeker is niets.
Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.
At times, I have been convinced that books hold all the material of life--at least all the stuff that fits between an A and a Z.
I feel that the essence of dance is the expression of man--the landscape of his soul. I hope that every dance I do reveals something of myself or some wonderful thing a human can be.
You can be Eastern or Burmese or what have you, but the function of the body and the awareness of the body results in dance and you become a dancer, not just a human being.
