“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and somthing else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.” ~ Chuck Close
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
"Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work."
I came across this fantastic quote today, capturing something which I've always found to be true. I think I can now add this as a second item to the list of things I find to be true in the workplace. The first is that the relentless pursuit of simplicity is the only weapon we have against the complexity of what we are trying to achieve.
“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and somthing else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.” ~ Chuck Close
“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and somthing else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.” ~ Chuck Close
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4 comments:
"the relentless pursuit of simplicity is the only weapon we have against the complexity of what we are trying to achieve."
Tempted to steal that as a quote to start my PhD thesis I'm about to hand in! Better ask here first... zat OK? May not, but that's awesome.
I'd be honoured! (no pun intended) ... steal away
Should also note: it's a good description of how Jane Jacobs theorises economic growth: an almost accidental process... where's the quote... ah yes:
"the process is full of surprises and is hard to predict - possibly it is unpredictable - before it has happened... " She likens it to art: "What kind of logic is this? It is analogous, I think, to a form of logic, or intuition if you prefer, that artists use. Artists often comment that although they are masters of the work they are creating, they are also alert to messages that come from the work, and act upon them. Perhaps a similar rapport is necessary in the more mundane process of adding new work to old. At any rate, messages - that is, suggestions - afforded by the parent work seem to be vital to the process."
Jane Jacobs, The Economy of Cities (Vintage Books USA, 1970).
p.59.
p.s. I say steal, I'd reference you of course!
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