Real artists find answers. The knowledge of the artisan is within the confines of his skills. For example, I know a lot about lenses, about the editing room. I know what the different buttons on the camera are for. I know more or less how to use a microphone. I know all that, but that's not real knowledge. Real knowledge is knowing how to live, why we live, things like that.
I think I misunderstood Instagram and just thought it was people photographing their friends, and discovered there were a number of people, a number of artists, who were taking it very seriously and doing very imaginative work with Instagram as the medium.
Artists are traditionally resistant to labels.
An artist spends himself like the crayon in his hand, till he is all gone.
I think I was probably an early teenager when I discovered Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and a bunch of people that are on a long list of artists. They were important to me, especially as an early adolescent.
Science will. . . produce the data. . . , but never the full meaning. For perceiving real significance, we shall need. . . most of all the brains of poets, [and] also those of artists, musicians, philosophers, historians, writers in general.
Sometimes as actors and artists, we don't really get to be an effective and integral part of the promotional process, other than doing interviews. With Twitter and Facebook now, and all of this stuff, it really allows us to play and have fun, vis-à-vis the pictures that I send out on Twitter every day, or little videos, or whatever it is.
Most of the methods of training the conscious side of the writer-the craftsman and the critic in him- are actually hostile to the good of the artist's side; and the converse of this proposition is likewise true. But it is possible to train both sides of the character to work in harmony, and the first step in that education is to consider that you must teach yourself not as though you were one person, but two.
It seems to me that what the artist sees is the simple and obvious that is invisible to everybody else.
Color helps to express light, not the physical phenomenon, but the only light that really exists, that in the artist's brain.
It is surprising that people do not believe that there is imagination in science. It is a very interesting kind of imagination, unlike that of the artist. The great difficulty is in trying to imagine something that you have never seen, that is consistent in every detail with what has already been seen, and that is different from what has been thought of; furthermore, it must be definite and not a vague proposition. That is indeed difficult.
I think most artists would be happy to have bigger audiences rather than smaller ones. It doesn't mean that they are going to change their work in order necessarily to get it, but they're happy if they do get it.
Let's talk about the Gas Company because this is my favorite job.
We artists have the dignity to tell the truth to the people, unlike politicians.
I believe the media pretty much dictates the way relationships are handled, even in the way we handle ourselves. Abuse, cheating, threesomes, it's inspired by music and television. Irresponsible artists and writers with a hidden agenda, just working against the moral fabric that God intended for us to have.
Nowadays, if you're a great artist, you don't have to leave the house, which is a really big difference. You're closer to the artist. And the artist can be closer to their artistry without having to always worry about branding themselves or building something image-wise.
What the really great artists do is they're entirely themselves. They're entirely themselves, they've got their own vision, they have their own way of fracturing reality, and if it's authentic and true, you will feel it in your nerve endings.
If an artist tells you "this is an oak tree," then it better be an oak tree. It's how you proclaim things; if you say "the silence is the music," then it's the music.
I was backstage at the House of Blues in L. A where I was about to perform, and Stevie Wonder and Prince turned up at my dressing room together! Stevie started beat boxing and Prince started singing one of my songs, all of a sudden it was like I was in a cypher with these incredible artists.
You've rarely got an artist that's not being chauffeured into the business by some huge-ass names.