Kiki Smith Quotes

I write songs, and I sing them. I never formulated a plan; I can't tell anyone else how to do this. But it feels right, so I just kind of enjoy it and get on with it.

I love art so much because of curiosity. At the start of a painting, I know 10 percent of what the painting will be, and then I have to improvise the whole thing.

People go, 'What do you want to do?' What do you want to do? What are you feeling? Going into a shoot not fully knowing what I want to do—that excitement, that thing that happens, is just so powerful and makes such great pictures.

You will recognize your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need.

I've always been somebody who, when I started a picture, never knew what the next picture would be.

The more I see and know about life, the more ideas I have and the more I want to make art.

Every human is an artist. The dream of your life is to make beautiful art.

When you do not know what you are doing and what you are doing is the best - that is inspiration.

I know my choices will be creative so long as I follow my heart.

I don't know what the secret is when I am writing it - it really is a surprise to me.

I come in. I'm going to sketch, I'm going to drape, I don't know what I'm going to do.

I never know what I'm going to write next, and when I think I do I usually turn out to be mistaken.

Life is not an exact science, it is an art.

If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.

Growing up, I think I always had a sense of art: a sense that there was poetry in the world. I didn't know where I was going to find it. I didn't know where I was going to fit in, that was for sure. But I kept moving forward. There wasn't a future in anything other than movement.

What you need to be a good photographer is an overwhelming curiosity and a good digestion. Sometimes you feel blessed with curiosity, sometimes you feel cursed with it.

I knew I wanted to be creative but didn't know how.

Art is lunging forward without certainty about where you are going or how to get there, being open to and dependent on what luck, the paint, the typo, the dissonance, give you. Without art you're stuck with yourself as you are and life as you think life is.

While drawing, I discover what I really want to say.

I am a very curious person, not just about my life in music. I love arts and creativity.

I'm not going to be like, "I gotta get this idea out of my head." It's like, "OK, here's a clean slate, and I've got all these paints, and all these brushes, and this is what I'm going to do with it." It reveals itself, and you take a step back and say, "What's happening here? Where are we going? What does this mean? Do I need to break it open? Does it need to just be what it is? Should it end now?"

I never think of the completed film, rather the adventure of what I'm about to live.

None of us understand what we're doing, but we do beautiful things anyway.

The most important thing is to keep creating and following my inklings as they come into being and acting on them.

Poems come out of wonder, not out of knowing.