Jamie Wyeth Quotes

When you make an album, you have to decide how much you want to give away; you have to decide how much you want to open up. Because the more you open up the more rewarding it can be but the more dangerous it can be. If you really open up and it gets panned it's really painful.

In art, the only one who really knows whether what you've done is honest is the artist.

I want to paint. That is probably going to sound so pretentious coming from someone who's been a musician.

I'm always looking for something that's real and that's got meat on it. I think it's artistic suicide if you're too vain, or if you're afraid to play ugly. I would never fall for that.

The gamble of literature is that I make the best work I can; the most truthful, the most representative of how I see things. I try and do that, and then I put it out there and say to you, 'What do you think?' I hope that you think well of it, obviously.

I've got a long list of things I consider to be selling out. But amongst that list, one of them is when you make art without putting your guard down.

Your art is most alive and dangerous when you use it against yourself. That's why I pick at my scabs.

The simple truth is that being a creative artist takes courage; it’s not a job for the faint of heart. It takes courage each and every time you put a book or poem or painting before the public, because it is, in fact, enormously revealing.

There is no fate more distressing for an artist than to have to show himself off before fools, to see his work exposed to the criticism of the vulgar and ignorant.

I am uncomfortable talking about the things that I write. It seems unseemly to me. I have no problem at all when I see anybody else talking about the same project, but I feel my work should speak for itself.

While I hope that people like my work, I don't think an artist should be afraid of ­people not liking his work.

I have the most openness about my art... It's total freedom and willingness to work. I'm willing really to walk on the edge, and if I haven't achieved it, that's where I want to go. But in my life - maybe because my life has been so traumatic, so absurd - there hasn't been one normal, happy thing.

Everyone sort of has that voice of self-doubt in their head, but as an artist, you relinquish your right to have that voice.

I think one thing that's amazing about 'Resurrection' is that we weren't afraid to lay it all out there lyrically.

I always like to vent and tell the truth in my music.

Pain's always been the root of my music. I just write what I feel.

For me, there's no point in being an artist and putting yourself out there if you're not going to really put yourself out there.

I'm artistically critical of my own work.

My favourite artists are the ones who are human, and you know they're not in a failure-proof environment.

I'm just a perpetually confused and terrified person that is trying to be less so all the time, and music is the byproduct of that.

The job of the artist is to go to the places where most other people are embarrassed to go to. And show it.

Art should be able to be innovative without compromising itself. That's why I believe artists should have bigger preoccupations than checking the price tags on their work or becoming curators' darlings.

I'm not just making rhymes and making melodies. I'm expressing my true life force, energy.

My independent songs are actually about me, so if you really want to know me, listen to my songs and know what I have been through in my life.

I've been painting all my life, and I'm serious about it. I use it as more or less an outlet.