Greg Lake Quotes

In reality, however, an artist is a product of art

Most people think an artist tries to be original, but originality is the last thing that develops in the artist.

What an artist learns matters little. What he himself discovers has a real worth for him, and gives him the necessary incitement to work.

I'm still finding myself as an artist. I'm still experimenting a little bit.

I am just beginning to understand what it is to paint. A painter should have two lives, one in which to learn, and one in which to practice his art.

I'm a sponge, the more I absorb, the more I am able to articulate my vision, as artists do, like Picasso. I'm an artist in that light. I went from being an artist to an artiste.

I think any good artist - and I'm not saying that I am one - takes notes and should first emulate their heroes and then try to move beyond them.

No doubt, it is useful for an artist to know all the forms of art which have preceded or which accompany his. That is a sign of strength if it is a question of looking for a stimulus or recognizing mistakes he must avoid.

At first you're doing it for yourself, it's about what sounds good to you. It's about expressing yourself. Then you get comfortable as an artist and you find yourself and people get familiar.

That's what's great about the arts. Everything inspires you, and you get a chance to grow from watching other people and how they do their work.

The more I grow as an artist, the more I think I become like my father as an artist. The more I diversify, the more I become like my father, which is true to who he was.

I never thought I'd be a role model but I think to some people I am or have been.

When I started out, I was definitely writing about experiences that I hadn't had yet. The songs were just based on my influences, songwriters that had written songs before me and that were more experienced and 20, 30 years older than me.

I get to study and I got to mimic and what I basically did was I stole from every person that I could steal from. I was an imitator. That's what I was. It was years before I could take all of these things that I loved about all of these different artists and put them together and find my voice.

All artists are people of growth. It's like food, you take the good and leave the rest.

I don't really have a historical overview of my work at all. I'm not an art historian. I don't see that there's this period and that period.

The ultimate point of a piece for me is that it drives the next one. Does it open new doors? That's the success of a piece.

My best efforts were some modern things that looked like very lousy Matisses. Thank God I had the sense to realize they were lousy, and leave Paris.

The artist is an educator of artists of the future who are able to understand and in the process of understanding perform unexpected - the best - evolutions.

I think if you're writing from the heart, very often, the subject matter will adjust as you age... but you try to write the best song you can possibly write. For us, we have the same basic elements that make up the America sound.

I take this art very seriously and passionately. I love what I do. You can't help but grow. That's not to say you don't make mistakes or make bad choices, but that's part of the art. Painters paint bad paintings.

For the last three years, I've been working on 'Bromst,' and that's all that encompassed my brain. And now that it's out, it will change the way that I think musically.

When I was 17, I met many artists, and it started to become this conversation with artists out of which all of my exhibitions grew.

The little dissatisfaction which every artist feels at the completion of a work forms the germ of a new work.

I guess that in this process of trying to incorporate or to be faithful to the films I admire so much, that's how I start to find my own voice. The admiration I have for filmmakers, this gratitude, perhaps that's my only way to become specific.