Willem de Kooning Quotes

But where there is no art show, I would still be painting.

When I was in high school, I was going to be a painter because I had a facility for painting. I could do it, but I didn't have anything to say in that medium.

When I got into art school, I thought it was paradise. I wanted to be an artist so much that I was really driven and nothing could stop me.

Color possesses me. I don't have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Color and I are one. I am a painter.

I've never said, 'I live for art.'

I really want to continue doing art. I would love to go back to doing paintings one day.

My passion for painting is so sacred and personal to me.

Only be an artist if you have no choice!

I never knew what my role in art was, because I was such a deep appreciator and such a passionate appreciator. But every time I would try to sit down and be an illustrator or painter, it was just not my best use.

That's the difference between the serious artist and the craftsman--the craftsman can take material and because of his abilities do a professional job of it. The serious artist, like Proust, is like an object caught by a wave and swept to shore. He's obsessed by his material; it's like a venom working in his blood and the art is the antidote.

My primary thing is to make a painting, not necessarily to make a painting to sell for gazillions of dollars, but just to make a painting.

Not that painting would have been a release. The reason for doing it is the desire to create. I've got to do it! I've seen that, I can still remember it, I've got to paint it.

I want to create a thousand paintings, maybe two thousand paintings, as many as I can draw.

I knew I wanted to be an artist, but I didn't really know what it was I wanted to say.

I'm not looking to be an artist to make money. I'm looking to be an artist.

Because fashion essentially is art, and as an artist and someone who is also a musician and an artist in regards to drawing and painting, anything I can do that expresses my feelings is something I'm really drawn to.

I never thought about doing anything other than making art.

Well, one always has an instinct to be a painter, and I've done quite a lot of painting at one time or another, though not with any public success.

When you are older, you realise that everything else is just nothing compared to painting and drawing.

I don't want to be a film-maker. I think painting is far more exciting and profound.

A secondhand wardrobe hand clothes doesn't make one an artist. Neither do a hair-trigger temper, melancholic nature, propensity for tears, hating your parents, or HIV. I hate to say it - none of these make one an artist. They can help, but just as being gay doesn't make one witty... the only thing that makes one an artist is making art.

I barely knew I wanted to be an artist. I liked my art classes and painting was fun, I guess, but I didn't realize that seeing the country was going to inspire me to further explore that... but that's what it did.

Painting constantly appeared to me as the one and only possible achievement.

In my experience a painting is not made with colors and paint at all. I don't know what a painting is; who knows what sets off even the desire to paint?

I hate to sound like a romantic adolescent, but I believe artists don't generally see art as a career choice; they simply can't overcome their desire to make art, and will live on little income for as long as they have to, before they start to sell their work - or give up and get a paying job.