Georgia O'Keeffe Quotes

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?

Usually when I draw, I try to be in a contemplative mood. I try to keep my mind as empty, vacant and tranquil as possible. The outer mind is like the surface of the sea. On the surface, the sea is full of waves and surges; it is all restlessness. But when we dive deep below, the same sea is all peace, calmness and quiet, and there we find the source of creativity.

I've often hesitated in beginning a project because I've thought, 'It'll never turn out to be even remotely like the good idea I have as I start.' I could just 'feel' how good it could be. but I decided that, for the present, I would create the best way I know how and accept the ambiguities.

A necessary process for the artist is one which begins with a point of view, a reaction to the environment, to people, to whatever it is one is concerned with.

As an artist you organize your life so that you get a chance to paint, a window of time, but that's no guarantee you'll create anything worth all your effort. You're always haunt by the idea you're wasting your life.

This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don’t. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete.

A GREAT PAINTER will know a great deal about how he did it, but still he will say, “How did I do it?

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.

There are, it seems, two muses: The Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say, 'It is yet more difficult than you thought.' It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.

The most emotional part is when I go into my studio every day and pretty much never have an idea of what's gonna happen.

Everybody faces a blank piece of paper, no matter what they've written or painted or composed before. I can't imagine approaching every single new project with-without doubt.

I'm very interested to see how this new painting will go - I know I want it big and stark, and as I said, I follow the muse, and that's when it always works perfectly for me.

I don't know what a painting is; who knows what sets off even the desire to paint? It might be things, thoughts, a memory, sensations, which have nothing to do directly with painting itself. They can come from anything and anywhere.

Sometimes I see it and then paint it. Other times I paint it and then see it. Both are impure situations, and I prefer neither.

I pick up inspiration from everywhere and it all manages to keep stored in my brain somewhere.

A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.

You have to have conviction and completely question everything and anything you do. No matter how much you study, no matter how much you know, the side of your brain that has the smarts won't necessarily help you in making art.

A good artist has less time than ideas.

The artist is the medium between his fantasies and the rest of the world.

Any art worth its name requires you to be fundamentally lost for a very long time.

An artist is always alone - if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness.

I can concentrate on my art.

If Monsieur X spent an eternity studying treatises on optics, he would never paint 'La Grande Jatte.'

As I get on and films take four years to complete, I tend to have a hankering for very short projects so you can move on to the next idea. It's the ideas I'm interested in. What comes out of your head.

People ask me, 'What's your next film?' And I never know.