Mickalene Thomas Quotes

I have two daughters, and they grew up and wanted to get into Instagram, and I didn't know anything about social media. I started it to learn about what they were starting to do and how they communicate with their friends. I opened an account. Very fast, in a few hours, I realized that I actually liked it.

I don't think you can tell somebody how they should collect. I think it's just about being turned on by art.At the end of the day, some people just kind of get it. They don't all get it in the same way or get the same artists, but it's a journey that excites them.

I'm not on Twitter. In theory, I really like Instagram. I think it's a warmer environment. I think, though conversations can erupt that aren't always friendly, you have an opportunity to jump in and redirect and even caution people against language and behavior that I personally object to.

Way, way back in the day, like in the 1990s, if you wanted to tell everyone you ate waffles for breakfast, you couldn’t just go on the Internet and tweet it out. There was only one way to do it. You had to go outside and scream at the top of your lungs, 'I ate waffles for breakfast!' That’s why so many people ended up in institutions. They seemed crazy, but when you think about it, they were just ahead of their time.

Instagram is a media company. I think we're about visual media. I explain ourselves as a disruptive entertainment platform that enables communication through visual media. I don't think it's just photos. There's a reason we don't allow you to upload photos on the Web as albums. It's not about taking all these photos off your DSLR putting them into an album and sharing them with your family. It's not about that. It's about what are you up to right now out in the real world, how can you share that with everyone.

I think there's confusion around what the point of social networks is. A lot of different companies characterized as social networks have different goals - some serve the function of business networking, some are media portals. What we're trying to do is just make it really efficient for people to communicate, get information and share information.

The thing I really like about Twitter is the speed with which information reaches me. You find out things from Twitter long before they're on the news. That I think is valuable. In terms of actually tweeting myself, I have just lost enthusiasm for it. Maybe I'll do some of it this week to tell people about the PEN Festival and encourage them to show up.

Twitter is most suitable for me. In the Chinese language, 140 characters is a novella.

I like to think of myself as a fiction writer who liked art enough to write about it for a while, and then went on to his fiction.

Sometimes I find myself at three o'clock in the morning painting something and throwing things around and seeing what works. I'd like to properly study fine art. I think it would be quite an interesting endeavor.

The character of the artist doesn't enter into the nature of the art. Eliot said that art is the escape from personality, which I think is right. We know that Velázquez embezzled money from the Spanish court and wanted power and so on, but you can't see this in his art.

On the Facebook side, I think it's a bit of an evolution, in that that company, which has clearly done amazing things, was, I believe, as an outsider looking in, was founded on a culture that was obsessive about the users. And they built a service that is very valuable for users, and that is to be applauded.

It present to allow me to ask myself questions about what I'm doing. I think that's what visual art does - it either reminds you of something or allows you to question something. I don't know why Robert Motherwell; I love so many different artists.

I don't think anybody has a choice. Everybody has to kind of interact with all the craziness right now. I don't like to engage - a lot of people made a point of doing the social media thing, and I think that social media is complete trash, so I treat it like that. I like Instagram. I like the funny photos. Other than that, it's not for me.

Eloquence is a painting of thought; and thus those who, after having painted it, add something more, make a picture instead of a portrait.

I think art is sublimated libido. You can’t be a eunuch priest, and you can’t be a eunuch artist.

I think sometimes writers must attempt to communicate the incommunicable, because, whether they wish it or not, they're the ones to whom it falls.

I think MySpace is doomed, I give them about two more years.... I think Facebook is the next Microsoft in both the bad and the good senses. That's an amazing company that is going to do a lot of good and bad things.

When I can see someone that's posting the way that they're thinking about what's happening in the world right now or even art that they've created, it inspires me to do the same. It makes me turn off my phone and go paint a painting or go hike a mountain or go record a song. Those are the kind of things that social media helps me do. But it also can make me sit in my room and not do anything.

Art is both creation and recreation. Of the two ideas, I think art as recreation or as sheer play of the human spirit is more important.

I think it was Henry Moore who was asked where he got his ideas for his sculptures, and he said something like, "I continue to do as an adult the things I did as a child." I think that's what art is about.

I think that artists don't make art - the art makes itself through us. I'm not the doer. I'm just along for the ride. Acting really reminds me of that because I don't write the words; I don't make the decisions. That's the director. Narcissism is a tragic condition. It must be so miserable to live trapped in a reflection that only includes the smallest version of our identities. Our true identities should have no bounds and no limits.

What is abnormal in Life stands in normal relations to Art. It is the only thing in Life that stands in normal relations to Art.

Well, it's one of the things that will. Words are good, and words help us become the leading species on earth to the point where we are now ready to wipe ourselves off the earth. But I think that all the arts are needed, and sports too, and cooking, food, and all these different ways of communication. Smiles, looking into eyes directly, all these different means of communication are needed to save this world. But certainly a great melody

What makes someone an artist? I don't think is has anything to do with a paintbrush. There are painters who follow the numbers, or paint billboards, or work in a small village in China, painting reproductions. These folks, while swell people, aren't artists. On the other hand, Charlie Chaplin was an artist, beyond a doubt. So is Jonathan Ive, who designed the iPod. You can be an artist who works with oil paints or marble, sure. But there are artists who work with numbers, business models, and customer conversations. Art is about intent and communication, not substances.