Glenn Ligon Quotes

I know how difficult it is to make a career in the arts, but even if you don't make a career of it, don't lose it as a hobby. Artists often end up in jobs that have nothing to do with their art. But that side needs to be fulfilled - don't give it up.

I was always involved in art and when I went under contract at Warner Bros. at 18, it afforded me the possibility of never having to stop painting, never having to stop taking photographs and so on, and to actually live a cultural life.

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

I don't like to say I have given my life to art. I prefer to say art has given me my life.

All the traumas I went through separating art from writing don't exist anymore. That's why I love being in rock 'n' roll. It's a whole life thing.

I always made stuff but never thought, I'm going to be an artist.

To be able to do art, it was a luxury to me.

In a lot of the art world, you have to present yourself as you know what you're doing at a young age. Music gave me another outlet. The 'no wave' bands were such an inspiration; it felt so free - once you start doing it, it's hard to stop. But I can't get away from art. It comes back around. I wouldn't be true to myself if I didn't pursue it.

My imagination can picture no fairer happiness than to continue living for art.

I want to write. I want to direct. I want to produce - I want to inhabit what I think it means to fully be an artist.

It is said an artist spends their whole life trying to get to the place where their heart was first opened up. 'Rent' was that place for me.

I used to tell everyone I met to be an artist..... I don't do that any more.

I attended the High School of Industrial Arts and studied with many great artists as painting is something that you never stop learning about. Actually, in high school there was a time that I was thinking about just concentrating on painting and I asked my music teacher, Mr. Sondberg, for advice and he encouraged me to stick with the music as well. So all my life I have been singing and painting.

My friend advised me to go into studying art, which at first shocked me because art was so easy. It was just something I did, like breathing or brushing my teeth. It couldn't be a job. I had a much more difficult time writing plays, making myself sit at that typewriter and finish those things.

I made a conscious decision to take my life and career in a different direction. I started working on a play, and also, by attending Burning Man for several years, I was incredibly stimulated by the art there. I increasingly wanted to be a part of it, and focused on what I wanted to say as an artist.

I just think that when you've been singing for 30 years, which I have been, you just want to find different things you can do with your voice. It's a constant journey. It's not like any one album that you make is who you are. It just reflects that particular day.

Love the art in yourself and not yourself in the art.

I was always artistic - right from childhood - but my love of painting came a bit later. It followed my love of music.

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

My life is in the art that I make, and I'm very happy with it.

It's a great challenge and a wonderful journey how to figure out how to be an artist and to carve my way.

I'm not an Expressionist. I love to look at de Kooning, but I've got this kind of secret life, and that is something that pleases me. I have to try and make something out of it.

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.

My artistic spirit is not nurtured by blogospheres.

If you practice an art, be proud of it and make it proud of you It may break your heart, but it will fill your heart before it breaks it; it will make you a person in your own right.