Alex Grey Quotes

Music is the doorway that has led me to drawing, photography, and writing.

I don't believe that a writer does something wonderful spontaneously. I believe it's the result of years of living, of study, reading, his very personality and temperament. At one particular moment, all these come together and the artist 'expresses' himself.

I always say, and I truly believe this, that my work is three steps ahead of me. I have an idea for something and I tend to feel like it's leading me and I'll follow the process through, and it's not until after I've seen it that I truly understand why I'm doing this.

I've always felt that there's a point where a piece seems to be alive, that is, living. And that's the point where I know the composition is finished.

You know creators, composers, need a palette for life, a color for life.

When I go into the studio, I completely detach. I let my emotions come out.

I don't start a piece knowing exactly what effect it's going to have. There is a seed of an idea that I could never articulate, right at the beginning of the piece, literally like one cell.

In any art, you don't know in advance what you want to say - it's revealed to you as you say it. That's the difference between art and illustration.

Like all artists, I go through creative spurts.

The real composer thinks about his work the whole time; he is not always conscious of this, but he is aware of it later when he suddenly knows what he will do.

One does not set out with the idea that I've just had a great idea and now I'm going to go and carry it out. Almost all art that's made like that doesn't go anywhere.

I just create, that's what I do.

I believe sometimes we aren't always in charge of everything that we do creatively. We submit to things as we're going on our own journey.

Your creativity before it gets formed into words and songs is the actual substance. No one else can see it, right? Unless you give it the shape of a song or a painting or whatever.

Asking an artist to talk about his work is like asking a plant to discuss horticulture.

I do not see the process of blogging as a separate thing from creating art. This is in part why I do not like to be known for being a 'blogger,' as this is just one form of output for creative ideas.

I've never been a very prolific person, so when creativity flows, it flows. I find myself scribbling on little notepads and pieces of loose paper, which results in a very small portion of my writings to ever show up in true form.

Like Picasso, I go through blue periods, green periods, or grey periods.

Maybe some people, when they sit down to write their great novel or make their great record or paint their great painting, they have it all planned out in their head. But for me, it's never worked that way.

Every artiste has a process.

Even if you're not releasing songs, the act of creativity is important. That's the part I love, when you're in the moment. The rest of it I'm not particularly interested in at all.

The joy of the creative process, minute by minute, hour after hour, day by day, is the sublime path to true happiness.

Personally, I have had sometimes moments where I thought my idea behind the idea of a collection - the concept maybe - something that we don't see at the end on the catwalk, I think the way it was, the genesis in my mind, was probably artistic, an artistic approach.

I couldn't have written things like 'Low' and 'Heroes,' those particular albums, if it hadn't have been for Berlin and the kind of atmosphere I felt there.

Since age seven, I've been composing and have never stopped composing, yet, the creative process is as elusive to me as it has ever been.