Ellen Gallagher Quotes

My work is on the one hand laboured, and on the other completely happenstance and intuitive.

Making art is a lot about just seeing what happens if you put some energy into something.

I always have a good reason for taking something out but I never have one for putting something in. And I don't want to, because that means that the picture is being painted predigested.

Although idea and form are ultimately paramount in my work, so too are chance, accident, and rawness.

I think good artists know when they're on a roll, and they recognize when lightning is striking. It's a very fortunate thing to have that inspiration and not to overanalyze it or mess with it; you just follow it if you love what you do.

The artist discards all theories, both his own and those of others. He forgets everything when he is in front of his canvas.

Painting is almost like a sport. It's like this action thing. When I do it, I'm really not thinking. The paintings are like a diary that I might not want to read again.

In using chance operations, the mind is enriched.

I don't make judgments about my own work, and I don't analyze it; I just let it happen. That applies to everything I've done.

When I wrote 'Grand Illusion,' I was making it up as we went along. I wrote this stuff and tried to do the best job I could.

You can't slot a time and a space and think 'ok now it's time to sit and compose.' It just doesn't work like that for me.

I try not to think too hard about music. I like to see where it goes. I try not to give it a direction. I figure out what it is as it's forming. I don't have any goal in mind other than to make the best music I can.

I just freestyle. I don't actually write the words on paper. It's just whatever comes into my mind. I'll record three or four lines at a time, get a good take, and do three or four more. It may be whatever comes into my mind. But I care about my craft a lot more than a lot of other people.

The ideas come afterwards, when the picture is finished.

If a piece of genius comes, it comes, and it if doesn't, it doesn't.

I imagine that when I am creating a song or a project or an album or putting some clothing together or cooking a meal, whatever it is, I don't really have a recipe. The fun part is to throw that big piece of clay in the middle of the table as hard as I can, and whatever shape it takes, that's what shape it takes, and then I start to carve away.

If you think about it enough to have a really articulate answer, you're not doing it right. That's how I feel about art. If your thought process could take you to knowing exactly what you're doing and why, there would be no point in making the art. It would become like propaganda. It's more nebulous than that.

Inspiration cannot be willed, though it can be wooed.

I think it's really important to not talk about how you're going to release something until you've finished it. People are like, "What are we going to make? What are we going to do with it?" and it's just like, "I don't know, we're just making music. Then we'll talk." You can't always write something you're happy with; you can't force it.

For me, the sketchbooks are more like a secret and wholly spontaneous jeu d'esprit and some of them I like as much as anything I have ever done. They are invariably without premeditation. I mean not only that I have no plan when I make them, I also have no plan to make them.

I always think of myself not so much as a painter but as a medium for accident and chance.

First thought is best in Art, second in other matters.

Painting today is pure intuition and luck and taking advantage of what happens when you splash the stuff down.

A lot of what I do is about being in the moment and I think that's hard for people to get. I like it when things suddenly affect the painting. I mix up this red and it affects the whole painting or this little bit of white falls down there, and something changes the whole nature of the thing. The residue on what happens, that's what's in the paintings.

Becoming an artist does not merely mean learning something, acquiring professional techniques and methods. Indeed, as someone has said, in order to write well you have to forget the grammar.