Cecily Brown Quotes

I'm more critical of the films I make than anyone else.

Sometimes as an artist you get wrapped up in what you are doing and you can't be objective.

When I do music, I have a hard time experiencing it like everyone else, because there's so much thought that goes into it. You can sometimes fool yourself into thinking it's better than what it is, which stops me from being creative on the next thing I do.

I think that's just part of how it is with making art. Sometimes you're just flooded with ideas, and then other times you're questioning all the ideas you ever had before, and everything is just... lame.

Most artists have experienced the creative block. We get stuck in our work. We beat our head against the wall: nothing. Sometimes, it is because we are trying something at the wrong time.

I think anyone who has, you know, is in any sort of artistic pursuit, kind of goes up and down with the way they feel about their work. And I, for the most part, am pretty happy person. But, yeah. I go through definite periods of time where I'm not funny. I'm not good. I'm - I don't feel original.

Writing, for me, is very inspiration-dependent. And inspiration can be a jerk.

I'm not so sure I 'like' to watch myself on film, but I do find it necessary in order to continually be a better artist.

I like the spreads - designing them is a welcome challenge - but for a dyed-in-the-wool page-a-day journeyman like me, it can be tough to leave a drawing unfinished at the end of the workday.

I don't actually have to think very hard when I'm writing. I mean, there are times where it's a task, and you have to plug away and plug away. But then there are times when a song writes itself in 15 minutes, and you're just struggling to keep up with it.

When you are making the one you are doing, you think it is the greatest film going. And then you do another one and it is a great film.

I'm not very prolific. I'm not good at sitting down as an artist and saying 'Okay, I need to put in my four hours today.'

Professional humorists and cartoonists have to go through a stage in which they have to kill their own internal editor just so they can get stuff out. So whether they believe it or not, they need me on the other end to do that editing for them.

At some point in the idea process, I simply wear myself down and force myself to choose. But here's the thing: Once I do choose, suddenly all the other possibilities wither and die, and thus I never have a backlog of well-formed ideas waiting for me when my latest book gets finished.

Any creative process comes with a level of self-analysis and self-criticism. There's a lot of waking up in the middle of the night going, 'Oh, I wish I had done that differently.'

I've never even watched one of my films since they're completed.

Sometimes, trying to make a work of art can be very difficult and very painful.

I always consider myself as good as my last film. I tend to analyse my work very critically.

The '90s weren't my finest years artistically. I wrote some good songs in there, but in terms of my vision of getting the paint on the canvas, that was not my best time. I didn't like the fact that I had fallen into mediocrity.

You can't be an artist while you're producing, because you'll be over-critiquing the producer part.

I rarely like the music I make. It's like nothing's good enough. I just stay in my head, waiting on the next best beat, so I can do something better than what I did.

I usually write a lot. I don't make an album and don't write for two years and then end up with a blank paper starting over.

It's very rare I'll watch anything I'm a part of and think, 'I wouldn't change a thing.'

Watching your own work doesn't get any easier.

Geronimo' was great, but when I listen back to that now, I'm like, there's so many things I would have done differently.