Lyman Abbott Quotes

An artist is like a pig snouting truffles.

I try to paint what I have found and not what I look for. In art, intentions are of little importance.

My process of working is that I don't create a picture, I find it.

For the artist, drawing is discovery. And that is not just a slick phrase; it is quite literally true.

A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.

In my experience a painting is not made with colors and paint at all. I don't know what a painting is; who knows what sets off even the desire to paint?

The artist is called a creator.

I have disciplined myself when I'm working. When I discovered art, I realized that one could keep that search going within creation. But I also realize that in order to create the art, you have to stay, you can't go too far.

While most people in the arts think they have to be constantly looking forward to be edgy and creative....the real secret of creativity is to go back and remember.

All art is a kind of exploring. To discover and reveal is the way every artist sets about his business.

Creation is the artist's true function; where there is no creation there is no art.

To be an artist, you have to nurture the things that most people discard.

Artwork is not like a commercial business; there is no such thing as a schedule for art. You can't hurry art.

I had a teacher in art school who said something about the only works he really enjoyed seeing or found much in were works where he had a sense that a discovery was made in the course of making this object. I like to hold to that as my marching orders.

Painting is not for me either decorative amusement, or the plastic invention of felt reality; it must be every time: invention, discovery, revelation.

The creative act amazes me. Whether it's poetry, whether it's music, it's an amazing process, and it has something to do with bringing forth the old out into the world to create and to bring forth that which will rejuvenate.

Art revolves around creating something that isn't there.

Make good art.

The artist in me cries out for design.

I'm doing what all modern artists do now, which is nothing - just sit around and dream about things. I'll do what they call 'the stroke of genius.'

The artist is the medium between his fantasies and the rest of the world.

Wonder and awe are the diet of the artist and without them the world would be far less meaningful to us than it is.

I think if you speak to any creative person, there's something so powerful - so intoxicating, if you will - about discovering another voice, another instrument, another way of looking at things, another way of perceiving things.

I think there's something beautiful about the art of making art, and it just will live and breathe.

I would say any creative person has that: you can't just force a topic. Whether you're a painter, you want to do a cartoon. Anything. Something may come up that's not your style or suited to what you are working on at the moment. So you file it away and hopefully find a place for it.