Steve Erickson Quotes

Unless we understand a certain material - metal or resin and plastic - understanding the processes that turn it from ore, for example - we can never develop and define form that's appropriate.

Bring out the nature of the materials. Let their nature intimately into your scheme.

You begin with the possibilities of the material.

I think basically I'm a painter, but I would use anything to make my point.

The artist yields often to the stimuli of materials that will transmit his spirit.

The material dictates the approach. I tell the stories in the way that feels natural to tell them. Certainly the last thing I want is to be "difficult."

I don't compose. I assemble materials.

Everyone has a different approach, but I like to shoot a lot of film anyway.

Much of the beauty that arises in art comes from the struggle an artist wages with his limited medium.

I try to approach making movies in a way that it's about the making of them and not the result of them, if that makes sense.

Paint is a very sensual material. It's lovely to work with and lovely to look at.

Why write [about my art]? Why not just show the photographs?

Art is a refining and evocative translation of the materials of the world.

A picture is finished when all trace of the means used to bring about the end has disappeared.

A painter must compensate the natural deficiencies of his art. He has but one sentence to utter, but one moment to exhibit. He cannot, like the poet or historian, expatiate, and impress the mind.

Even though I teach with 35mm, my method takes people by surprise, because it isn't fast, and it isn't about hardware or software, or even great results. It's about great process.

My aim is to escape from the medium with which I work.

In art, truth and reality begin when one no longer understands what one is doing or what one knows, and when there remains an energy that is all the stronger for being constrained, controlled and compressed.

I usually start writing stories from tone and not from content - kind of like people who create music and invent the lyrics later on.

If I retain any freshness of approach, it's by going slowly having long intervals between finished projects.

When a painter is working he is aware of the means which are available to him - these include his materials, the style he inherits, the conventions he must obey, his prescribed or freely chosen subject matter - as constituting both an opportunity and a restraint.

I wanted to write and then I saw Pierrot and I understand that I could express myself in a more... Also probably, I had an intuition that if I was going to only write, I will stay in one room all the time and never go out. I felt that if I was going to make movies, I would have to communicate with people and it would be good for me.

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means.

I believe the approach of the artist and the approach of the environmentalist are fairly close in that both are, to a rather impressive degree, concerned with the affirmation of life.

For me, what I do is an artistic expression which is channeled through me. Fashion is just the medium.