Martin Puryear Quotes

As an artist, you have the job of working out whatever is given you to work out.

What is it that an artist does when he is left alone in his studio? My conclusion was that if I was an artist and I was in the studio, then everything I was doing in the studio should be art . . . . From that point on, art became more of an activity and less of a product.

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.

When you make art, you get really invested in it. When art happens by accident and you were just along for the ride? It's way more fun.

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

I'll take anything and slap it on a canvas.

I see my practice as picture making. Whatever is available, I use.

I would advise puppeteering for any artist. It's a way to break down pretensions. It's a sculpture that can talk. It's a painting that can talk. And it's pure play. I think every artist needs to stay in touch with the idea of playing. The artist should always be playing, always. All art is performance.

For me, making a movie is kind of like vomiting. Not that film is like vomit, but more like this mass of ideas and thoughts that you have and just have to put them out there. It's not even about making perfect sense - it's more about making perfect nonsense. I don't do too much soul-searching or self-analysis. I just enjoy making things.

I think there is a period of esthetic discovery that happens to a man and he can do all sorts of things at white heat.

If I was an artist, and I was in the studio, then whatever I was doing in the studio must be art.

A working artist is a playing artist.

Each painting, I feel like I kind of might have gotten something. If I feel like I totally got it, there's probably something wrong and it's not finished. And if I really feel like I understand it then I'm done with these paintings and I'll have to do something else.

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.

When I work alone, it can be like dabbling with a canvas. Maybe you paint over bits, and it starts to form its own life and lead you off in a direction. It becomes an intuitive, subconscious process.

I think of a piece, and then people who are competent fabricate it. But lately I've started finger painting, which probably should be a joke but isn't!

Making art is different for everyone.

Art is an investigation.

I've never sat down and tried to write something for some occasion. You just write the tune and stay totally wide open to everything. It'll find the person or persons who are supposed to do it.

Making art has never been a mystery to me. It's never been something that's very difficult.

Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite - getting something down.

I enjoyed art in school. I've always done little drawings and stuff like that. I don't really know what I'm doing with the painting, but I experiment.

The songs come along at their own pace when they are ready.

Going into a shoot not fully knowing what I want to do - that excitement, that thing that happens, is just so powerful and makes such great pictures.

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