Valee Quotes

I'm very interested to see how this new painting will go - I know I want it big and stark, and as I said, I follow the muse, and that's when it always works perfectly for me.

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

Trying to force creativity is never good.

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

I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension.

I feel constricted if I become too much aware of the act of making. Liberty is lost and instead of an instinctual lyrical expression the whole thing becomes arid.

It is almost impossible to reconcile self expression with the creative act.

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.

Artists today think of everything they do as a work of art. It is important to forget about what you are doing - then a work of art may happen.

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.

You cannot just be working in a vast, air-conditioned loft space and think you are going to make a decent painting. Francis Bacon had a special studio built, and he felt completely emasculated in there. I have to be somewhere comfortable.

It is a mistake for a sculptor or a painter to speak or write very often about his job. It releases tension needed for his work.

I don't read critics, and I don't care what they say. You can't let them steal your soul. You do what the director and production is committed to doing. I just think it's terrible that critics have the power to keep people away from a good production.

Allow the artist to finish the piece of work before you critique it.

Producing should be a creative responsibility.

And I don't have any specific steps to take because I don't start the same way every time. But there is a knowing when it's enough and you can leave it alone.

My goal is to think of nothing when I'm writing a song because too many influences could sabotage a potentially amazing song.

As an artist, you want to make good stories and create good art; as a businessman, you want to make money and make sure the investors are happy. The two will always clash, unfortunately.

As opposed to putting too much confidence in myself, or in an image or a scene or a set of brushes, I really want to allow the oil paint to perform, to show me the things that it wants to do, beyond my imagination.

A good artist should be isolated. If he isn't isolated, something is wrong.

It's hard to make great art when you've got too much pressure.

There can be no 'graduated exercises in drawing' leading up to an artistic creation. That goal can be attained only through the development of mechanical technique and through the freedom of the spirit.

Sometimes when you're an artist, you need to be in your own head; you need to stay in it to be able to get to a good place.

If a man wants to be an artist, he must never look at pictures.

I don't think we have to suffer personally to make great art. If you're prepared and organized, and you know what you're looking for, you can make great art and then go home.