Making Art Quotes

“My father took me to see this film in 1950, when I was eight years old. And I’ve never forgotten it. I wouldn’t know how to begin to explain what this film has meant to me over the years. It’s about the joy and exuberance of film-making itself. It’s one of the true miracles of film history. What keeps nourishing me over the years is the spell the film casts, how it weaves the mystery of the obsession of creativity, of the creative drive. It all comes down to that wonderful exchange early in the film when Anton Walbrook confronts Moira Shearer at a cocktail party. ‘Why do you want to dance?’ he asks, and she answers, ‘Why do you want to live?’ The look on his face is extraordinary.’ Over the years, I’ve thought a lot about that exchange. It expresses so much about the burning need for art – the mystery of the passion to create. It’s not that you want to do it, it’s that you have to do it. You have no choice. You have to live it and it comes with a price. But what a time paying it.

[on, The Red Shoes (1948)]”
― Martin Scorsese

“Working with the morning pages, we begin to sort through the differences between our real feelings, which are often secret, and our official feelings, those on the record for public display.”
― Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

“There is a time for any fledgling artist where one’s taste exceeds one’s abilities. The only way to get through this period is to make things anyway.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“We are doing it, me and you. We are doing it with heart. And with art. And with soul and blind faith and ancient knowing. Because we have to. Because there are people who need us to. Because WE need us to most of all.
No matter how discouraged you’ve been. No matter how the destructive old patterns have been returning, knocking loudly at your door. No matter the moments of utter freeze or massive resistance or sheer exhaustion. Go out today and make something. Something brave and defiant and determined and true. And then muster up your last bit of moxie and hold out your arms and offer it to the world.

Say “I made this. For me and for you”.

Say “ This is what keeps me from the rabbit hole”.

Say “This is how I go on”.

Say “I see you, too and I know how hard it is and I want you to have this to make it a little bit better”

I promise. It changes things.
For all of us.”
― Jeanette LeBlanc

“Always good to remember when you're making art. You don't have to like it, just be ready to do the next thing.”
― Neil Gaiman

“If art's a seismographic project, when that project’s met with miscomprehension, failure must become the subject too.”
― Chris Kraus, I Love Dick

“Human artistic expression is blessedly, refreshingly nonessential. That's exactly why I love it so much. [...] The fact that I get to spend my life making objectively useless things means [...] I am not exclusively chained to the grind of mere survival. It means we still have space left in our civilization for the luxuries of imagination and beauty and emotion - and even total frivilousness.

Pure creativity is magnificent expressly because it is the opposite of everything else in life that's essential or inescapable (food, shelter, medicine [...]). Pure creativity is something better than necessity; it's a gift. It's the frosting.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“You never forget how to dance, you just learn to filter the calls. You never forget how to play, you just need bigger balls. You stopped letting yourself fly and became an old fart. You didn’t forget how to love, you’re just using the balls in your head instead of the eyes of your heart.”
― Curtis Tyrone Jones

“There is a very thin line between wisely striving for your best and foolishly striving for perfection.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“I wasn't any good at it," Elaine says, glancing at the guitar gathering dust in the corner of her lounge, along with the other failed experiments-- the notebooks of rubbishy poetry, the tubes of oil paint. So much money spent on ways to tell stories and when it came down to it, it turned out she hadn't got anything worthwhile to say.”
― Jessica Plummer, Sword Stone Table: Old Legends, New Voices