Quotes from great artists to make you feel better, good, inspired
The heat and humidity is boiling up some of my creative motivation. I’m finding it hard to work with the energy and focus that I usually do. But I have a few tricks that help me stay inspired enough to work and create even when all I want to do is eat ice pops and watch Bravo while lying in front of the A/C.
My Great Paintings Pinterest board is not just a great collection of great paintings, it can serve as inspiration when I’m sitting in the studio, feeling uninspired. I open it up and examine the process and techniques and subject matters of painters I admire, like this simple, perfect painting of trees by Hine Taizin.
I keep an “Inspo” folder on my desk and an “Inspo” Google document on the cloud so I can drag or drop news items, photographs, paintings or quotes to hopefully stumble upon at a later date. I don’t know why something like that might inspire a work of art, but I do trust the role that serendipity plays in the creative process.
In My Notes app I keep notations of ideas or overheard conversation or encounters on the subway to serve as potential inspiration for future short stories or essays. Here is one note for a possible painting series on sharks:
And I’ll keep to myself which particular jerk in my life inspired this note about a potential series of paintings:
But my favorite place for inspiration when I am questioning all of my choices and wondering if I do nothing but waste raw materials when I paint and fearing that I am a talentless hack and worrying that in the face of all of the guns and fires and storms making art is a pursuit I should not be spending time on is a Google Doc called “Artist Quotes” (I’m sure we could debate whether it should be “artists’ quotes” but all of you grammar police (especially the ones in my family) need to chill). The document collects the wisdom of artists and writers I admire and allows me to make some sense of out my life and my choices through the lens of people better and older or more dead than me.
Here are some screen grabs of personal favorite quotes in case the heat and humidity has you questioning your life choices and questioning art as well.
I don’t know about you, but I feel better already.
Have a great day making art and peering into the telescope.
Thank you for reading! If you like this newsletter please check out my book for more of the same… “Painting Can Save Your Life: How and Why We Paint”.
Happy Painting!
Sara