by Jerry Saltz

• “There’s no single road to glory. Everyone takes a different path.”
• “One way to think about art is that it’s a visual language — usually non-verbal, arguably pre-verbal—with the power to tell us more in the blink of an eye than we might learn in hour of listening or reading.”
• “Art is also a survival strategy.”
• “Many artists make work that is as important, spiritually, as breathing or eating”
• “Being an artist means…embracing paradox—more than one thing being true at once.”
• “But doubt is a sign of faith: it tests and humbles you, allows newness into your life.”
• “Artists must reckon with the uncanny feeling that by the time we’ve finished a new work, we’ve often ended up creating something different from what we set out to do.”
• “From the moment a new work is completed, the artist is parted from the work, and the viewer, in turn, becomes a participant in it.”

Step 1: You are a total amateur

Don’t be embarrassed

• “Don’t worry about whether your art ‘makes sense.’ The faster your work makes sense, the faster people will lose interest. Let go of being ‘good.’ Start thinking about creating.”

Imagination is more important than knowledge — einstein

• “Creativity is what you do with your imagination. Write down your flights of fancy, your moments of wonder and fear, your dreams and delusions of grandeur. Then put them to work.”

Tell your own story and you will be interesting - louise bourgeois

• “Proficiency and dexterity are only as good as what you do with them.”

Recognize the otherness of art

• Art’s otherness: “I never quite know what I”m going to write ntil I write it — and then I”m not sure where it came from”
• “It’s so powerful that you might sometimes wonder if art is using us to reproduce itself — if art might be a self-replicating cosmic force”

Art is not understanding — or mastery

• “It’s about doing and experience”

1. Clear the studio

   1. if you’re stuck, start cleaning up and you may uncover something

2. there are no wasted days

   1. you’re working while running errands, traveling, life is part of your work

3. finish the thing

   1. it will never be perfect. perfect doesn’t exist
   2. Do not work on one super-project forever
   3. Make something, learn something, move on

4. Look hard, look openly

looking openly == “allowing yourself to access new sources of visual interest”

look hard at the colors and shapes, not the just the thing itself

1. artists are cats
   1. cats are not interested in direct communication
   2. the cat places a third thing between you and it, and it relates to you through this thing
   3. artists like cats communicate abstractly
2. see as much as you can
   1. artists == get up close to a work, they inspect every detail, textures & materials
   2. artists are seeing how it was made = techniques, ingredients, gestures

32 “Art is a verb” = for most of its history, art has been active, drawing people in

#34: Be inconsistent: “Variety, flexibility experimentation, diversity — all these are essential in your work. This doesn’t mean that every new thing you make should be totally different from what you’ve done before. That’s a sign that you’re scared, lazy, or some kind of performative blowhard. The real value of inconsistency is that it can bring about what Milan Kundera called “sudden densities” — moments when something appears in your work that gives you an opening, some oddity or mutation that sets you off in a new direction. Variability allows your work to breathe; it helps you to steer clear of tyrannies and find charm in the unfamiliar.”

#35 Make strength out of weakness: “If you paint awkwardly, make it work for you.”

Single sitting: No less than 20 minutes; no more than 3 hours

#36 Own your guilty pleasures: “hold on to your taste, even when you’re embarrassed by it.”

kitsch, excess, sentimentality — these have limitations, but have limitations

“if you like them along with the greats, though, let yourself enjoy it—and think about why.”

#37 make art for now, not the future: “you are an artist of modern life. that personal, specific urgency is what fuels every successful work of art.” “human beings are hardwired to crave change.”

#39 “Courage is a desperate gamble that will place you in the arms of the creative angels.”

#41 No, you don’t need graduate school: “make the world your syllabus: the options are endless, and the price is right.”

#42 “no matter how introverted or shy you are, try as often as you can to spend prolonged time with other artists around your age. artists must commune with their own kind in order to survive.”

#44 “define success” “You want the truth? The best definition of success is time — the time to do your work.”

#47 “Learn to write about your work” “all art is a theory about what art can be”