I didn’t call myself an artist until I felt I had earned it by making work that was really worth something.
I try to draw every day. It does not have to be great; I just do it. I carry a tiny Moleskin sketchbook and Micron pens with me, and I sketch on the subway. Should I see a scene that has a special appeal, I will draw it.
What is the most important quality in an artist? Truthfulness trumps talent. A capacity for joy beats conscientious drudgery.
I believe the most important quality of an artist is truly connecting with your own work. Therefore, one’s work must be personal.
Does the work transmit the qualities, the kind of experiences and the intuitions I’m after? Is the painting transmitting the amazing relations of color and light, matter and formation, that painting is able to bring to our eyes and intuition?
Too many artists, and way too many people, are bent on impressing more than connecting with others. Impressing is walling yourself off, connecting is letting your guard down, which takes more confidence and guts than the self-effacing get credit for.
I’m always asking myself how it’s possible to create something meaningful from something commonplace. Painting is a way for me to try to prove that poetry, beauty or whatever else you want to call it comes from how you see versus what you see.
Every small meditative thought can contribute to artistic pursuits. In that regard, making coffee and staring out of the window can be considered a part of the creative process. And I do both several times a day.
I suppose I’m not concerned about any one set of questions, but rather concerned about what a painting is capable of doing without written descriptions. What is the vernacular of the picture-making, and how do I express things through that? Some of the best moments are when a painting can describe back to me the feeling of my work just by looking.
I try to work every day, often doing three or four pen and ink drawings before getting out of bed or before going to sleep. I eat and then stagger into the studio and work and nap and make calls and do chores and then get back to work with the improvements I have been mulling as I did the other chores.