Vita Sackville-West Quotes

And it has become a kind of a truism in the study of creativity that you can't be creating anything with less than 10 years of technical knowledge immersion in a particular field.

I know how to paint... In a way there is a boredom there because a lot of the magic is gone.

Now I really make the little idea from clay, and I hold it in my hand. I can turn it, look at it from underneath, see it from one view, hold it against the sky, imagine it any size I like, and really be in control almost like God creating something.

It is all about technique. The great mistake of this century is to put inspiration and creativity first.

It's not in the draftsmanship, it's in the man. Like I say, a tool is dead. A brush is a dead object. It's in the man. If you want to do it, you do it.

It is not enough for a painter to be a clever craftsman; he must love to 'caress' his canvas, too.

Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art, you must master the craft.

The first thing you've got to do is know your craft, and then you can do something else with it.

If art is the bridge between what you see in your mind and what the world sees, then skill is how you build that bridge.

Be a good craftsman; it won't stop you from being a genius.

Everywhere there is craft and technique; everywhere there is artistry and form. Art itself, technique, is ponderous and clumsy, and because of its awkwardness it obstructs that inner element.

All painting is an accident. But it's also not an accident, because one must select what part of the accident one chooses to preserve.

In creating music you are the writer, the director, the producer, you create it from scratch. Obviously in playing a role in a film, you take guidance and put your trust into the director. You come into it and you really trust people.

I love making things. I love building things. I love the idea that something's in the world that wasn't there before.

That's the real endeavor: to try to create that direct conduit from the pure consciousness of your creative voice to the person who's a craftsman who can go into the world and consistently deliver new things worth paying attention to.

if you tell yourself the great lie of bad art-that you are in charge-your chance at the truth will be lost. The truth isn't always pretty.

It's funny, I don't even consider myself a rapper, I don't consider myself a designer, or even an actor. I just like creating stuff and trying to make good work, whatever it is. I don't care if it's designing toothbrushes. It's just making cool stuff to leave behind, that's all it is, it's nothing more.

The real payoff is the writing itself, that a day when you have gotten your work done is a good day, that total dedication is the point.

The best of artists hath no thought to show which the rough stone in its superfluous shell doth not include; to break the marble spell is all the hand that serves the brain can do.

The writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always master - something that, at times, strangely wills and works for itself.

The art of making art, is putting it together.

When you write, you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner's pick, a wood carver's gouge, a surgeon's probe. You wield it, and it digs a path you follow. Soon you find yourself deep in new territory. Is it a dead end, or have you located the real subject? You will know tomorrow, or this time next year.

I have tried to write songs quickly that get scrapped. I've also taken a long time on songs that get scrapped because you can over-think something, and you've squeezed the life out of it. As opposed to work of art, it looks like a really great work of craftsmanship.

Technical Expertise is composed of all the little and large bits of technique known to the skilled painter, musician, actor, any artist. He adds these things together in his basic presentation. He knows what he is doing. And how to do it. And then to his he adds his message.

Art is what we're doing when we do our best work.