Mordicai Gerstein Quotes

I think that, to be an artist, you have to have a big enough ego to believe that people out in the world want to see what you think is a good idea. And if you don't have that sense of ego, then the minute that idea goes into the world, self-doubt kicks in.

I was always confident in my art and in myself as an artist.

Much arrogance is necessary equipment for an artist, I think. Not sufficient, but necessary. It carries one across the gaps.

All that's left now is purely poetic work, putting more life into individual places, as I've made so sure of the fundamental mood and dimension of expression that it won't leave me groping around in uncertainty any more.

Sometimes I can see the whole painting from the outset in my mind's eye. But more often than not, that idea doesn't last the duration of the painting. Sometimes it comes out easy, just as I had envisaged. But that is reasonably rare.

I like creating images.

I work best in rhyme and meter. I was most confident of myself in that way.

Being behind the camera is where I feel comfortable. I've found something that I feel I, as 'Michael,' can be as confident in as 'Johnny' was on the stage. It's great being part of the creative process. You're right at the start of an idea, and you get to see it all the way through till the end.

Let's face it: I paint well. I know it, you know it. There's no arguing really, is there?

Maybe some people, when they sit down to write their great novel or make their great record or paint their great painting, they have it all planned out in their head. But for me, it's never worked that way.

I'd be quiet as a mouse if I didn't have the correct feeling about my music. I feel like I'm able to talk about it and say I'm one of the best because I think I got the music to back that up. I got the live show to back that up. That's all that matters.

As far as creation goes, you just really have to not overthink and just create and be confident. If you think it's tight, then the world is going to think it's tight.

An artist's initial broad stroke is always most impactful, and obsessively adding layer upon layer of paint to fill in details often diminishes the painting's aura. When an aura is lost, it is impossible to get back.

It is probably like an artist. They see in their head what they want to draw, and they draw it. It is like I have a feeling inside me that I want to create on a horse, and that is what I do.

What I hope 'Mastry' ends up doing is completely undermining or doing away with the notion that artists are a savant: that they do things that can't be articulated, driven by inner turmoil they don't have access to.

I always knew I was gonna be an artist. I was very confident in that.

I have faith in my art.

Being a director it's mean - digging deep in yourself as well. I think the deeper I understood the material and the script and the themes and the characters, I felt the more confident I was and the more I could bring to the movie. So I was lucky to have my actors because they were right there with me in the deep end.

It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera... they are made with the eye, heart and head.

Painting demands an intelligent model.

Sometimes I'll dream that I saw a show and then I'll wake up in the morning and realize that I didn't see the show, that it was my dream. And I just remember what the paintings look like in the dream and I think, "Oh, nobody painted those. I can do that."

What has made it work, or what makes certain paintings successful or not, has to do with my being a painter and a thinking, feeling person, more than my sex, color, height, origin.

I keep plastering it until it comes around to what I want, in terms of all I know and think about painting now, as well as in terms of the initial observation.

If I have an idea I want to put in a movie, I know what camera will make that look best, and I have ideas for future projects and stuff I'd like to build for those. I think it's just part of how I work, though.

I love painting. As far as photography is concerned, I understand nothing.