Frank Stella Quotes

You know a trillion times more about art than me. But I’ve learned that it isn’t necessary to know all that much. You just make what you wanna see, right? It’s a game, right? It’s like being paid for dreaming.

Making art is different for everyone.

Art is not communicative, art is not reflexive. Art, science, philosophy are neither contemplative, neither reflexive, nor communicative. They are creative, that's all.

For the artist, drawing is discovery. And that is not just a slick phrase; it is quite literally true.

I think the idea of art kills creativity.

Trying to force creativity is never good.

Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art.

The moment we live in is a great time to make art. We have different technologies to play with, and we're left with the opportunity to focus on our work.

All art is a kind of exploring. To discover and reveal is the way every artist sets about his business.

Art is a game only if you playat it, a mirror that reflects from the inside out.

Every artist of importance creates his own world, with its own laws - creates and shapes it in his own shape and image, and no one else's. This is why it is difficult to fit the artist into a world that has already been created, a seven-day, fixed and solidified world: he will inevitably slip out of the set of laws and paragraphs, he will be a heretic.

Art is both creation and recreation.

Making art is nothing but risk, always. If it's not risk, it's no good.

What's interesting about making art is that you take everything you know about it and you bring it up to that point, and you start making a physical thing that addresses what that is. And when you do it, you don't know anything about it - if it's going to work or not work.

To be an artist, you have to nurture the things that most people discard.

When you're an artist, all you're trying to do is self-express.

The only thing in life that really gives me any peace is just being lost in the process of creating something, whether it's the film or painting and drawing, which has been a big part of my life, for a long time.

Artwork is not like a commercial business; there is no such thing as a schedule for art. You can't hurry art.

Painting is not for me either decorative amusement, or the plastic invention of felt reality; it must be every time: invention, discovery, revelation.

You don't have to be Picasso or Rembrandt to create something. The fun of it, the joy of creating, is way high above anything else to do with the art form.

The creative act amazes me. Whether it's poetry, whether it's music, it's an amazing process, and it has something to do with bringing forth the old out into the world to create and to bring forth that which will rejuvenate.

For me, drawing is a way of navigating the imagination, and it remains the fundamental vehicle of my practice. Drawing allows me to be at my most inventive.

For a sculptor, a painter, a weaver, a potter, the dialogue between one's materials and what one makes from them is easy to see: discover a new material or a new way to use a familiar one, and new things can be made, sometimes leading to the discovery of more new material, leading to more creation.

Making art has never been a mystery to me. It's never been something that's very difficult.

Art revolves around creating something that isn't there.