Painters From The United States

"Pollock was terrific. I think he freed himself of all kinds of worry about this world. Ran around and dripped, and then he managed to express ecstasy."

"It is commonly thought that everything that is can be put into words. But there is a wide range of emotional response that we make that cannot be put into words. We are so used to making these emotional responses that we are not consciously aware of them till they are represented in art work."

"Inspiration comes from a clear mind. Right straight through. We have nothing to do with it."

"When a beautiful rose dies beauty does not die because it is not really in the rose. Beauty is an awareness in the mind. It is a mental and emotional response that we make. We respond to life as though it were perfect. When we go into a forest we do not see the fallen rotting trees. We are inspired by a multitude of uprising trees.. .The goal of life is happiness and to respond to life as though it were perfect is the way to happiness. It is also the way to positive art work."

"The Minimalists were nonobjective. They just recorded beauty, I guess, without the emotions - or at least without personal emotions. My work is a little more emotional than that."

"To live truly and effectively the idea of achievement must be given up. Put unsentimental piety first, turn your back on the world, and get on with it."

"To be an artist, you look, you perceive, you recognize what is going through your mind. And it is not ideas. Everything you feel and everything you see and everything that your whole life goes through your mind, you know. But you have to recognize it and go with it and really feel it."

"You can't be in an unconscious state and paint. Because whatever is in your mind, and not the subject matter, but the feelings that you have related to that subject matter, is what you're going to paint. So, the beginning is not actually painting, you know. The beginning of painting is not you put down green, and then you like pink, and you put down pink. Painting's not about that anymore than music is about this sound and that sound.. ..And it's something that drives you to expression. And it's irresistible."

"It takes time, see. You finish painting the painting and then you turn it to the wall. I mean, you say, does it have it or doesn't it have it? If it doesn't have it, you throw it away, but if you think it has it, you turn it to the wall. And then when you have made some more work, then you turn them all over. And you, again, try to see exactly what it does mean and just exactly how effectively you have rendered this meaning."

"Inspiration is pervasive but not a power. It's a peaceful thing. It is a consolation even to plants and animals. Do not think that it is unique. If it were unique no one would be able to respond to your work."

"Of course we know that an untroubled state of mind cannot last. So we say that inspiration comes and goes but really it is there all the time waiting for us to be untroubled again. We can therefore say that it is pervasive. Young children are more untroubled than adults and have many more inspirations."

"When I first made a grid I happened to be thinking of the innocence of trees and then this grid came into my mind and I thought it represented innocence, and I still do, and so I painted it and then I was satisfied. I thought, this is my vision."

"To neglect your own mind, that's like to neglect your consciousness. That’s like to give up all hope of joy and happiness, really. You're the only one that can discover for you the meaning of anything. What it means to you. By that, I don't mean intellectual meaning. I mean, what it means, how it makes you feel. You have to see whether you really are happy or not. Whether you really are sad or not. And you have to investigate what goes through your mind."

"[about Ad Reinhardt:] ..we supported each other.. .He thought I was a good painter, and I thought he was a good painter."

"My work is anti-nature The four-story mountain You will not think form, space, line, contour Just a suggestion of nature gives weight light and heavy light like a feather you get light enough and you levitate"

"I painted a painting called 'Milk River' [in 1963] Cows don't give milk if they don't have grass and water Tremendous meaning of that is that painters can't give anything to the observer People get what they need from a painting The painter need not die because of responsibility When you have inspiration and represent inspiration The observer makes the painting"

"When I draw horizontals you see this big plane and you have certain feelings like you're expanding over the plane Anything can be painted without representation"

"People think that painting is about color It's mostly composition It's composition that's the whole thing The classic image- Two late Tang dishes, one with a flower image, one empty – the empty form goes all the way to heaven It is the classic form – lighter weight."

"On a Clear Day: Art work that is completely abstract - free from any expression of the environment is like music and can be responded to in the same way. Our response to line and tone and color is the same as our response to sounds.. .It holds meaning for us that is beyond expression in words. These prints [title, 'On a Clear Day'] express innocence of mind. If you can go with them and hold your mind as empty and tranquil as they are and recognize your feelings at the same time you will realize your full response to this work."

"Architect/arcetects/arcatects/arcetects/archetes"

"I used to look in my mind for the unwritten page if my mind was empty enough I could see it I didn't paint the plane I just drew this horizontal line Then I found out about all the other lines But I realized what I liked was the horizontal line Then I painted the two rectangles correct composition if they're just right"

"[looking at the facture of her works is] a conceptual traffic jam: sheer undesirability. My analytical faculties, after trying to conclude what I'm looking at is one thing or another, give up, and my mind collapses."

"My interest is in experience that is wordless and silent, and in the fact that this experience can be expressed for me in art work which is also wordless and silent."

"Bring ice, thanks, Agnes"

"..the function of art work is.. ..the renewal of memories of moments of perfection."

"When we realize that we can see life we gradually give up the things that stand in the way of our complete awareness. As we paint we move along step by step. We realize that we are guided in our work by awareness of life."

"As I describe inspiration I do not want you to think I am speaking of religion. That which takes us by surprise - moments of happiness - that is inspiration. Inspiration which is different from daily care. Many people as adults are so startled by inspiration which is different from daily care that they think they are unique In having had it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Inspiration is there all the time."

"The little rectangle contradicts the square. And the square is authoritative.. .The rectangle is pleasant, whereas the square is not.. ..It's too stiff, too authoritative. My paintings are made up of little rectangles, not little squares There was a scholar who dug up a Tantric drawing that was just like my grid, and it was made of rectangles, too, just exactly like mine.. .I was surprised. I didn't think anybody had made a grid quite like that."

"I am grateful for the [financial] assistance I received last year [1955] through the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. It gave me the materials I needed and a certain amount of security and enabled me to make a very good try for my New York show. This did not succeed but Miss Betty Parsons whose gallery I will eventually show in assured me that in one more year she thought I could make it, which is not discouraging.. .I painted all together one hundred canvasses of which I had a good opinion and sold seven [in a year]."

"When I cover the square surface with rectangles, it lightens the weight of the square. Destroys its power."

"My [artworks] have neither object nor space nor line nor anything – no forms. They are light, lightness, about merging, about formlessness, breaking down form. You wouldn’t think of form by the ocean. You can go in if you don’t encounter anything. A world without objects, without interruption, making a work without interruption or obstacle. It is to accept the necessity of this simple, direct going into a field of vision as you could cross and empty beach to look at the ocean."

"I am staying unsettled and trying not to talk for three years. I want to do it very much."

"The adventurous state of / mind is a high house // To enjoy life the adventurous / state of mind must be / grasped and maintained // The essential feature of adventure is that it is a / going forward into / unknown territory // The joy of adventure is unaccountable // This is the attractiveness of / art work. It is adventurous, / strenuous and joyful."

"[Agnes] Martin also often spoke in her writings of a blissful, egoless state, an 'untroubled mind', which she tried to achieve in her art, an idea that stems from her own interests in Eastern philosophy. Martin first encountered Buddhism in the late 1950's in the lectures of D.T. Suzuki at Columbia University, and also became interested in the writing of two Taoists, Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, who advised that, rather than looking at others, one should look within one's own mind and soul."

"Nature is like parting a curtain, you go into it. I want to draw a certain response like this.. ..that quality of response from people when they leave themselves behind, often experienced in nature, an experience of simple joy.. .My paintings are about merging, about formlessness.. .A world without objects, without interruption."

"When I think of art, I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life. It is in the mind, not in the eye. In our minds, we have an awareness of perfection that leads us on.. .The response to beauty is emotion. Sometimes very subtle emotions of which we are almost not aware, and sometimes our most powerful emotions.."

"Take beauty: it's a very mysterious thing, isn't it? I think it's a response in our minds to perfection.. .My paintings are certainly nonobjective. They're just horizontal lines. There's not any hint of nature. And still everybody responds, I think."

"If what counts most in communication is pattern and its variations, we can look again at the many surfaces and repetitions in Martin's work: in format, medium, mark, measurement. The square itself, as the artist well knew, is the most repetitious of linear lay-outs; each defining dimension repeats the next. That's why she used the square for her basic setup, as well as why she famously credited it with an 'unpleasant' power, which she actively opposed by dividing her canvas into rectangular units."

"Over the years, she gave an assortment of reasons for her departure in the Summer of 1967. She had been living in a beautiful studio on South Street, with cathedral ceilings, so close to the river that she could clearly see the expressions on the sailors' faces. One day, she heard that it was going to be torn down. In the same post she received notification that she had won a grant, enough to purchase a pickup truck and an Airstream camper. Her friend Ad Reinhardt, whose black paintings she loved, had just died; her relationship with Chryssa had ended, and anyway she'd had enough of living in the city. The voices [in her head], too, were in agreement. 'I could no longer stay, so I had to leave, you see,' she explained decades later. 'I left New York because every day I suddenly felt I wanted to die and it was connected with painting. It took me several years to find out that the cause was an overdeveloped sense of responsibility.'"

"In the middle of the work of art, an artist often feels that he is failing. And he starts interfering with his inspiration. That is a mistake. The mistake. It is best to push on through. Such works frequently turn out to be the best. To fail is a very ordinary experience for an artist. To fail and fail and still go on, marks his character. Most people cannot bear to fail, even once. They think of security."

"Beauty is very much broader than just to the eye. It is our whole, positive response to life. An artist is fortunate in that his work is the inner contemplation of beauty, of perfection in life. We cannot make anything perfectly, but with inner contemplation of perfection, we can suggest it."

"Everything is contemplated in the mind without meditation. We make a very complicated response. Just to look at a floating branch evokes very complicated objective and nonobjective responses. The artist must slow all this down, mentally. It is this mental experience that makes the representation of beauty possible."

"Although we are all different, we all respond to each other's suggestions of perfection. And we enjoy the same response as the artist. It is the inner contemplation, the wanting to respond to life, that opens our eyes to what is already in the mind."

"I was interested in geometry. And in the colors of nature. Remember, I learned from Agnes Martin and [fiber artist] Lenore Tawney. It was just gardening, making a quilt."

"Until mid 2002, I was a meat eater. I have always instinctively been opposed to cruelty to animals, as all decent and sensible people are, but didn’t know much about how food animals were raised or processed. I assumed humans had always eaten meat because it was natural for us to, and that food animals were raised on farms where they were fairly oblivious to their surroundings and only moderately inconvenienced until their swift and humane execution. Nothing could be further from the truth. Over 95% of animals raised for food are born, live, and die in horribly painful conditions. ... Another misconception I had was about the relative intelligence and awareness of farm animals. Since becoming vegan, I’ve met rescued “food” animals now living natural lives outdoors … Cows, pigs and chickens are as smart, friendly and loving, as dogs and cats, and create friendships with other animals and people in much the same ways. Each has its own personality and its own set of likes and dislikes. If you think you’re an animal advocate because you care about saving dogs and cats in city shelters but still eat meat, think again."

"Here’s a test you can try at home: put a two-year-old in a playpen with an apple and a rabbit. If it plays with the apple and eats the rabbit, you’ve got a carnivore. According to numerous studies … vegetarians have 60% less cancer than meat-eaters, and a tiny fraction of the heart attack rate. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out we aren’t very well designed to eat meat."

"We do, to what extent of freedom we have earned or are allowed by others and ourselves, what we most want to do. We say - speak, paint, carve, write, express ourselves...as we damn please. And in both the doing of things and the talking about them - which together seem to me to sum up life - we so crave freedom or liberty or whatever one may choose to call it as to justify our Declaration's romantically terming it an unalienable right of Man, bestowed on Man by his Creator."

"While reasonable men will ungrudgingly submit to such curtailment of their liberties as will promote at least the greater liberty of all, to the exact degree to which such curtailment may become unreasonable will the enforcement of it have to rest on force. Force against reason: reason, because it has the power of enlisting force to fight for it, will win. From the recognition of that truth has come democracy."

"Art must unquestionably have a social value; that is, as a potential means of communication it must be addressed, and in comprehensible terms, to the understanding of mankind."

"I lost all respect for him and myself, and lived in a nightmare."