Artists From The United States

"I have a lot of admiration for the director [Godfrey Reggio] because he knew how to give not just pretty pictures or images but was able, through a play of images, to give a critique of the modem world that is very close to my own. But it's rather amusing to consider how differently different people can interpret this film. My wife, for example interpreted it as the story of the development of the world and its progression -- as a presentation of the creation of the world moving along into, very probably, an apocalypse. But one of my friends had a completely opposite reaction to the film. He thought that in the beginning it presented chaos, then moved after that into showing the progressive development of order. So you can see that the interpretation of images is very difficult."

"What is patriotism other than mysticism? The sadness and the danger, of course, is that we have become totally dependent on mass society for life itself. It’s not as if we have much choice. What can we do? These concepts are unutterable. They’re now beyond the pale of language. This is partly why I have used Hopi, a non-literate language, to name my films."

"The technology we have, is probably the most violent act against the planet that we can conceive of, more than the wars on the battlefield. The price we pay for technological happiness is bringing the planet to our knees. It's not something we use, it's as ubiquitous as the air we breathe."

"I call the films I make experiental. If this doesn't sound too weird, I look at the films I've been involved in as my children. When they're born, then they take on a life of their own. To try and remake your child is not a very good idea. What advice would I give to you? Whatever you're interested in, whatever you can do, do it. Boldness has genius, magic and power in it. (That's a paraphrase of a Goethe quote)"

"I only realised well into it that that was one of the things that was incredibly appealing to me,” Davis said, noting how she’s also gotten into archery, horseback riding, ice skating and sword fighting for other film roles. “You get satisfaction from how well you did instantly, without anybody else’s opinion having to come into it."

"What was so striking was the intense reaction to the film. It changed everything about how I chose roles moving forward."

"Thelma and Louise end up driving off a cliff, and still viewers felt exhilarated by their story. It made me realize how few opportunities we give women to come out of a movie feeling inspired and empowered by the female characters. It changed everything about how I chose roles moving forward."

"I was raised on TV shows where there were very few female characters that I wanted to pretend to be,” “My best friend, Lucyann, and I, every day after school, would play characters from The Rifleman. Because I was taller, I would be the father, Lucas, and she would be my son, Mark. It never occurred to us that there weren’t female characters that we wanted to play."

"I'm very fortunate I was in a couple of movies that really resonated with women and sort of struck a nerve."

"My identity is not based on performance; it's based on something that's pre-determined by someone else, and I don't even understand what that is because I'm an African who came to America."

"For a while, I was nervous about portraying women because of the objectification that automatically comes with it, whether the artist intends or not."

"I moved around a lot when I was a child; two of the houses I grew up in have totally disappeared. One was burnt in a riot, and the other was pulled down."

"When I was in school, I conceptually didn't want black people to have context, to take it out of all that history. I wanted nothing to indicate where they are or what time it is, to place them anywhere."

"I don't think about race before I start drawing. I think about how to make that mark to fit whatever purpose I need it to fulfill. Being a black artist, the first thing people want to talk about is your blackness, the importance of your blackness, and your black presence."

"Being a black artist, the first thing people want to talk about is your blackness, the importance of your blackness, and your black presence."

"The graphic style itself is influenced by a lot of very layered and detailed comics that I read as a kid, like 'Vagabond' by Takehiko Inoue."

"I'm really interested in independent publishers and memes and mini comics. But even before that, I was interested in Japanese manga and anime."

"The social media bit is really about documenting process. I like the dialogue if it's constructive, but I'm now at a crossroads. I've accumulated a lot of followers, and it's great, but I'm also at that teetering point where people are feeling themselves a little too much, commenting a little too much."

"I kept wanting to push my image as validity; I wanted to see my portrait on a wall and know it was okay."

"I don't think about race before I start drawing. I think about how to make that mark to fit whatever purpose I need it to fulfill."

"My definition of success isn’t about the accolades and the awards, but being authentic and consistent in my work and opening audiences up to seeing other perspectives in film."

"Instead of 'Africanizing' Western stories, I'm interested in reclaiming African history rendering them into what is happening in the present day."

"I would like to insert myself in the tradition of African storytelling through cinematic language."

"Being a Black woman who was born and raised in America to African parents is, naturally, where I draw my inspiration from as an artist and filmmaker."

"Through my artwork and films, I hope to open audiences up to a new dialogue between the continents of Africa and America; one that incorporates more than just stereotypes, but includes both conventionalized and un-conventionalized discourses of race in its service. By creating complex contradictions, I hope that new meaning can emerge and be deposited into the universal consciousness. If I can do this by creating an experience for the audience that enables them to experience what it is like to find oneself, while being foreign in a community, then perhaps I can help that new meaning come to light."

"The worst thing the Government could have done for the nation was to allow these thousands of dub painters to put those frightful abortions called murals all over the country, especially in schools where the nation's children are brought up on them. The only thing it can lead to is insanity."

"It is not how a picture is painted that matters, it is what you paint. Some modern artists have sunk to imbecility, not pitiable imbecility but vicious imbecility."

"[Absinthe-drinking] ate away the brains of the French aristocracy and brought vulgar folk into control of the salons and everything else."

"Never in the whole of human history at any time or anywhere has there been a terrain more suitable for the making of pictures and telling of stories than our own West."

"You start with a detailed charcoal drawing and then paint over that—the most distant thing first. If there are no clouds, the sky may take no more than a day. The distant figures may be done in a week. It gets more difficult as you approach the foreground—a large canvas may take four to six months altogether— but the most economical way is to finish as you go. At least that's what / was taught."

"Mound Bayou was an oasis in turbulent times. While the rest of Mississippi was violently segregated, inside the city there were no racial codes ... At a time when blacks faced repercussions as severe as death for registering to vote, Mound Bayou residents were casting ballots in every election. The city has a proud history of credit unions, insurance companies, a hospital, five newspapers, and a variety of businesses owned, operated, and patronized by black residents. Mound Bayou is a crowning achievement in the struggle for self-determination and economic empowerment."

"The occupation was always about values, it was about reconfiguring the relationship between people and profit so that people are privileged instead of profit. There's a natural affinity between those values and struggles over housing and land."

"It's perfectly useless to ask people why they get married, but I fancy I know the reason, just the same. They may think it is one reason or another, but the real reason, to my mind, is an old one: The Eternal Purpose is making use of them to carry on the business of the world."

"Many able women in early middle life, having mastered the art of home-making in the finest school in the world--a busy and happy household--seek a wider sort of home-making. They have a vision of the city they know best, or the State or the nation, as a greater household, to be organized and made happier through the influence of a larger motherhood. It was so with Mrs. Park."

"Who honestly believes that he or she is extravagant? Not one, believe me. We all have our little ways of saving string, of doing without something, from early strawberries to diamond tiaras, which lead us to believe we are in the saving class."

"Long ago, when the world was young for many of us, we believed in marriage as a great adventure, and if the world has been kind to us and has spared us our ideals, it is still the great adventure upon which some of us have embarked, while others still linger on the shore."

"I began writing poetry because nothing else in my adolescence interested me. It was in Beirut and for awhile the sea permeated absolutely everything. I was being in love with the sea, and the sun was everywhere, and I felt that the sun had more divine presence than all the nonsense taught in school about religion or morality. I saw that the sea and the sun were first woman and first man, first being and first present to me, and that was my first poem. Then every time something appeared to be the most important thing, the all-pervasive thing, I wrote about it and such things are called poems. To be an Arab is already being a bit an American. And being an American is already being almost an Arab, even without knowing it. Americans are a nomadic people. Arabs are a nomadic and restless people. Both are restless and reckless. Because Americans are nomadic they could but go to the moon. And Arabs were astronomers and mathematicians and opened the new age-the age that made it possible later to go to the moon and to go to the stars. But poetry does not have a place in American society because American society is alienated from itself. Americans are storytellers and they are often poets: visual poets, language poets, visionaries, delinquents, street poets, mad poets. But poetry has no place in American society because this society which is American is living under thick clouds of advertisings, and the metaphysical insecurity which makes great poetry is buried under a thick cloud of government-induced and market-induced and doctor-induced insecurity. Still you can hear American poets in your sleep. And knocking at your door."

"Etel Adnan's brief, extraordinary novel Sitt Marie Rose"

"Perhaps my Big Year attempt had no value in itself, but it had led me to incredible places, a whole series of extraordinary destinations. It had taken me through life-changing experiences. Regardless of final list totals, it had been worthwhile. Listing, at its best, could be a wonderful quest, I reflected. We list-chasing birders, at our best, could be like knights seeking the Holy Grail—except that the birds were real, and we birders were rewarded at every turn. If we made an honest effort, the birds would come."

"“Come on,” I said, feeling tired and angry. “You don’t really think that. Nobody thinks that any more, do they? How can the public image be so far off from the reality? Does everybody pay more attention to damn television than to real life?”"

"We were talking about the insulation of human experience. We live enclosed in artificial structures with controlled climates, synthetic food, and purified water. No wonder our glimpses of the real world come as a shock."

"The whole thing might have been erected by a demented billionaire—which it was, I reflected, since it had been built by the U.S. government."

"The list total isn’t important, but the birds themselves are important. Every bird you see. So the list is just a frivolous incentive for birding, but the birding itself is worthwhile. It’s like a trip where the destination doesn’t have any significance except for the fact that it makes you travel. The journey is what counts."

"But I should have known—when the gods seem to smile, they may in fact be laughing."

"You had to make the effort to have the luck."

"The spark for a relationship might come for free—a look, a word. But the fuel to keep it going would always be expensive. Money might not buy happiness, but the lack of money could buy endless unhappiness for any two people."

"One thing was becoming obvious to me now: list-chasing was not the best way to learn birds. It had been a good way to start, an incentive for getting to a lot of places and seeing a lot of species. But the lure of running up a big list made it all too tempting to simply check off a bird and run on to the next, without taking time to really get to know them."

"It did not matter to me what country I was in. Bird-list regions, like political regions, were just human inventions. The birds were wonderful, regardless of where you saw them. It was silly, I told myself, to be preoccupied with how a bird’s location was relative to some artificial boundary."

"They were good-looking, too—not in the plastic Hollywood sense, but with the healthy good looks of active young women who spend time outdoors."

"Birds are real. If I had to justify extreme birding, that would be my first defense. Even as we dash around in a mad quest for the biggest list of bird sightings, we are keenly attuned to reality—not just the birds but also geography, weather patterns, forest types, tide schedules, and myriad other factors, because everything in nature is connected. Other people may take up hobbies to escape reality, but birding has the opposite draw. It’s a deep dive into the real world."