I didn’t want painting to be simply an act of emphasizing one color to do something to another color, like using red to intensify green, because that would imply some subordination of red. I didn’t want color to serve me.
I feel strong in my belief, based on my widely traveled collaborations, that a one-to-one contact through art contains potent peaceful powers, and is the most non-elitist way to share information, hopefully seducing us into creating mutual understandings for the benefit of all.
You begin with the possibilities of the material.
It is neither Art for Art, nor Art against Art. I am for Art, but for Art that has nothing to do with Art. Art has everything to do with life, but it has nothing to do with Art.
I don’t really trust ideas, especially good ones. Rather I put my trust in the materials that confront me, because they put me in touch with the unknown.
An empty canvas is full.
I’ve not been cursed with talent, which could be a great inhibitor.
I don’t think of myself as making art. I do what I do because I want to, because painting is the best way I’ve found to get along with myself.
The artist’s job is to be a witness to his time in history.
Screwing things up is a virtue. Being correct is never the point. I have an almost fanatically correct assistant, and by the time she re-spells my words and corrects my punctuation, I can’t read what I wrote. Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea.
Even at this late date, I go into my studio, and I think ‘Is this going to be it? Is it the end?’ You see, nearly everything terrorizes me. When an artist loses that terror, he’s through.
Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea.
I feel as though the world is a friendly boy walking along in the sun.
My concern is never art, but always what art can be used for.