The thing is, if you believe in the unconscious - and I do - there's room for all kinds of possibilities that I don't know how you prove one way or another.
From Jasper Johns
There was very little art in my childhood. I was raised in South Carolina; I wasn't aware of any art in South Carolina. There was a minor museum in Charleston, which had nothing of interest in it. It showed local artists, paintings of birds.
I tend to like things that already exist.
I don't know how to organise thoughts. I don't know how to have thoughts.
Sometimes I see it and then paint it. Other times I paint it and then see it. Both are impure situations, and I prefer neither.
I decided that if my work contained what I could identify as a likeness to other work, I would remove it.'
As one gets older one sees many more paths that could be taken. Artists sense within their own work that kind of swelling of possibilities, which may seem a freedom or a confusion.
I have no ideas about what the paintings imply about the world. I don't think that's a painter's business. He just paints paintings without a conscious reason.
I often find that having an idea in my head prevents me from doing something else. Working is therefore a way of getting rid of an idea.
To be an artist you have to give up everything, including the desire to be a good artist.
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