To be an artist you have to give up everything, including the desire to be a good artist.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My desire to be an artist really came out of being broke and unemployed and incapable of holding a job down. That's what it was driven by for sure.
Being an artist doesn't mean that you're a good artist. That was the bargain I first made with myself: I'd say, I'm an artist, but I'm not really very good.
Part of being an artist is that you are always concerned you don't have what it takes. It... keeps us honest.
You just have to know that the more successful you get as an artist, the less of a normal life you have. It's a trade-off.
This image of wanting to be an artist - that I would in some way become an artist -was very strong. I knew for a long, long time that that's what I would be. But nothing I ever did seemed to bring me any nearer to the condition of being an artist. And I didn't know how to do it.
We don't know why we should be artists, but we have many reasons why we can't be.
You want, as an artist, to be pushing yourself to do what you haven't done before.
I think the definition of an artist is not necessarily tied into excellence or talent; an artist is somebody who, if you took away their freedom to make art, would lose their mind.
As an artist, you can never get what you want. What you do never approaches what you want it to be.
One of the greatest things about being an artist is, as you get older, if you keep working hard in relationship to what you want the world to be and how you want it to become, there is a history of interesting growth that resonates with different moments in your life.