I once taught art to adults in a night course. I had a woman who painted her back yard, and she said it was the first time she had ever really looked at it. I think everyone sees beauty. Art is a way to respond
AGNES MARTINYou have to penetrate these and hear what your mind is telling you to do. Such work is original work.
More Agnes Martin Quotes
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The enormous pitfall is devotion to oneself instead of to life. All works that are self-devoted are absolutely ineffective.
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What I say is that we’re capable of a transcendent response, and I think it makes us happy. And I do think beauty produces a transcendent response.
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We all have the same concern, but the artist must know exactly what the experience is. He must pursue the truth relentlessly
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Inspiration is there all the time. For everyone whose mind is not clouded over with thoughts whether they realize it or not.
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I think it’s a response in our minds to perfection. It’s too bad, people not realizing that their minds expand beyond this world.
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Once he sees this fact his feet are on the path. If you want to know the truth you will know it.
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The artist works by awareness of his own state of mind.
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Give up doing the things that you do not like to do.
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You have to penetrate these and hear what your mind is telling you to do. Such work is original work.
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I’m very careful not to have ideas, because they’re inaccurate.
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It is commonly thought that everything that is can be put into words.
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I used to meditate until I learned to stop thinking.
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I want to say that they are not what they seem to be. I want to say that all that seems like fantastic mistakes are not mistake.
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All that seems like error is not error; and it all has to be done. That which seems like a false step is the next step.
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Nature is like parting a curtain, you go into it …. as you would cross an empty beach to look at the ocean.
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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.
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What we really want to do is serve happiness. We want everyone to be happy, never unhappy even for a moment. We want the animals to be happy.
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Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye, it is in the mind.
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There’s nobody living who couldn’t stand all afternoon in front of a waterfall …. Anyone who can sit on a stone in a field awhile can see my painting.
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I’m very careful not to have ideas, because they’re inaccurate.
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To progress in life you must give up the things you do not like.
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There’s not any hint of nature. And still everybody responds, I think.
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I want to emphasize the fact that we all have the same experience and the same concern, but the artist must know exactly what the experience is. He must pursue the truth relentlessly.
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The worst thing you can think about when you’re working is yourself.
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I would like my work to be recognized as being in the classical tradition (Coptic, Egyptian, Greek, Chinese), as representing the Ideal in the mind. Classical art cannot possibly be eclectic.
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Doing what you were born to do … That’s the way to be happy.
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