A Quote by Erykah Badu

Anything that had to do with art I been doing all my life. It was a gift. It's nothing I work real hard at doing. — © Erykah Badu
Anything that had to do with art I been doing all my life. It was a gift. It's nothing I work real hard at doing.
hard work is a misleading term. physical effort & long hours do not constitute hard work. hard work is when someone pays you to do something you'd rather not be doing. anytime you'd rather be doing something other than the thing you're doing...you're doing hard work.
Thinking is generally thought of as doing nothing in a production-oriented society, and doing nothing is hard to do. It's best done by disguising it as doing something, and the something closest to doing nothing is walking.
Thinking is generally thought of as doing nothing in a production - oriented society and doing nothing is hard to do. It's best done by disguising it as doing something and the something closest to doing nothing is walking.
I have never planned anything. I have been doing this job for over 50 years. I have been paid to work with some wonderful people and it has been a huge gift, to me.
Norman Rockwell spent his career painting pictures that helped people understand their own feelings...pictures that enriched their own experiences and celebrated their own lives. But the art establishment branded him an 'illustrator', a sentimental one at that. Real artists, they said were doing art for art's sake, not for the sake of the bourgeois public. Real artists were putting swiggles, smears or daubs of paint on the canvas. They were doing 'innovative' and 'creative' work. If they were hideous and grotesque; we know that's what life really is!
I know I am extraordinarily lucky to be doing what I am doing. I have worked hard along the way and I have been blessed too. I have had a great life.
It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't mind hard work when there is no definite object of any kind. To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing.
What is it about a work of art, even when it is bought and sold in the market, that makes us distinguish it from . . . pure commodities? A work of art is a gift, not a commodity. . . works of art exist simultaneously in two “economies”, a market economy and a gift economy. Only one of these is essential, however: a work of art can survive without the market, but where there is no gift, there is no art.
For me, I grew up doing kiteboarding where no girls are doing it, and you had to prove yourself. You just had to know that you could do it, too. It's the mentality you had to have to make it. I work hard like anyone else.
It is not that Shakespeare's art is in technicolor and fancy, and that real life is black and white and tedious. The life that Shakespeare was living was the only life he had, and he had to use it to create what he was doing.
Il bel far niente means 'the beauty of doing nothing'... [it] has always been a cherished Italian ideal. The beauty of doing nothing is the goal of all your work, the final accomplishment for which you are most highly congratulated. The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life's achievement. You don't necessarily need to be rich in order to experience this, either.
Movie acting is harder than doing a play. You have to be entertaining but completely natural, like Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant. They weren't doing anything. Do you have any idea how hard that is? That's how good they were. It's crazy hard to be convincing and real. It's the most subtle, hardest thing there is.
It's weird, sometimes I still see myself as just starting out. I tend to forget how much I've been doing, but in the beginning it is about the hustle, being out there and doing the work. Nothing is going to come to you, you have to get out there and do the work, and I've been doing that. But sometimes it's good to take a break and let these things air out. Reflect and take it in.
What I work hard at doing is staying on a path of being kind and showing and proving that I'm a good person to society. That's hard. The talent, that's a gift. I just came here like that.
I perform in art time and in real time, and you can't tell the difference - no one knows how to separate a real act from an art act in my work. When I lived on the street for a year, people only knew that I was homeless. They didn't know that I was an artist doing a piece. I have to use real time in my work. I do, however, have to find a subtle way of documenting real time, in order for people to have a response. That means punching into a work clock every hour in the case of one piece.
It's hard to balance work-life commitments and sometimes you feel you're not doing anything particularly well.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!