A Quote by Jane Jacobs

Artists, whatever their medium, make selections from the abounding materials of life, and organize these selections into works that are under the control of the artist.... In relation to the inclusiveness and literally endless intricacy of life, art is arbitrary, symbolic and abstracted. That is its value and the source of its own kind of order and coherence.
The way it works: The orchestra plays a few selections of its own and I terminate the first part of the programme on piano, usually with a movement from a Mozart concerto.
I know artists whose medium is life itself, and who express the inexpressible without brush, pencil, chisel or guitar. They neither paint nor dance. Their medium is Being. Whatever their hand touches has increased life.... They are the artists of being alive.
There are selections so acute that they come to define a place, with the result that we can no longer travel through that landscape without being reminded of what a great artist noticed there.
There are dance artists, painting artists and writing artists. Authors are writing artists. You can practice art in whatever medium you choose, and words are mine.
Culture gives us each a sense that life has meaning and that we have value - by offering us assurances of immortality. Either literally, through the heavens, the soul's afterlives or reincarnation, or by the prospect that some vestige of ourselves will persist over time - from having kids, amassing great fortunes or producing great works of art or science. Yet no culturally constructed symbolic belief system is ever powerful enough to completely eradicate the anxiety that is engendered by the awareness of death.
After a test match it's very easy to make selections, once you've seen exactly how the surface is going to play.
Every artist can make art only from the materials at hand, and many of the child stars who try to mature into artists can make art only from their knowledge - and ours - that they were child stars.
Art does not imitate nature, but founds itself on the study of nature, takes from nature the selections which best accord with its own intention, and then bestows on them that which nature does not possess, viz: The mind and soul of man.
...start thinking of yourself as an artist and your life as a work-in-progress. Works-in-progress are never perfect. But changes can be made...Art evolves. So does life. Art is never stagnant. Neither is life. The beautiful, authentic life you are creating for yourself is your art. It's the highest art.
I say that I suffer from what Rosalind Krauss was calling the post-medium condition, where an artist essentially employs several mediums in order to bring to life whatever specific ideas that they have. For me it's always been that way.
Death is an endless night so awful to contemplate that it can make us love life and value it with such passion that it may be the ultimate cause of all joy and all art.
Art is an affirmation of life, a rebuttal of death. And here we blunder into paradox again, for during the creation of any form of art, art which affirms the value and the holiness of life, the artist must die. To serve a work of art, great or small, is to die, to die to self.
What does it mean to feel "in control" of your life? What I mean by control is the ability to make a choice. Personal sovereignty means that you choose from what is available in order to be intentional about your life...When you feel in control of your life, you know yourself to be the author of your own actions and know that you always have choices.
My tiny baby blossoming art collection is comprised of works by artists I have either assisted or been mentored by, artists I am friends with, or artists I have traded with. As much as I want to and aspire to acquire works from established artists, I love acquiring works from my contemporaries in order to participate in this moment in time. The advice I would give is know what you like, take your time, and invest in things you feel connected to, as opposed to buying something because it seems cool or "of-the-moment."
I'm not going to comment on White House personnel selections.
I say that I can't make anything up. I think of myself as a collage artist. I'm cutting and pasting memories of my life. And I say, I have to live a life in order to tell a life. I would prefer to tell it because telling you're always in control, you're like God.
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