A Quote by Richard Artschwager

I would wake up at night and think, 'What the hell have I gotten myself into? You don't want to do that!' But you gotta do something, and with art, there's freedom - which is actually very seldom practiced by artists.
It got to the point where I would wake up at 6 A.M. and go on my phone and tweet something and have it be really good and get lots of retweets... and then I would wake up, because it was actually a dream; I would wake up with my hand holding nothing - an air phone.
And I would often wake up at night and stare widely into the room: Am I in Hell?
It was actually books that started to make those pockets of freedom, which I hadn't otherwise experienced. I do see them as talismans, as sacred objects. I see them as something that will protect me, I suppose, that will save me from things that I feel are threatening. I still think that; it doesn't change. It doesn't change, having money, being successful. So from the very first, if I was hurt in some way, then I would take a book -- which was very difficult for me to buy when I was little -- and I would go up into the hills, and that is how I would assuage my hurt.
I think the relationship is very tenuous between fashion and art. Many designers have built relationships with artists, which is not something I personally did. But it's true, sometimes you see artists working for a designer or a brand on some specific project or taking care of their environment and making an amazing store.
My mom has a diary entry or something where I wrote, "I think Steven Tyler is my father." I had the same feelings for Todd Rundgren, who raised me as his daughter. I would go to sleep at night and wake up at like 6 in the morning and creep up the little steps to the tower where he would be on his computer. I would just sit there.
To me, paintings are about beauty. They are very feminine, and beauty is something very feminine. For a long time, people would talk with me about identity. I don't have issues with identity, I just follow this kind of feminine beauty because I became a victim of my art, which I think is the best thing for an artist. So many artists use their talent, but with the best artists, their talent uses them.
I think the record industry has gotten to be more about labels wondering what the new single is rather than labels nurturing artists. It's gotten away from making a full album of music that someone would want to listen to all the way through.
Which implies that the real issue in art is the audience's response. Now I claim that when I make things, I don't care about the audience's response, I'm making them for myself. But I'm making them for myself as audience, because I want to wake myself up.
Spending time by myself is VERY important to me and I wake up pretty early, I wake up around 5 in the morning, and I get to have a couple hours to myself, and that is definitely I think really important to me and I think it's important for moms to have that too. And I love to carve out time for myself and sometimes I'll hang out with girlfriends, but i like to keep things pretty intimate.
I think every writer has their waves of inspiration and their ways of doing things. But writing is very difficult for me. It's something I haven't practiced as diligently as my visual art. I've been doing visual art because I think it's easier for me to construct, whereas words are very difficult.
I'm very detail-oriented, which is good and bad. Because I will wake up in the middle of the night thinking about something or seeing a mistake, thinking about it, and I immediately send an email - I'm very focused on details.
My dad taught me very early in life that whenever a child learns to walk, he falls a lot of times, but then he picks himself up and learns to walk like a man, and that is something which is a motto in life as well. You gotta pick yourself up, and you gotta walk, and you gotta walk strong.
My dad always said I was hard-headed, that it would take something like that to wake me up spiritually, and I guess it did. My heart had gotten so beat up that I didn't have anything left to give.
I would love to see more dialogue around the "responsibilities" of art consumers - how can audiences better financially support artists we love, artists who are doing the work, so that artists have a more solid foundation upon which to make art?
Art movements are always linked to some kind of turmoil. We can look at history and see that [political turmoil is] fertile ground for art. I also think that it gives artists something, a way of kind of processing. My friends and I have all been super motivated to work and to do the work that we need to and want to and think should be in the world. Hard times are really a fire under your ass to prioritize and think, "Okay, how can I challenge myself to put something in the world that wasn't there that can reach other folks and help them to process"?
Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction - a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the muse.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!