A Quote by Robert Bateman
I never thought that I would support myself with art - everyone in the Group of Seven had day jobs. I became a geography teacher so that I could get free field trips into the wilderness to paint.
Related Quotes
I've stuck to the same things for twenty years. I try to look like a slightly edgy geography teacher. Like what a geography teacher looked like when I was in school. Cords, sensible shoes and glasses. I never liked geography much as a subject though. In fact the only geography teacher I can remember from school was a woman who had a moustache.
I was a very sickly kid. While I was in the hospital at age seven, my Dad brought me a stack of comic books to keep me occupied. And I was hooked. When my eighth grade art teacher, Mr. Smedley, told me he thought I had actual art talent, I decided to devote all my efforts in that direction in the hope that I might someday get into the comics biz. I became an art major, took every art class my school had to offer. In college, I majored in Advertising Art and Design.
There was a whole language that I could never make function for myself; it revolved around words like 'tortured', 'struggle'. 'pain'.. .I could never see these qualities in paint - I could see them in life and art that illustrates life. But I could not see such conflicts in the materials and I knew that it had to be in the attitude of the painter.
I never could do anything with figures, never had any talent for mathematics, never accomplished anything in my efforts at that rugged study, and to-day the only mathematics I know is multiplication, and the minute I get away up in that, as soon as I reach nine times seven- [He lapsed into deep thought, trying to figure nine times seven. Mr. McKelway whispered the answer to him.] I've got it now. It's eighty-four. Well, I can get that far all right with a little hesitation. After that I am uncertain, and I can't manage a statistic.
As long as I can remember, I had a strong interest in fishing, and my parents, even though they had never fished or camped, took us on canoe camping trips in the wilderness of Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada, where I could fish to my heart's content.
I haven't done anything with Chick Corea. He had a group called Return to Forever, and everyone in the group became a superstar. I would really like to work with him.
I've never met anybody who's had a flashback in my life and I took millions of trips in the Sixties, and I've never met anybody who had any problem. I've had bad trips, but I've had bad trips in real life. I've had a bad trip on a joint. I can get paranoid just sitting in a restaurant; I don't have to take anything.
I've been to the Hall of Fame many times, in grade school and high school. I had field trips to the Hall of Fame and taking tours of it. I just never thought about that one day I possibly might be in it. I think it'd be great.
When I made the decision to really get serious about my writing, I set myself a goal of 1,000 words a day for seven days. If I got to 7,000 words before Monday I could take a day off, but I had to get there. I had to do that every week.
The only thought in the world that is worth anything is free thought. To free thought we owe all past progress and all hope for the future. Since when has any one made it appear that shackled thought could get on better than that which is free? Brains are a great misfortune if one is never to use them.
Working with other people, it's hard to get them to make it sound like what you have in mind. Also, it's really expensive to get your tracks produced, so I thought if I could learn how to do it myself, I could make five albums in a month and it would be free, it would be me, and it would be everything that I'm doing.
Everyone in the group sang when I joined them. That was one of the problems with L.T.D.: there was no focal point. It took until 1976, or about six or seven years, before I was put into the spotlight as a vocalist. That's when I recorded 'Love Ballad,' and it became a hit for the group.
I switched up so that I could work 12-hour shifts at the firm on the weekends so I could have days free to paint. But it was almost like I had a secret life, because I wasn't showing any of my work. It was just in my house. In '89, I got a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. That's when I started to get into group shows. Suddenly I sort of "came out" as an artist.
I would have - I didn't really have to be an athlete. I could have been, you know - worked in fast food, been a janitor, anything. I would have had two or three jobs, working long hours, you know, to support myself and for my family in the future. I would have been successful.
I never thought I would get so much support, and it means the world to me. Nothing could ever get better than that.
I never thought I'd be a person who would want to write books...I promise you not a single English teacher I've ever had would have thought that this would be going on right now.
Related Authors
Asger Jorn Quotes
Danish
Painter
David Salle Quotes
American
Painter
Domenico Gnoli Quotes
Italian
Painter
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Quotes
French
Painter
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Quotes
French
Painter
John Currin Quotes
American
Painter
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy Quotes
Hungarian
Painter
Marsden Hartley Quotes
American
Painter
Milton Resnick Quotes
American
Painter
Odd Nerdrum Quotes
Norwegian
Painter
Pablo Picasso Quotes
Spanish
Painter
Robert Longo Quotes
American
Painter
Vincent Van Gogh Quotes
Dutch
Painter
Walter Darby Bannard Quotes
American
Painter