A Quote by Ted Martinez

When I paint to please other people I tend to lose the free spirit creative edge. — © Ted Martinez
When I paint to please other people I tend to lose the free spirit creative edge.
My experience working with lots of creative people is that they don't lose their artistic edge when they lose a fierce level of anguish. They just create from a different place.
Once you get rid of the idea that you must please other people before you please yourself, and you begin to follow your own instincts - only then can you be successful. You become more satisfied, and when you are, other people will tend to be satisfied by what you do.
If I were a painter, I would paint beautiful bodies - I would paint nipples, and I would paint Bibles. Am I going to say, 'I'm not going to paint this woman's neck because people will think I just want to lick on necks?' Please! That's not what art is about.
The poet must be free to love or hate as the spirit moves him, free to change, free to be a chameleon, free to be an enfant terrible. He must above all never worry about this effect on other people.
The temptation many creative people I know have is to strive for popularity. To make, do, and say things that other people like in the hopes of pleasing them. This motivation is nice. And sometimes the end result is good. But often what happens in trying so hard to please other people, especially many other people, the result is mediocre.
America has a broken spirit, that the people that are saying, "Please help me, please let me keep my home, please let me keep my car, please recognize me as a vital human being," they are falling on deaf ears.
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
Art always used to involve spirit. Painters painted spirit. They painted by commission things to go into churches, and that was painting spirit. Or they would paint people of wealth, and they would try to show how they had power, and again, this is sort of spirit.
Reason is the true creative power, for it produces itself as Infinite Self-consciousness, and its ongoing creation is...world history. As the only power that exists, Spirit can therefore be determined by nothing other than itself, that is, its essence is Freedom...Freedom is the infinite power of Spirit...Freedom, the only End of Spirit, is also the only End of History, and history is nothing other than Spirit's becoming *conscious* of its Freedom, or the becoming of Real, Free, Infinite Self-consciousness.
Dear God, Please teach me to forgive myself and others. Remove the walls that keep love out, behind which I am a prisoner. Heal my guilt and remove my anger, that I might be reborn. Make gentle my heart and strong my spirit and show me how to love. Please show me how to honor myself. Please teach me how to listen to myself. "Please program my mind to know itself, that I might at last be free. Teach me to appreciate your spirit that lives within me. Show me how to be good to myself, that I might know more fully the goodness of life. Amen
You cannot please everyone, and I think that what's important, ultimately, is to make sure you please yourself. If you start trying to please other people, you'll just go around in circles.
Some people like to paint pictures, or do gardening, or build a boat in the basement. Other people get a tremendous pleasure out of the kitchen, because cooking is just as creative and imaginative an activity as drawing, or wood carving, or music.
Knock on wood, my groupies tend to be very artistic, creative people - sometimes way more creative than I am.
I think some people need the assurance of people around them and ideas worked out in advance. I think it keeps me an edge that to be creative on the spot. You have to think of things to do when you meet people. You limit your choices from the beginning. So I don't bring a lot of lenses, cameras, all these elements that can help the picture to a shooting. You confine yourself to, say, one room and you just make it work. You become very creative in that little space. You have left a lot of other options out of the game.
Street skating, which is what I grew up with, is completely free of rules. You can do anything. When I see a skater go by, I think, What is this person going to do here? It's the same with people who write, who make music, who draw, who make movies. Creative people tend to have all of those different avenues in them.
Life is about doing the things that make you happy, not the things that please other people. If you can please other people, that's a plus, but as long as you're not hurting anyone, you're golden.
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