pjthompson | Entries tagged with artists

Random quote of the day:

“Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to the patient, who are there as though eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly still and wide. I learn it daily, learn it with pain to which I am grateful: patience is everything!”

—Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to A Young Poet

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Bert and Ernie, Celine Dion, or the Band of the Coldstream Guards. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“Any authentic work of art must start an argument between the artist and his audience.

—Rebecca West, The Court and the Castle

Random quote of the day:

“The scholar generalizes, the artist individualizes.”

—Jules Renard, The Journal of Jules Renard, January 1889 (tr. Louise Bogan and Elizabeth Roget)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Desus and Mero, Beyoncé, or the Marine Corps Marching Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“If you’re an artist, you’re guilty of a crime: not that you’re aware, which is bad enough, but that you see things other people don’t admit are there.”

—James Baldwin, LIFE magazine, May 24, 1963

Random quote of the day:

“An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way.”

—Charles Bukowski, Notes of A Dirty Old Man

Random quote of the day:

“If more people could only comprehend that an artist must create because he has to create, because he is possessed by his art! The artist is only a very tiny part of the universe and should not receive more attention than anything else on earth that gives us beauty, joy and replenishment.”

—Pablo Picasso, “What Life Has Taught Me,” Music Journal, Jan. 1962

Random quote of the day:

“How can the artist justify himself? The answer is that he cannot, and should stop boring himself with his egocentric need to try. The artist is a lucky dog. That is all there is to say about him. In any community of a thousand souls there will be nine hundred doing the work, ninety doing well, nine doing good, and one lucky dog painting or writing about the other nine hundred and ninety-nine.”

—Tom Stoppard, Artist Descending a Staircase

Random quote of the day:

“The Outsider may be an artist, but the artist is not necessarily an Outsider.”

—Colin Wilson, The Outsider

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

It's so odd writing again for characters I first created 5 novels ago (Jeremy, Susan, Carmina, Maff from Blood Geek). Kind of like meeting up with old friends you haven't talked to in 20 years. You kind of know them, but you kind of don't, and it's partially getting to know them all over again but with this strange deja vu.
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Oh, criminy! The December 19 Democratic debate is going to be held about two blocks from here, at Loyola Marymount instead of UCLA. Looks like I don't leave the house that day.
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The Lao Tzu quote I used for the November 8 random quote of the day is so ubiquitous that it appears on t-shirts and coffee mugs, but I couldn't verify that he actually said it. I don't normally like to use quotes I can't verify because there's already too much of that on the internet. And I try to avoid ubiquitous quotes altogether, because generally the more ubiquitous they are, the less likely they are to be an accurate attribution. But when I pulled this one out of my random quote file yesterday shortly after posting about learning to live with limitations on Twitter, I thought, "Okay, Universe, I get the message." I felt I had to use it. So, "attributed to Lao Tzu" and adding to its ubiquitousness. (Any time I use "attributed to" it means I couldn't verify the authenticity of the attribution but decided to use the quote anyway.)
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An interesting article on art and arthritis:
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-07-26/art-arthritis-aging

We overcome what we must. I'm kind of in a place now where I've said to myself, "You can either limit yourself because of your legs [arthritis] or do what you are able to and not make excuses." This is almost a daily argument I have with myself.

I think I finally turned the corner there (and I really am so much better off than so many others). I'm still limited but trying not to limit myself. It's tough not to give in to despair and self-pity sometimes, though, when you can't do things like you used to do. But that accomplishes nothing. The lady in the arthritis article come through it, too, after a requisite period of mourning.

Losing my eyesight would be utter devastation. I think of what it did to my mom. Her stroke left her with severe vision impairment and she'd been a visual artist all her life. But she never gave up, not until maybe the last six months of her life when other things started to take their toll.

I fear sight loss, too. But that's a fear for another day, and not part of my current objective reality. We have to deal with what's on our plate right now, and keep digging deep to find the resources to continue in some way to be who we truly are.
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If I had an RV, I'd call my RV Maria.
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Yoiks. So many talking heads in the chapter I’ve been working on, and characters standing around frozen until it's their turn to talk. I look forward to the rewrites. A very long scene, and possibly told from the wrong POV, but talking heads are easy to write when you’re trying to get through a lot of information. Not so much interesting to read, though. I still look forward to the rewrites.
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People love to hate, and they love dancing around in their underwear feeling superior to everyone else.
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Here’s another interesting article: “Ancestor Worship with Mother Nature: How Indigenous Death Rituals Illuminate the Web of Life” by Maria Popova:
https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/08/27/david-abram-the-spell-of-the-sensuous-death/
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The worst earworms are ones that play in your sleep and every time you wake up the tune starts up. Or is that just me? For a week, every time I woke up “My Darling Clementine” started playing in my head. I finally had to unleash extreme countermeasures by singing "Brandy" to myself until that replaced it. Lately, they have improved considerably. “Brandy” was replaced by “Look At Me,” which is heavy rotation on a VW commercial right now, then “Ave Maria,” also in heavy commercial rotation (Amazon). But that has now been replaced by Leonard Cohen's “Anthem” which is not in a commercial but a gift from the gods. A much classier run of earworms.

Random quote of the day:

“The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.”

—Cyril Connolly, The Unquiet Grave

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Laurel and Hardy, Ariana Grande, or the Salvation Army Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable. No virtuous man—that is, virtuous in the Y.M.C.A. sense—has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading.”

—H. L. Mencken, Prejudices, First Series

Random quote of the day:

“Artists never thrive in colonies. Ants do. What the budding artist needs is the privilege of wrestling with his problems in solitude—and now and then a piece of red meat.”

—Henry Miller, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“I can paint false Picassos just as well as anybody.”

—Pablo Picasso, quoted in The New York Times obituary, April 9, 1973

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“I can paint false Picassos just as well as anybody.”

—Pablo Picasso, quoted in The New York Times obituary, April 9, 1973

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

"[God’s] existence had already been proved by the accordion, the landscape and soft words."

—Tristan Tzara, dada manifesto

Random quote of the day:

“[God’s] existence had already been proved by the accordion, the landscape and soft words.”

—Tristan Tzara, dada manifesto

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“Artists are the antennae of the race.”

—Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

30 Nov
Huh! With everything, I completely forgot about the looming Mayan Apocalypse. I wonder if I’ll even notice?

30 Nov
Mom is being transferred to the rehab center this afternoon. That was fast! Such a bundle of conflicting emotions right now. She’s feeling much better and they’ll give her the help she needs. But I’m still twisted in knots. This isn’t a logical I thing, it’s an emotional one. I’ve been her only caregiver for a long time and have to remind myself I’m not abandoning her but getting help.

2 Dec
God save me from people who think being an artist excuses all manner of bad behavior. Mom’s roommate is an Artiste and the most self-absorbed tyrant to her children and everyone else I’ve met in a long time. They’re talking of moving her Monday. Hallelujah.

3 Dec
There are people who will return your phone calls and others who are never going to be able to do that. You have to let go of expectations.

4 Dec
A horror show in the Marina: http://bit.ly/XDkS1D It broke my heart to see those gorgeous old trees taken down, some 40 years old or more. I have to drive by the stumps of 50+ cut down trees every morning and evening and I keep imagining them crying out in pain and horror. Sometimes a good imagination is a liability.

4 Dec
Your decision: try to help a man off the tracks before he’s hit by a subway train or take a picture of him as he’s about to get hit? Then sell it to the NY Post, of course. What is wrong with some people?

4 Dec
The physical therapist at the rehab center thinks that with some therapy Mom may be able to get back on her feet. This would be a very good thing.

5 Dec
I hope it’s not an omen of Apocalypse: yesterday while sitting at the gas station a dismembered pigeon wing dropped in front of my car. A crow came along presently to fetch it and fly away.

5 Dec
The girl bicycling in a thigh length beige fake fur coat. (At least, I hope it was fake.)

10 Dec
Just when I thought I could relax a bit, the medical transportation company decided to clusterfu*k my mother’s dialysis appointments. Foolish me. You can never relax in the caregiver biz.

11 Dec
Exhausted, desperate for rest, don’t know when that’s going to happen. And the Christmas carolers are here. The happiest time of the year.

12 Dec
Ironic juxtaposition: Driving to work I followed a rusted, corroded, bondo-enhanced “personal pleasure craft” full of fishing poles being towed by some guy to the Marina del Rey. Just as I wondered if they had life jackets on board that mess NPR announced, “Forty years ago today The Poseidon Adventure premiered in theaters.”

13 Dec
So the fire captain of my local fire house called to say he was meeting with the Chief about my mother’s 911 call that they botched. I have no beef against their house—they’ve helped us many times. But this call was not their finest hour. Glad it’s being addressed. The hospital and Mom’s doctors filed a complaint against them. Still, I appreciate the outreach.

13 Dec
Some bright spark asked at the official timekeeping meeting about the tradition of sending us home early the day before a holiday. No more early exits for us. Don’t ask and we won’t officially tell.

13 Dec
Free-floating anxiety. Tried all day to reach Mom on her cell phone. She had her headphones on and couldn’t hear the phone. I’m exhausted. It makes the imagination a wee bit crazy sometimes. I managed to calm down after I talked to her. I need to take up meditation or something.

14 Dec
Obviously handing out a high-powered weapon to anyone who wants one is a great idea. /bitter irony

17 Dec
On the drive back from visiting Mom at noon I couldn’t take listening to tragedy anymore so punched the button for KUSC. Just in time for Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus. And yes, I sang along!

18 Dec
The clouds this morning a fuzzy gray blanket lying heavy on the tops of the Santa Monica Mountains and tucked in over the foothills and city.

18 Dec
Driving around yesterday I saw several celebrities. Robert Pattinson (not really) was driving towards the airport at Lincoln & 83rd in a late model muscle car that had been primed gray but not painted. Edgar Winter (not really), dressed all in black, crossed the street at Lincoln headed towards Marina del Rey Hospital. Stephen Fry (not really), his hair grown out long, crossed in front of me at Pacific and Windward heading towards the Venice Circle. At that point I really did begin to wonder if there was a celebrity lookalike convention in town or something.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“Everybody’s an artist. Everybody’s God. It’s just that they’re inhibited."

—Yoko Ono, interview with Abram Deswaan for Dutch TV, October 1968

( Illustrated version. )

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

"A good traveler has no fixed plans
and is not intent upon arriving.
A good artist lets his intuition
lead him wherever it wants.
A good scientist has freed himself of concepts
and keeps his mind open to what is."

—Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, No. 27, tr. Stephen Mitchell

( Illustrated version. )

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

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Echoes in a Hollow Space

I'm here because I'm here because I'm here

Entries tagged with artists

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