Here are a few provocative quotes to get you thinking. Enjoy!
No one but myself knows the anxiety I go through and the trouble I give myself to finish paintings which do not satisfy me and seem to please so very few others. (Claude Monet)
I suffered a nervous breakdown that has lasted a lifetime, though by now I have learned to live with it. (Jeanne Reynal)
I would say off the cuff that I am an anxious person. I worry about everything. I need to know everything. I tend to live in a state of anxiety with the feeling that life is some kind of great catastrophe. (Antoni Tapies)
It seems I have learned to bear the anxiety of uncertainty. Now I accept that one can’t know ahead of time what is on the other side. You might say my new works project a greater degree of jeopardy. (Anne Truitt)
The world is horrid right straight through and so am I … I want to grouch and sulk and rip and snort. I am a pail of milk that has gone sour. (Emily Carr)
I know that in everybody’s life must come days of depression and discouragement when all things in life seem to lose savor. The sunniest day has its clouds; but one must not forget the sun is there all the time. (Lucy Maud Montgomery)
Some people worry that if the addiction or depression goes away, the creativity goes away too. Not true. When your spirit is no longer weighed down with these distractions, you are finally able to find your authentic self. (Nina Allen Freeman)
If the storm within gets too loud, I take a glass too much to stun myself. (Vincent van Gogh)
When you stop drinking, you have to deal with this marvelous personality that started you drinking in the first place. (Jimmy Breslin)
The key to a healthy life is having a healthy mind. (Richard J. Davidson)
Painting gave meaning to my life, which without it, it would not have had. (Francis Bacon)
A huge component of the process of making art is the making of meaning – taking stimuli, sorting it, reconstructing it and communicating it. (Nicoletta Baumeister)
Great set of quotes, and indeed
thought-provoking! ?
Thanks 🙂
Depression:” A minor dent…”
Hello Eric,
We met via phone conversations some years ago when I sought and paid for your guidance as a creativity coach.
Sometime since the covid shutdown I read one of your Pixels blogs in which you encouraged artists to focus on one projecct at a time.
Staying with one project still eludes me especially when I have become activated. Any suggestions for how to sustain enthusiasm for and focus on one project?
Thank you for your inspiring blog, and in this instance, quotes.
I know what I go through when I am having panic/anxiety/depression due to work stress that stress that I bring upon myself thinking how and when I will be able to finish my job at hand. And I get overwhelmed with the number of tasks I take together in my hand. My art my paintings are a burning passion inside me that sometimes keeps me awake at night, ideas and dreams to create something wonderful makes me start an art at 3am at night sometimes. Its a dream that does not let me sleep at night and makes me restless in the morning. And I love it ???
Hi there, Eric! Thank you for publishing your article.
Yes, I believe life’s tricky, as many artists that you cited in your article think (or thought).
While reading it, I experienced a special connection with Francis Bacon’s quote, whose body of art, by the way, has strongly influenced my work: “Painting gave meaning to my life, which without it, it would not have had.”
Thank you for sharing.