Sometimes I see it and then paint it. Other times I paint it and then see it. Both are impure situations, and I prefer neither.
Jasper JohnsRead
To be an artist you have to give up everything, including the desire to be a good artist.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True artistry requires total commitment and the abandonment of ego.
Jasper Johns emphasizes that to truly create art, one must surrender their attachments and preconceptions, especially the desire for validation or recognition as a 'good' artist. This suggests that the essence of art lies in the purity of expression rather than striving for external approval, highlighting the deep personal sacrifice involved in the creative process.
Themes
ArtistCreativitySacrificeExpressionCommitment
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared in a workshop on artistic expression to encourage participants to embrace their authenticity.
More from Jasper Johns
All quotes →The only logical thing I can think of is that I knew there were such things as artists, and I knew there were none where I lived. So I knew that to be an artist you had to be somewhere else. And I very much wanted to be somewhere else.
Jasper JohnsRead
This image of wanting to be an artist - that I would in some way become an artist -was very strong. I knew for a long, long time that that's what I would be. But nothing I ever did seemed to bring me any nearer to the condition of being an artist. And I didn't know how to do it.
Jasper JohnsRead
One wants one's work to be the world, but of course it's never the world. The work is in the world; it never contains the whole thing.
Jasper JohnsRead
Sometime during the mid-50s I said, 'I am an artist.' Before that, for many years, I had said, 'I'm going to be an artist.' Then I went through a change of mind and a change of heart. What made 'going to be an artist' into 'being an artist', was, in part, a spiritual change.
Jasper JohnsRead
Make something, a kind of object, which as it changes or falls apart (dies as it were) or increases in its parts (grows as it were) offers no clue as to what its state or form or nature was at any previous time. Physical and Metaphysical. Obstinacy. Could this be a useful object?
Jasper JohnsRead
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A thing which is present can be invisible, hidden by what it shows
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