That is the artist's job: take mineral rock from dark silent earth, transform it into shining light-reflecting form from sky.
Interpretation
The artist's role is to transform raw elements of nature into something beautiful and illuminating.
This quote emphasizes the transformative power of art and the artist's unique ability to take ordinary, often overlooked materials from the earth and mold them into something that shines with beauty and meaning. It highlights the artist's responsibility to bring forth light and inspiration from darkness, showcasing creativity as a means of revelation and connection between the natural world and the human experience.
In practice
In a speech about creativity at an art school graduation, one could quote this to inspire new artists.
We are living in a computer-programmed reality, and the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed, and some alteration in reality occurs. We have the overwhelming impression that we were reliving the present - deja vu.
Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.
On some other world, possibly it is different. Better. There are clear good and evil alternatives. Not these obscure admixtures, these blends, with no proper tool by which to untangle the components.
"Do you have information that there's an android in the cast? I'd be glad to help you, and if I were an android would I be glad to help you?" "An android," he said, "doesn't care what happens to another android. That's one of the indications we look for." "Then," Miss Luft said, "you must be an android."
The universe is information and we are stationary in it, not three dimensional and not in space or time.
A man is an angel that has gone deranged.
I like making images that from a distance seem kind of seductive, colorful, luscious and engaging, and then you realize what you're looking at is something totally opposite. It seems boring to me to pursue the typical idea of beauty, because that is the easiest and the most obvious way to see the world. It's more challenging to look at the other side.
Obviously I am a photographer and I believe in my medium: I do think that powerful photographs can force change. It doesn't take long to look and be engaged in a strong image whereas, with a story, you have to actually sit down and pause and be involved in it.
I started dancing almost before I could walk.
The actor is there to translate what's on the page onto the stage or the screen. So I find it important that an actor manages to actually get out of the way, vanish as a person behind the character, never to be seen or talked about again. That's my philosophy.
What's interesting about the process of acting is how often you don't know what you're doing.
I used to play flute and clarinet at school, and although I wasn't thinking about making a living or getting a pay cheque, I already knew I was going to play music all my life.
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