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.
Always be a poet, even in prose.
I give myself homework when I have an audition. I give myself goals, and that's how I check how I'm doing. It can be something simple like 'listen,' or 'find your feet.' And then afterward it's an assessment, so in a way it's not about booking the job or not. It's about what I learned as an actor about that character.
Speed is scarcely the noblest virtue of graphic composition, but it has its curious rewards. There is a sense of getting somewhere fast, which satisfies a native American urge.
A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's not there.
The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite.
I originally wanted to embrace the imagery and forthrightness of rap music. There are some interesting, dynamic voices in rap. But I find most of it irresponsible in its overt violence and commercialization of anger. As artists, we believe we can will action through language. If that's the case, we have to take responsibility for what we say.
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