I've tried a few times to depart from what I know I can do, and I've failed. I've tried to work outside the studio, but it introduces too many variables that I can't control. I'm really quite narrow, you know.
Interpretation
The quote reflects an artist's struggle with experimenting beyond their familiar boundaries and the challenges that come with it.
Irving Penn expresses the difficulty of stepping outside of one's expertise and comfort zone, acknowledging that while attempts to innovate may have been made, the unpredictable nature of new environments can lead to failure. This statement highlights the tension between creativity and the constraints of one's established skills, suggesting that true mastery may lie within a more focused and controlled artistic practice.
In practice
An artist might share this quote during a workshop to emphasize the importance of knowing one's artistic limits.
Sensitive people faced with the prospect of a camera portrait put on a face they think is one they would like to show the world very often what lies behind the facade is rare and more wonderful than the subject knows or dares to believe.
I am a professional photographer because it is the best way I know to earn the money I require to take care of my wife and children.
I can get obsessed by anything if i look at it long enough. That's the curse of being a photographer.
I'm here to make good pictures. If I don't see it, I won't touch it. I may not make a good picture, but I still gotta believe in it!
I put one questions. For whom I compose? My answer is I wanted to address to all my people. And if I write music for the Greek people because I'm Greek, I compose for all the people.
I do my best work when I feel conviction to say something through the character I play. Always I want to have integrity and not compromise that.
Sculpture occupies real space like we do... you walk around it and relate to it almost as another person or another object.
It was - I'm very didactic in my lyrics, but I've always been drawn to mock my own emotions, and so I write this very lyric-heavy stuff, which suits theater and comedy much more than it suits pop.
Those of us who work in the arts know that depiction is not endorsement. If it was, no artist would be able to paint inhumane practices, no author could write about them, and no filmmaker could delve into the thorny subjects of our time.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.