If something doesn't creep into a drawing that you're not prepared for, you might as well not have drawn it.
Edward GoreyRead
I just kind of conjured them up out of my subconscious and put them in order of ascending peculiarity.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the creative process as one that involves tapping into the subconscious mind and arranging unique ideas.
Edward Gorey's quote illustrates the artistic journey of creation, where thoughts and inspirations are often derived from the depths of one's subconscious. By organizing these often peculiar ideas, an artist can shape them into something meaningful and imaginative, highlighting the beauty of originality and creative expression.
In practice
During a creative writing workshop, this quote could inspire participants to explore their subconscious for ideas.
If something doesn't creep into a drawing that you're not prepared for, you might as well not have drawn it.
This is the theory… that anything that is art… is presumably about some certain thing, but is really always about something else, and it’s no good having one without the other, because if you just have the something it is boring and if you just have the something else it’s irritating.
I am a person before I am anything else. I never say I am a writer. I never say I am an artist...I am a person who does those things.
An artist must approach his work in the spirit of the criminal about to commit a crime.
I wanted to produce a book that would demonstrate not only the rich diversity of people who answered to Anders's command but also the extraordinary variety of their experiences and emotions: from death to despair, fear and longings and eventually to hope.
All art speaks in signs and symbols. No one can explain how it happens that the artist can waken to life in us the existence that he has seen and lives through. No artistic speech is the adequate expression of what it represents; its vital force comes from what is unspoken in it.
Pictures aren't made out of doctrines. Since the appearance of impressionism, the official salons, which used to be brown, have become blue, green, and red...But peppermint or chocolate, they are still confections.
One thing is certain: the arts keep you alive. They stimulate, encourage, challenge, and, most of all, guarantee a future free from boredom. They allow growth and even demand it in that time of life we call maturity but too often enter it with a childish faith that what we learned in youth is sustenance enough for the years when most men are mentally famished but won't admit it—or when they are apt to curb their hunger with the sops of complacency, security, and the assurance of death.
Art would be useless if the world were perfect.
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