I collected pictures and I drew pictures and I looked at the pictures by myself. And because no one else ever saw them, the pictures were perfect and true. They were alive.
Interpretation
Art can be a deeply personal experience when created in solitude, leading to a sense of authenticity and truth.
In this quote, Helen Oyeyemi reflects on the intimate relationship between the artist and their work when solitude is involved. The act of creating and observing art in privacy allows for an unfiltered expression that feels both perfect and alive, underscoring the idea that personal interpretation can result in a deeper connection to one's creations.
In practice
This quote could be used during an art exhibition to emphasize personal creativity.
Once you let people know anything about what you think, that's it, you're dead. Then they'll be jumping about in your mind, taking things out, holding them up to the light and killing them, yes, killing them, because thoughts are supposed to stay and grow in quiet, dark places, like butterflies in cocoons.
At a certain place in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, for example, he might feel that he is floating above the earth in a starry dome, with the dream of immortality in his heart; all the stars seem to glimmer around him, and the earth seems to sink ever deeper downwards.
You think I'm going to ask these sweet 14 year olds to ask their parents to buy a $100 ticket then run around in latex and lip sync? No way.
There is something bigger than fact: the underlying spirit, all it stands for, the mood, the vastness, the wildness.
There's this idea that it's all natural, but everything's been staged to look natural. It is also an invention. It's just that my inventions are different. I often get asked about my artifice, but isn't fashion based on the idea that we can create a fantasy?
Training readers to expect a voice or subject matter from me would interfere with the reinvention I crave. At the same time, I feel almost too able to disappear at times.
I don't care what people think of me, unless they think I'm mean or something, but I don't care if they think I'm like someone else because I know I'm not - I'm a total weirdo. I'm not selling a dream; I'm not selling fame like it is some sort of fantastic thing. I'm just trying to sell music and get on with my real life.
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