Latest Gregory Crewdson Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• I was really fixated when I was a child. Again my mother was just talking to me about this, about how I would how try to get details exactly right. I guess I was always very persistent.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Mother, Children, Talking

  Source: theamericanreader.com

• I'm not that particularly talented in terms of making anything or - I'm not technically efficient. I certainly don't know how to draw very well or paint, and I'm not good with computers. But I think the thing that I'm good at is willing something into life, no matter what. I do what it takes to get it done.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Thinking, Done, Matter

  Source: theamericanreader.com

• My mom just recently reminded me that I used to build these little miniature worlds outside at our country house and populate it with little figures.That whole thing [shooting is] about trying to create a world - there's something very connected to childhood and reverie and daydreaming and fantasy.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Mom, Country, House

  Source: theamericanreader.com

• The whole reason I make these pictures is for those moments of clarity. For that single moment, everything seems to make sense in my world. And I think we all look for that in our lives, because our lives are generally filled with chaos and confusion and disorder and complication.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Single Mom, Thinking, Confusion

  Source: theamericanreader.com

• We all strive to find moments of clarity, of order.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Order, Clarity, Moments

  Source: theamericanreader.com

• I think maybe the figures - that's a good word - the figures in my pictures are stand-ins for my own need to make a connection.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Thinking, Connections, Needs

  Source: theamericanreader.com

• There's a parallel between me going through these enormous efforts to try to make a moment that means something - and in a way, the figures are doing the same thing. There is that parallel, for sure.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Mean, Effort, Trying

  Source: theamericanreader.com

• If my pictures are about anything at all, I think it's about trying to make a connection in the world. I see them as more optimistic in a certain way. Even though it's very clear there's a level of sadness and disconnection, I think that they're really about trying to make a connection and almost the impossibility of doing so.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Optimistic, Sadness, Thinking

  Source: theamericanreader.com

• I think that's the nature of representation. No matter what it will disappoint, it will fail in some way.But that's also part of the magic of art. If every picture met my expectation in exactly the right way, there'd be no mystery; there'd be no gap between what's in my head and the picture I make.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Art, Thinking, Expectations

  Source: theamericanreader.com

• You have this ambition to make something perfect, exactly right. Of course, necessarily, it fails in some way and you have to accept that for what it is, and then you're on to the next thing.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Ambition, Perfect, Way

  Source: theamericanreader.com

• Making that final commitment is really hard. Because once you decide to move forward, it becomes a whole process which is really hard to stop.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Moving, Commitment, Finals

  Source: theamericanreader.com

• In "Twilight," the narratives are more literal, and the event is much more spectacular. The pictures in "Beneath the Roses" are much more psychological and grounded in reality.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Twilight, Reality, Rose

  Source: theamericanreader.com

• I was never conscious of filming except for when I was location scouting. In a way, that is the most important part of the entire process - and the most private. I'm so used to doing that alone. Unlike every other part, it's just me, alone, on location.It's very hard to describe what I'm looking for - something that feels both familiar and strange at the same time. It's not enough for it just to be strange or mysterious, it also has to feel very ordinary, very familiar, and very nondescript.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Important, Way, Location

  Source: theamericanreader.com

• Usually I'll drive to certain locations over and over again, over a course of months really. And then it might just be I hit it at the right time, and the right light. And then I might go to that location over and over again, and then what happens in that lag time where - the image sort of locks in - all of a sudden I see it in my mind's eye.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Eye, Light, Mind

  Source: theamericanreader.com

• I do think that dread is about a certain kind of expectation. And the fact that a picture can never resolve itself the way a movie can - maybe that's a specific kind of dread that becomes associated with a picture.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Thinking, Expectations, Way

  Source: theamericanreader.com

• The viewer is more likely to project their own narrative onto the picture.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Narrative, Projects, Viewers

  Source: theamericanreader.com

• I'm very moved by the fact that people are drawn into the pictures and that they do bring their own history and their own interpretation to the photograph. I think that's why they work in a certain way.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Thinking, People, Way

  Source: theamericanreader.com

• I want to privilege the moment.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Privilege, Want, Moments

  Source: theamericanreader.com

• Since a photograph is frozen and mute, since there is no before and after, I don't want there to be a conscious awareness of any kind of literal narrative. And that's why I really try not to pump up motivation or plot or anything like that.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Motivation, Trying, Frozen

  Source: theamericanreader.com

• What's important to me is that there's a necessary alienation between me and the subject. I don't want to know them well. I don't want to have any intimate contact with them.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Important, Want, Intimate

  Source: theamericanreader.com

• For all the talk of my pictures being narratives or that they're about storytelling, there's really very little actually happening in the pictures. One of the few things I always tell people in my pictures is that I want less - give me something less.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Giving, People, Want

  Source: theamericanreader.com

• I never know what to call the subjects in my pictures because I'm uncomfortable with the word actor. I think maybe subjects might be more accurate - or maybe even more accurate is objects.

  Gregory Crewdson

  Thinking, Actors, Might

  Source: theamericanreader.com