Chuck Close Quotes

Quotes about:

• Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.

  Chuck Close

  Work, Inspiration, Ideas

  73 Copy quote

• Never let anyone define what you are capable of by using parameters that don’t apply to you.

  Chuck Close

  Photography, Use, Defining

  66 Copy quote

• If you're overwhelmed by the size of a problem, break it down into smaller pieces.

  Chuck Close

  Pieces, Size, Overwhelmed

  31 Copy quote

• A face is a road map of someone's life. Without any need to amplify that or draw attention to it, there's a great deal that's communicated about who this person is and what their life experiences have been.

  Chuck Close

  Photography, Needs, Attention

  "What I've Learned: Chuck Close" by Andy Ward, www.esquire.com. January 29, 2007.

  46 Copy quote

• Never let anyone define what you are capable of by using parameters that don't apply to you. Inspiration is for amateurs, the rest of us just show up and get to work. Every great idea I've ever had grew out of work itself. Sign onto a process and see where it takes you. You don't have to invent the wheel everyday. Today you will do what you did yesterday, tomorrow you will do what you did today. Eventually, you will get somewhere.

  Chuck Close

  Inspiration, Ideas, Yesterday

  41 Copy quote

• While photography is the easiest medium in which to be competent, it is the hardest in which to develop an idiosyncratic personal vision.

  Chuck Close

  Photography, Vision, Hardest

  28 Copy quote

• Painting is the frozen evidence of a performance.

  Chuck Close

  Photography, Frozen, Photographer

  "What I've Learned: Chuck Close" by Andy Ward, www.esquire.com. January 29, 2007.

  4 Copy quote

• In life you can be dealt a winning hand of cards and you can find a way to lose, and you can be dealt a losing hand and find a way to win. True in art and true in life: you pretty much make your own destiny. If you are by nature an optimistic person, which I am, that puts you in a better position to be lucky in life.

  Chuck Close

  Photography, Art, Optimistic

  4 Copy quote

• Ease is the enemy of the artist. When things get too easy, you're in trouble.

  Chuck Close

  Photography, Artist, Enemy

  "Chuck Close: 'Important Works on Paper'". Interview with Stephanie Wright Hession, www.sfgate.com. September 4, 2013.

  20 Copy quote

• Inspiration is for amateurs.

  Chuck Close

  Inspiration, Writing

  Interview with Roberto Patella, spiritandfleshmag.com. December 18, 2015.

  26 Copy quote

• The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.

  Chuck Close

  Inspiration, Artist, Giving

  30 Copy quote

• All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you.If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens.But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction.

  Chuck Close

  Dream, Ideas, Long

  20 Copy quote

• Those who are waiting for an epiphany to strike may wait forever. The artist simply goes to work, making art, both good and not so good.

  Chuck Close

  Art, Motivation, Waiting

  7 Copy quote

• Inspiration is for amateurs - the rest of us just show up and get to work. And the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will - through work - bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of if you were just sitting around looking for a great "art idea."

  Chuck Close

  Art, Inspiration, Doors

  "Inside the Painter's Studio". Book by Joe Fig, September 2, 2009.

  19 Copy quote

• Art saved my life in two ways. It made me feel special, because I could do things my friends couldn't, but it also gave me a way to demonstrate to my teacher that, despite the fact that I couldn't write a paper or do math, I was paying attention.

  Chuck Close

  Teacher, Art, Writing

  16 Copy quote

• The thing that interests me about photography, and why it's different from all other media, is that it's the only medium in which there is even the possibility of an accidental masterpiece.

  Chuck Close

  Photography, Media, Different

  14 Copy quote

• Painting is the most magical of mediums. The transcendence is truly amazing to me every time I go to a museum and I see how somebody figured another way to rub colored dirt on a flat surface and make space where there is no space or make you think of a life experience.

  Chuck Close

  Photography, Thinking, Space

  48 Copy quote

• All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.

  Chuck Close

  Photography, Ideas, Photographer

  7 Copy quote

• Having a routine, knowing what to do, gives me a sense of freedom and keeps me from going crazy. It's calming.

  Chuck Close

  Crazy, Knowing, Giving

  7 Copy quote

• It's like a magic well. You think you know everything about [a] photograph, you think you've gotten everything out of it, and all of a sudden I see things in it I'd never seen before.

  Chuck Close

  Thinking, Magic, Photograph

  4 Copy quote

• I only have so much time and energy and money, and I'm going to put it into my work.

  Chuck Close

  Energy, Time And Energy

  "Artist Chuck Close Talks About Corruption On The Art Market". www.huffingtonpost.com. August 29, 2011.

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• Neurologically, I'm a quadriplegic, so virtually everything about my work has been driven by my learning disabilities, which are quite severe, and my lack of facial recognition, which I'm sure is what drove me to paint portraits in the first place.

  Chuck Close

  Portraits, Firsts, Recognition

  11 Copy quote

• Inspiration is highly overrated. If you sit around and wait for the clouds to part, it's not liable to ever happen. More often than not, work is salvation.

  Chuck Close

  Photography, Inspiration, Clouds

  "What I've Learned: Chuck Close" by Andy Ward, www.esquire.com. January 29, 2007.

  13 Copy quote

• Inspiration is for amateurs. professionals work everyday. Personally the best inspiration is a deadline.

  Chuck Close

  Inspiration, Everyday, Deadline

  9 Copy quote

• From my point of view, photography never got any better than it was in 1840.

  Chuck Close

  Photography, Views, Point Of View

  "Chuck Close's best shot". Interview with Leo Benedictus, www.theguardian.com. April 19, 2007.

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