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I don't work with inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work.

Chuck Close

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Chuck Close
Age: 81 †
Born: 1940
Born: July 5
Died: 2021
Died: August 19
Drawer
Graphic Artist
Painter
Photographer
Monroe
Washington
Charles Thomas Close
Charles Close
Chuck Close (1940-2021)
Charles Close (1940-2021)
Amateurs
Photographer
Photography
Inspiration
Work

More quotes by Chuck Close

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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
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Any innovation that is evident in my paintings is a direct result of something that happened in the course of making a print.
Chuck Close
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I always thought problem solving was greatly overrated - and that the most important thing was problem creation.
Chuck Close
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I absolutely hate technology, and I'm computer illiterate, and I never use any labor-saving devices although I'm not convinced that a computer is a labor-saving device.
Chuck Close
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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
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Sculpture occupies real space like we do... you walk around it and relate to it almost as another person or another object.
Chuck Close
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I love sculpture, and minimal sculpture is really my favorite stuff, but I wasn't very good at it, and I don't think in a three-dimensional way.
Chuck Close
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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
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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
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It's always a pleasure to talk about someone else's work.
Chuck Close
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Once I started working with the Polaroid, I would take a shot and if that shot was good, then I'd move the model and change the lighting or whatever... slowly sneaking up on what I wanted rather than having to predetermine what it was.
Chuck Close
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I learned you could suffer a terrible tragedy and still be happy again.
Chuck Close
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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
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Like any corporation, I have the benefit of the brainpower of everyone who is working for me. It all ends up being my work, the corporate me, but everyone extends ideas and comes up with suggestions.
Chuck Close
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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
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Losing my father at a tender age was extremely important in being able to accept what happened to me later when I became a quadriplegic.
Chuck Close
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I knew from the age of five what I wanted to do. The one thing I could do was draw. I couldn't draw that much better than some of the other kids, but I cared more and I wanted it badly.
Chuck Close
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The reason I don't like realist, photorealist, neorealist, or whatever, is that I am as interested in the artificial as I am in the real.
Chuck Close
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There's something Zen-like about the way I work - it's like raking gravel in a Zen Buddhist garden.
Chuck Close
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What difference does it make whether you're looking at a photograph or looking at a still life in front of you? You still have to look.
Chuck Close