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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)
Inspiration
Work
Amateurs
Photographer
Photography

More quotes by Chuck Close

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I never said the camera was truth. It is, however, a more accurate and more objective way of seeing.
Chuck Close
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I always thought that one of the reasons why a painter likes especially to have other painters look at his or her work is the shared experience of having pushed paint around.
Chuck Close
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I don't believe in inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs. Some of the time you know you're cooking, and the rest of the time, you just do it.
Chuck Close
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There are things about signing on to a process over the long term that protect you from the buffeting winds of change.
Chuck Close
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I did some pastels and I did other pieces in which there was just basically one color per square, and then they would get bigger and I could get 2 or 3 colors into the square, and ultimately I just started making oil paintings.
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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Ease is the enemy of the artist. When things get too easy, you're in trouble.
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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I learned you could suffer a terrible tragedy and still be happy again.
Chuck Close
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You know, the way art history is taught, often there's nothing that tells you why the painting is great. The description of a lousy painting and the description of a great painting will very much sound the same.
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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It doesn't upset artists to find out that artists used lenses or mirrors or other aids, but it certainly does upset the art historians.
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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I have always attempted to create images that deliver the maximum amount of information about the subject.
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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Of all the artists who emerged in the '80s, I think perhaps Cindy Sherman is the most important.
Chuck Close
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I wanted to translate from one flat surface to another.In fact, my learning disabilities controlled a lot of things. I don't recognize faces, so I'm sure it's what drove me to portraits in the first place.
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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When you come up in the art world, whatevers in the air, the issues of the moment, end up becoming part of the working method or modus operandi of how you think about doing a painting. And I came up at a time when-actually painting was dead when I came up. Sculpture sort of ruled.
Chuck Close
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I think most paintings are a record of the decisions that the artist made. I just perhaps make them a little clearer than some people have.
Chuck Close