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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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)
Work
Inspiration
Overrated
Happen
Liable
Waiting
Highly
Often
Photographer
Happens
Salvation
Around
Clouds
Part
Wait
Ever
Photography

More quotes by Chuck Close

Image
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
Image
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
Image
I think the problem with the arts in America is how unimportant it seems to be in our educational system.
Chuck Close
Image
Most people are good at too many things. And when you say someone is focused, more often than not what you actually mean is they're very narrow.
Chuck Close
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The camera is objective. When it records a face it can't make any hierarchical decisions about a nose being more important than a cheek. The camera is not aware of what it is looking at. It just gets it all down.
Chuck Close
Image
I learned you could suffer a terrible tragedy and still be happy again.
Chuck Close
Image
Ease is the enemy of the artist. When things get too easy, you're in trouble.
Chuck Close
Image
I've always thought that problem-solving is highly overrated and that problem creation is far more interesting.
Chuck Close
Image
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
Image
I have a great deal of difficulty recognizing faces, especially if I haven't - if I've just met somebody, it's hopeless.
Chuck Close
Image
Never let anyone define what you are capable of by using parameters that don’t apply to you.
Chuck Close
Image
All the best ideas come out of the process they come out of the work itself.
Chuck Close
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I never said the camera was truth. It is, however, a more accurate and more objective way of seeing.
Chuck Close
Image
There are things about signing on to a process over the long term that protect you from the buffeting winds of change.
Chuck Close