Quote

There's something Zen-like about the way I work - it's like raking gravel in a Zen Buddhist garden.

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
Something
Way
Raking
Like
Gravel
Buddhist
Photographer
Garden
Photography

More quotes by 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
At the same time that I'm finding the color world I want, I'm also trying to make the imagery, you know, by the nature of the strokes themselves.
Chuck Close
Image
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
Image
Paintings can make you cry and it's just **colored dirt**.
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
Ease is the enemy of the artist. When things get too easy, you're in trouble.
Chuck Close
Image
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
Image
I don't work with inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work.
Chuck Close
Image
I think women realise that I love women, and very often women seem to love me.
Chuck Close
Image
It's always a pleasure to talk about someone else's work.
Chuck Close
Image
Sculpture occupies real space like we do... you walk around it and relate to it almost as another person or another object.
Chuck Close
Image
Of all the artists who emerged in the '80s, I think perhaps Cindy Sherman is the most important.
Chuck Close
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I can't always reach the image in my mind... almost never, in fact... so that the abstract image I create is not quite there, but it gets to the point where I can leave it.
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
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
Image
I learned you could suffer a terrible tragedy and still be happy again.
Chuck Close