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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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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
Crafts
Cooking
Rest
Inspiration
Believe
Time

More quotes by 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.
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I have always attempted to create images that deliver the maximum amount of information about the subject.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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There's something Zen-like about the way I work - it's like raking gravel in a Zen Buddhist garden.
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Paintings can make you cry and it's just **colored dirt**.
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Get yourself in trouble. If you get yourself in trouble, you don't have the answers. And if you don't have the answers, your solution will more likely be personal because no one else's solutions will seem appropriate. You'll have to come up with your own.
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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I've always thought that problem-solving is highly overrated and that problem creation is far more interesting.
Chuck Close
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All the fingerprint paintings are done without a grid.
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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All the best ideas come out of the process they come out of the work itself.
Chuck Close
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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
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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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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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I think women realise that I love women, and very often women seem to love me.
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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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
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Painting is a lie. It's the most magic of all media, the most transcendent. It makes space where there is no space.
Chuck Close