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I put all of my time into art because I couldn't go back to Jersey and work at Starbucks.

Ryan McGinley

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Ryan McGinley
Age: 47
Born: 1977
Born: October 17
Photographer
Ramsey
New Jersey
Couldn
Art
Back
Work
Time
Jersey

More quotes by Ryan McGinley

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It's weird being a photographer because you really have to divorce yourself from the image.
Ryan McGinley
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I spent all of my money on film. I remember I would do these set-design jobs or transcribe or just anything to get, like, a $100 check and go immediately to Adorama and buy expired film.
Ryan McGinley
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I'm interested in reaching the masses with my work. It's one of my goals.
Ryan McGinley
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From 8 to 19, I was skateboarding every single day. That was my life. I worked at a skate shop. I watched skate videos.
Ryan McGinley
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Just being friends with people now for over 15 years, you realize what we all came out of. What we came out of was the intense feeling of growing up. It sounds kind of cliché, but it's true.
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I knew my ticket out of the suburbs was art school, so I worked really hard to develop my portfolio and get a scholarship.
Ryan McGinley
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The cool part about New York is that you can do that. You can talk to all the people you admire.
Ryan McGinley
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I was studying graphic design at the time, when negative scanners and all that stuff was coming out, and you could do it all in your apartment. So I would shoot, make contact sheets, scan all the cool negatives, and make all these zines and books of my photos to give to my friends. I was really into zine- and bookmaking from skate culture.
Ryan McGinley
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I went through a pretty big David Bowie period when I was younger, and that has affected me profoundly in my life and my work.
Ryan McGinley
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A lot of my close friends have committed suicide or died of heroin overdoses.
Ryan McGinley
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I'm going to put every aspect of myself out into the world and try to convey it through photography.
Ryan McGinley
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Everyone I'm photographing, I feel like I'm remaking a family, in a way. My brothers and sisters are my heroes. So many of my models resemble them.
Ryan McGinley
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The cool thing for me about moving to New York was that I got to create a new family.
Ryan McGinley
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A lot of people, even my parents, thought, Art school, I don't know. We'll support you but the success rate for artists is really slim.
Ryan McGinley
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I'm always interested in an atmosphere where dreams and reality mingle on equal terms.
Ryan McGinley
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In a lot of ways I look at these old photos, and I don't know if I would have been able to communicate with these people on this level if I didn't have a camera. I think I would still be so shy.
Ryan McGinley
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Everyone started to have a camera. That's when I started to travel outside of New York and go into nature.
Ryan McGinley
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All I do is make photos. It's my life.
Ryan McGinley
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I was growing up in the suburbs I was one of eight kids. So I did have a community when I was younger, but all of my brothers and sisters were older.
Ryan McGinley
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I'm not going to hide behind anything.
Ryan McGinley