William Styron

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live several lives while reading it.
-William Styron

I get a fine warm feeling when I'm doing well, but that pleasure is pretty much negated by the pain of getting started each day. Let's face it, writing is hell.
-William Styron

Mysteriously and in ways that are totally remote from natural experience, the gray drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on the quality of physical pain.
-William Styron

Reading - the best state yet to keep absolute loneliness at bay.
-William Styron

The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis.
-William Styron

The writer's duty is to keep on writing.
-William Styron

Writing is a fine therapy for people who are perpetually scared of nameless threats... for jittery people.
-William Styron

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

It is much harder to judge yourself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself, it's because you're truly a wise man.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupéryv

You become responsible forever, for what you have tamed.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Søren Kierkegaard

In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant. . . . My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known - no wonder, then, that I return the love.
-Søren Kierkegaard

Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.
-Søren Kierkegaard

The most common form of despair is not being who you are.
-Søren Kierkegaard

The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed.
-Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death

Love is the expression of the one who loves, not of the one who is loved. Those who think they can love only the people they prefer do not love at all. Love discovers truths about individuals that others cannot see.
-Søren Kierkegaard

God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.
-Søren Kierkegaard

The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.
-Søren Kierkegaard

If anyone on the verge of action should judge himself according to the outcome, he would never begin.
-Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

One must not think slightingly of the paradoxical - for the paradox is the source of the thinker’s passion, and the thinker without a paradox is like a lover without feeling: a paltry mediocrity.
-Søren Kierkegaard

People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand my complaint about them not understanding me.
-Søren Kierkegaard

What if everything in the world were a misunderstanding, what if laughter were really tears?
-Søren Kierkegaard

It is very important in life to know when your cue comes.
-Søren Kierkegaard

Take away paradox from the thinker and you have a professor.
-Søren Kierkegaard

Don't you know that a midnight hour comes when everyone has to take off his mask? Do you think life always lets itself be trifled with? Do you think you can sneak off a little before midnight to escape this?
-Søren Kierkegaard

Rachel Nguyen

I have been pondering courage lately. Fear gives way when love gets a
foothold.

-Rachel Nguyen

Charles Simic

SHIRT

To get into it
As it lies
Crumpled on the floor
Without disturbing a single crease

Respectful
Of the way I threw it down
Last night
The way it happened to land

Almost managing
The impossible contortions
Doubling back now
Through a knotted sleeve

-Charles Simic

Ladislav Hanka

The Intimate Embrace of Process and Aesthetics

Etching is a technical medium about which even knowledgeable collectors often know surprisingly little. This medium, however, affects my imagery and my approach as surely as water flows downhill. Therefore, to help you understand the process, this chapter will welcome you into my world as an insider; I will offer you no secrets, no esoteric mumbo jumbo, but instead a process that is eminently comprehensible. The following Chinese parable is a doorway to my realm:

“ The emperor, born under the sign of the rooster in the ancient Chinese zodiac, wished to have a painting of this subject for his chambers. He was directed by his courtesans and calligraphers to an elderly master who agreed to paint a cockerel for his birthday – not immediately however, but for his next birthday. The artist’s conditions were, that he would receive a year’s pay, a well-equipped studio, and a quiet home with servants for this work to proceed without disruptions. After the year was up, he received a call from the emperor’s retinue. The two men retired to the studio together, leaving the others to wait. There, the artist unhurriedly rolled out paper, prepared his brushes and inks and then calmly sat down to paint. In half an hour he had painted an absolutely exquisite rooster before the emperor’s eyes. The emperor was at first delighted with the demonstration of dexterity and amazed with the beauty of the result. Soon however, he began to grow angry with the painter for his extravagant conditions, demanding to know why he had required a year’s wages for work that took only 30 minutes. The elderly artist in answer silently escorted him to a closed door, behind which the emperor was shown a room containing ten thousand paintings of cockerels. “ This,” said the artist,” is what I’ve done in the intervening year, in order to be able to perform that which you have witnessed today".

It is in the moment when I stand before the gleaming copper plate with etching needle in hand that ‘the ten thousand drawings’ come into play. I must have commensurate confidence that my actions will bear fruit; I dare not approach with trepidation – in dread of spending hours scraping down the metal and sanding out the blunder of an impetuous moment. The hours of disciplined practice, summing over the years to an intimate familiarity with my medium, are the dues I have paid. The reward I reap is the calm confidence with which I now proceed: I take a deep breath and fluidly engage with the material - dancing with the diamond point across the gleaming surface. Every nuanced gesture must convey authority; in harmony with all that has brought me to this instant, I am fully present and ride the unpredictable wave of surrounding circumstance and mood. If the spirit guides my hand, I leave convincing form in my wake.

-Ladislav Hanka

Two New Paintings

I have two new paintings to share.

The Embrace and Magic Trick

Have a peek.

Mark Matousek

Whatever it takes to break your heart and wake you up is grace.

-Mark Matousek

Gustave Flaubert

Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be
violent and original in your work.

-Gustave Flaubert

Ladislav Hanka

My subject matter will tell you where I find evidence of the divine. I love to fish and gather mushrooms. I cannot get enough of ancient trees and the way their asymmetries and gravity bring me back to a place of profound stillness. The very idea that trees alive today were seeded at the birth of the old kingdom of Egypt and are thus as old as the written word itself, sets me free. I kneel at their roots and feel blessed.
-Ladislav Hanka

You know, I have believed all along that what I do has a deep spiritual value akin to meditation and prayer and that is something we talked about often among the students in Europe, but it is mostly dismissed in the US as your personal baggage and not really open to discussion.
-Ladislav Hanka, Works and Conversations

Our system here is not friendly to local and regional culture—seeing it more as a provincial backwater. But we do ourselves a disservice. Local and regional culture is the incubator from which the best art has always been born.
-Ladislav Hanka, Works and Conversations

We have mostly bought into unrealistic expectations that the best art is being made by stars of nearly unattainable status and that we should never settle for second rate —as if that were in any way susceptible to measurement. I suppose the common standard of greatness has become monetary. Thus it pains us all the more to read about all the speculative investment capital being invested in art, while dealers are cited bemoaning the lack of worthwhile art to invest in.

I contend that the vision is flawed and that nearly all art must necessarily come from a humbler place that is real and be spawned by individuals in a place that is their own. It isn't just a fallback position to save one’s ego, but a matter of who the audience is and why we make art. It feels great to walk into somebody’s house and see your artwork up, knowing it has found its place and is making a difference. So much is based in attitude, on being able to find satisfaction in the audience of one’s own people—those interested in what you're doing—and in the reciprocity of having your artwork engage those about whom you care.
Ladislav Hanka, Works and Conversations

Click here to visit Ladislav Hanka's web site.

Sun Shower

Bill and I were sitting having coffee this morning and suddenly Bill's jaw dropped. What? I asked. That guy is peeing off the porch. I looked out the window and sure enough, standing on the top porch of the gigantic four-story yellow-brick tenement across the street, a guy was peeing through the porch rungs. The stream was lit by the early morning sun. I went to the front foyer window and peered between the curtains to see if anyone was on the street below. Rosy had just pulled up in her big gray Buick and was parking in front of her variety store. She got out of the car wearing a big flowered shower cap over her curlers. I burst out laughing. What? asked Bill. It's Rosy, and she's wearing a shower cap. She's prepared!

Gene Fowler

Writing is easy: all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.

-Gene Fowler

Mark Matousek

There's a myth among amateurs, optimists and fools that beyond a certain level of achievement, famous artists retire to some kind of Elysium where criticism no longer wounds and work materializes without their effort.

-Mark Matousek

Arthur Rubinstein

There is no formula for success—except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.

-Arthur Rubinstein

Maybe

Once upon the time there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.

“Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.

“Maybe,” replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.

“Maybe,” answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

“Maybe,” said the farmer.

-A Zen Buddhist Fable

Jeane George Weigel

Jeane George Weigel, artist and blogger.
Click here.

Works & Conversations

I just happened across this magazine called Works & Conversations. It is a treasure trove!
Click here.

Richard Kamler

Why is the first thing cut here in San Francisco--and all across the country--the arts? We have to cut the arts. Art is the thing that will save the damn city! I've worked with some gangs and I've found that if you give them a piece of paper and just say, draw please, it's incredible. Everything just settles down. I say, you cut the arts, okay, see how many more beatings you have on the street, see how much more of that stuff goes on. I have so many friends who do this work in prisons, do the art, and it's so transformative!
-Richard Kamler

Robert Irwin

To be an artist is not a matter of making paintings or objects at all. What we are really dealing with is our state of consciousness and the shape of our perception . . . The act of art is a tool for extended consciousness.
-Robert Irwin

David Bayles and Ted Orland

The dilemma facing academia is that it must accommodate not only students who are striving to become artists, but also teachers who are struggling to remain artists.

-David Bayles and Ted Orland, Art and Fear