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| To
famous artist sayings |
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| Here are some of my thoughts
on art and awakening condensed into simple adages: |
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| True art allows consciousness to explore
the act of seeing. |
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| When art is a mirror it
helps us see our madness. When it is a window into Being it helps
us see who we truly are. |
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| The mind is unaware of beauty in the
same way that the artists’ brush is unaware of paint. |
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| As an art teacher my role is like that of the midwife,
to simple facilitate and witness the birth of creativity through another. |
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| Physical sight is a metaphor for spiritual
awareness. |
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| True art invites the viewer to explore the play of
form from a point of view that is not of form. |
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| The awakening artist enjoys nothing more than substantiating
a sense of the Indefinable. |
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| There is a place for art as decoration but art in
the deepest sense is about consciousness. |
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| Some artists
paint objects, and some paint bundles of qualities. The awakening
artist also blends like a lover into the observed. |
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| Being an artist is a temporary role
but an awakened person never stops seeing from a place of awareness. |
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I find the poetry of Rumi to be a rich source of
visual imagery and ideas for possible paintings to paint, but the
images his poetry evoke would need to be transposed into a contemporary
visual language so their timeless messages would be more relevant
to the modern viewer.
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Art is about stopping time, and then in that timeless
space we observe. That is the only common thread that weaves through
all art throughout history.
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If you cannot detach from your identity as an artist
you will never know what it means to be a true artist. Morris Graves
said it best: “My first interest is in Being—along the
way I am a painter.”
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True art is never ‘interesting’
it’s much deeper than that.
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Artist Jim Dine said ‘Pretend ugliness in art
is actual ugliness’. I believe this to be true. There are some
artists who in protest of some abomination portray that abomination
in their art. But all they are doing is repeating the abomination
in the form of art. However by expressing the opposite of abomination
(which would be ‘to hold sacred’) is what neutralizes
abomination.
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Can true art be disturbing? Yes, to
anyone who might find the dissolution of the self to be disturbing.
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Attempting to eliminate mind in the
making of art by eliminating preconception in art is a preconception
about art.
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In true art cleverness is lost but profundity is
gained.
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It has been the goal of some artists to breakdown
the barrier between art and life, but it’s really as simple
as this: Imagine art and life are now one. Now imagine art and life
are separate. Now they are one again. And now they are separate again.
Making it so is as easy as seeing it from either point of view.
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True art can be a powerful visual koan.
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One way to express true art is to let it point toward
the possibility of awakening.
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The awakening artist is a metaphor for the natural
creativity of the awakening human being.
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There is only one truly significant art movement
and it is formed by all artist throughout the centuries who have contributed
their creativity, knowingly or unknowingly, to the awakening of humanity.
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The essence of Buddhism: No self, no problem. The
essence of artistic creativity: No artist, no obstruction.
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The artist is an empty space through which consciousness
manifests.
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Originality is what happens when the artist becomes
nothing.
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Art that is intentionally ‘frameless’
blurring the line between art and not art, is addressing preconceptions
of the boundaries between art and life. But in so doing another kind
of frame inevitably and naturally appears.
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If only for a moment, art has the ability to stop
the illusion of time, space and mental analysis.
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Art is not defined by any form,
theory, or expression, it is defined by a context of observation.
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The form of art can be purchased but not it’s
meaning.
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Imagine you are on the tip of an arrow traveling
at the speed of light and everything you thought was critically important
to you one seconds ago is now 186,000 miles behind you.
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| © Copyright, Patrick Howe, 2009 No image
or text on this website may be used or copied in any manner without
the artist's permission. All rights reserved. |
