35 Quotes by David Bayles

Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art. And tolerance for uncertainty is the prerequisite to succeeding.

But the important point here is not that you have – or don’t have – what other artists have, but rather that it doesn’t matter. Whatever they have is something needed to do their work – it wouldn’t help you in your work even if you had it. Their magic is theirs. You don’t lack it. You don’t need it. It has nothing to do with you. Period. EXPECTATIONS.

In large measure becoming an artist consists of learning to accept yourself, which makes your work personal, and in following your own voice, which makes your work distinctive.

Computers are useless – all they can give you are answers. – Pablo Picasso.

What separates artists from ex-artists is that those who challenge their fears, continue; those who don’t, quit. Each step in the artmaking process puts that issue to the test.

The truth is that the piece of art which seems so profoundly right in its finished state may earlier have been only inches or seconds away from total collapse.

As far as most people are concerned, art may be acceptable as a profession, but certainly not as an occupation.

It’s been a tough century for modesty, craftsmanship and tenderness.

Between the initial idea and the finished piece lies a gulf we can see across, but never fully chart. The truly special moments in artmaking lie in those moments when concept is converted to reality – those moments when the gulf is being crossed.