The point isn't to know what you're doing. The point is to have an experience doing something. Kiki Smith More Quotes by Kiki Smith More Quotes From Kiki Smith Some people think or expect that you should make the same kinds of art forever because it creates a convenient narrative... I want my work to embody my inherent contradictions. Kiki Smith creating art thinking I like that feeling when you’re making art, that you’re taking the energy out of your body and putting it into a physical object. I like things that are labor-intensive : you make a little thing and another little thing and another little thing, and eventually you see a possibility. Kiki Smith energy feelings art You can have fantasies about having control over the world, but I know I can barely control my kitchen sink. That is the grace I'm given. Because when one can control things, one is limited to one's own vision. Kiki Smith kitchen vision grace I trust my work. It's a collaboration with the material, and when it's viewed, it's a collaboration with the world. Kiki Smith working-it collaboration world Art is a reflection of everything that impacts your life. Kiki Smith impact reflection art I think making things beautiful is important. But often what's first considered ugly is beautiful, too. Kiki Smith beautiful art thinking One's self is always shifting in relationship to beauty and you always have to be able to incorporate yourself or your new self into life. Like your skin starts hanging off your arms and stuff, and then you have to think, well that's really beautiful too. It just isn't beautiful in a way that I knew it was beautiful before. Kiki Smith self beautiful thinking Making art is a lot about just seeing what happens if you put some energy into something. Kiki Smith energy happens art Artists live in unknown spaces and give themselves over to following something unknown. Kiki Smith space artist giving Prints mimic what we are as humans: we are all the same and yet every one is different. I think there's a spiritual power in repetition, a devotional quality, like saying rosaries. Kiki Smith quality spiritual thinking One hopes that each piece contains enough space for several narratives. Kiki Smith narrative pieces space Our culture seems to believe that it's entertaining to teach women to be frightened. Kiki Smith frightened believe culture It’s one of my loose theories that Catholicism and art have gone well together because both believe in the physical manifestation of the spiritual world. Kiki Smith spiritual believe art As an artist, you want to have an experience. What you need to experience changes over the course of your life because your life changes. Kiki Smith life-changing artist needs I told the students [at Yale] we were going to talk about love - I meant love in the sense of devotions to one's work - and about half the students got really pissed off. Kiki Smith pissed-off half yale I think that sense of always traveling has something to do with anonymity and privacy and pleasure in having a very clear, very reductive life. Kiki Smith privacy pleasure thinking If you stick to your work it will take care of you somehow. Kiki Smith care determination sticks I really love printmaking. It’s like a mystery and you’re trying to figure out how to rein it in. Kiki Smith mystery figures trying I think that objects have memories. I’m always thinking that I’ll go to the museum and see something and have a big memory about some other lifetime. Kiki Smith memories museums thinking I got into animals by drawing hair follicles. I liked drawing hair, and from that I got into feathers and fur, then into images of animals. The patterning is the same, but the proportions of the body change from one animal to the next. A lot of it is just geometry and consciousness. Kiki Smith drawing hair animal
