I build a painting by putting little marks together-some look like hot dogs, some like doughnuts. Chuck Close More Quotes by Chuck Close More Quotes From Chuck Close I knew from the age of five what I wanted to do. The one thing I could do was draw. I couldn't draw that much better than some of the other kids, but I cared more and I wanted it badly. Chuck Close photographyagekids The reason I don't like realist, photorealist, neorealist, or whatever, is that I am as interested in the artificial as I am in the real. Chuck Close photographyphotographerreal I never said the camera was truth. It is, however, a more accurate and more objective way of seeing. Chuck Close camerasphotographyway If the bottom dropped out of the market and the artist was not going to sell anything, he or she will keep working, and the dealer will keep trying to find some way to convince somebody to buy this stuff. Chuck Close photographyartisttrying Like any corporation, I have the benefit of the brainpower of everyone who is working for me. It all ends up being my work, the corporate me, but everyone extends ideas and comes up with suggestions. Chuck Close suggestionsphotographyideas In life you can be dealt a winning hand of cards and you can find a way to lose, and you can be dealt a losing hand and find a way to win. True in art and true in life: you pretty much make your own destiny. If you are by nature an optimistic person, which I am, that puts you in a better position to be lucky in life. Chuck Close optimisticphotographyart I learned you could suffer a terrible tragedy and still be happy again. Chuck Close terribletragedysuffering It's like a magic well. You think you know everything about [a] photograph, you think you've gotten everything out of it, and all of a sudden I see things in it I'd never seen before. Chuck Close magicphotographthinking The camera is objective. When it records a face it can't make any hierarchical decisions about a nose being more important than a cheek. The camera is not aware of what it is looking at. It just gets it all down. Chuck Close importantdecisionnoses I love sculpture, and minimal sculpture is really my favorite stuff, but I wasn't very good at it, and I don't think in a three-dimensional way. Chuck Close sculpturethreethinking I only use three primaries, so the nice thing is I can't have favorite colors. Chuck Close threenicecolor I did some pastels and I did other pieces in which there was just basically one color per square, and then they would get bigger and I could get 2 or 3 colors into the square, and ultimately I just started making oil paintings. Chuck Close oilcolorsquares There are things about signing on to a process over the long term that protect you from the buffeting winds of change. Chuck Close processwindlong Once I started working with the Polaroid, I would take a shot and if that shot was good, then I'd move the model and change the lighting or whatever... slowly sneaking up on what I wanted rather than having to predetermine what it was. Chuck Close polaroidschangemoving I always thought problem solving was greatly overrated - and that the most important thing was problem creation. Chuck Close creationimportantproblem I don't believe in inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs. Some of the time you know you're cooking, and the rest of the time, you just do it. Chuck Close cookinginspirationbelieve You can give the same recipe to ten cooks, and some make it come alive, and some make a flat souffle. A system doesn't guarantee anything. Chuck Close aliveguaranteesgiving After a few days in hospital, I was thinking, Oh, gee - I raised in a church, Protestant upbringing which I'd rejected as an adult - I'm lying in bed thinking, Hmmm, maybe I ought to pray. They always say there are no atheists in a foxhole... and I thought, Here I am in a pretty good-sized foxhole... and I thought Naahhh. I wouldn't respect any God who would listen to me after I'd rejected him so vociferously. Chuck Close atheistlyingthinking I love making art... It's largely how I see myself. I'm an artist; therefore I have to make art. Chuck Close love-makingartistart There's something Zen-like about the way I work - it's like raking gravel in a Zen Buddhist garden. Chuck Close buddhistgardenphotography
