'LOVE' bit me. It was a marvelous idea, but it was also a terrible mistake. It became too popular; it became too popular. Robert Indiana More Quotes by Robert Indiana More Quotes From Robert Indiana I think of my peace paintings as one long poem, with each painting being a single stanza. Robert Indiana poetry long thinking Some people like to paint trees. I like to paint love. I find it more meaningful than painting trees. Robert Indiana tree meaningful people My goal is that LOVE should cover the world. Robert Indiana goal should world Pop is everything art hasn't been for the last two decades...It springs newborn out of a boredom with the finality and over-saturation of Abstract-Expressionism, which, by its own esthetic logic, is the END of art, the glorious pinnacle of the long pyramidal creative process. Stifled by this rarefied atmosphere, some young painters turn back to some less exalted things like Coca-Cola, ice-cream sodas, big hamburgers, super-markets and 'EAT' signs. They are eye-hungry; they pop. Robert Indiana eye spring art I had no idea LOVE would catch on the way it did. Oddly enough, I wasn't thinking at all about anticipating the Love generation and hippies. It was a spiritual concept. It isn't a sculpture of love any longer. It's become the very theme of love itself. Robert Indiana hippie spiritual thinking Pop art is Robert Indiana optimistic dream art Love is a dangerous commodity-fraught with peril. Robert Indiana peril commodity love-is I've always been fascinated by numbers. Before I was seventeen years old, I had lived in twenty-one different houses. In my mind, each of those houses had a number. Robert Indiana house numbers years I was the least Pop of all the Pop artists. Robert Indiana pops architecture art I never had the exposure to techniques and so forth that children have today with art workshops, but I always had crayons and pencils and still have work going right back to when I was five or six years old Robert Indiana children years art I realize that protest paintings are not exactly in vogue, but I've done many. Robert Indiana painting realizing done 'Hug' is my mother's word for affection. Robert Indiana word affection hug mother There are people who don't like popularity. It's much better to be exclusive and remote. Robert Indiana better like popularity people My art is a disciplined high dive - high soar, simultaneous & polychromous, an exaltation of the verbal-visual... my dialogue. Robert Indiana dive high soar art Many, many of my paintings have come from the first chapter of Moby Dick. Robert Indiana chapter come first many The American Dream - that's our folly. That's our folly. Look where we're ending up. Robert Indiana ending look american-dream dream The messages that my work might contain, the verbal aspects, the use of words, certainly I never mean for it to be more than - shall we say? - fifty percent of the total, and sometimes my active interest is much less than that. It is the formal aspect of my painting which fascinates me most. Robert Indiana words me painting work The actual technique, the process of painting flat color and simple geometric edges, all dates from my time here on Coenties Slip. Robert Indiana painting color simple time When I was painting portraits and - shall we say? - rather allegorical heads, which is the figurative work which immediately preceded the direction I have since gone, these images were always of a very fixed, rigid quality, and, of course, my work still has this aspect. Robert Indiana direction painting quality work When I was a kid, my mother used to drive my father to work in Indianapolis, and I would see, practically every day of my young life, a huge Phillips 66 sign. So it is the red and green of that sign against the blue Hoosier sky. The blue in the 'Love' is cerulean. Therefore, my 'Love' is an homage to my father. Robert Indiana work sky love life
