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 More Quotes by Chuck Close More Quotes From Chuck Close You know, the way art history is taught, often there's nothing that tells you why the painting is great. The description of a lousy painting and the description of a great painting will very much sound the same. Chuck Close photography sound art Paintings can make you cry and it's just **colored dirt**. Chuck Close dirt painting cry Inspiration is highly overrated. If you sit around and wait for the clouds to part, it's not liable to ever happen. More often than not, work is salvation. Chuck Close photography inspiration clouds Of all the artists who emerged in the '80s, I think perhaps Cindy Sherman is the most important. Chuck Close important artist thinking I think the problem with the arts in America is how unimportant it seems to be in our educational system. Chuck Close educational photography art Sculpture occupies real space like we do... you walk around it and relate to it almost as another person or another object. Chuck Close sculpture space real See, I think our whole society is much too problem-solving oriented. It is far more interesting to participate in 'problem creation'... You know, ask yourself an interesting enough question and your attempt to find a tailor-made solution to that question will push you to a place where, pretty soon, you'll find yourself all by your lonesome - which I think is a more interesting place to be. Chuck Close photography interesting thinking I only have so much time and energy and money, and I'm going to put it into my work. Chuck Close time-and-energy energy Far more interesting than problem solving is problem creation. Chuck Close photography photographer interesting Painting is the most magical of mediums. The transcendence is truly amazing to me every time I go to a museum and I see how somebody figured another way to rub colored dirt on a flat surface and make space where there is no space or make you think of a life experience. Chuck Close space photography thinking Those who are waiting for an epiphany to strike may wait forever. The artist simply goes to work, making art, both good and not so good. Chuck Close motivation waiting art It doesn't upset artists to find out that artists used lenses or mirrors or other aids, but it certainly does upset the art historians. Chuck Close mirrors photography art From my point of view, photography never got any better than it was in 1840. Chuck Close point-of-view photography views You don't have to reinvent the wheel every day. Today you will do what you did yesterday, and tomorrow you will do what you did today. Eventually you will get somewhere. Chuck Close photography yesterday today I think I was driven to paint portraits to commit images of friends and family to memory. I have face blindness, and once a face is flattened out, I can remember it better. Chuck Close photography memories thinking All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Chuck Close photography photographer ideas Part of the joy of looking at art is getting in sync in some ways with the decision-making process that the artist used and the record that's embedded in the work. Chuck Close photography decision art It always amazes me that just when I think there's nothing left to do in photography and that all permutations and possibilities have been exhausted, someone comes along and puts the medium to new use, and makes it his or her own, yanks it out of this kind of amateur status, and makes it as profound and as moving and as formally interesting as any other medium. Chuck Close photography moving thinking I wanted to translate from one flat surface to another.In fact, my learning disabilities controlled a lot of things. I don't recognize faces, so I'm sure it's what drove me to portraits in the first place. Chuck Close portraits photography faces I have always attempted to create images that deliver the maximum amount of information about the subject. Chuck Close maximum subjects information
