Thoughts on Art from creative people born February 28:
from English satirical artist and illustrator and Sir
John Tenniel (Punch, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking
Glass) (1820-1914):
Well, I get my subject on Wednesday night; I think it
out carefully on Thursday, and make my rough sketch; on Friday morning I begin,
and stick to it all day, with my nose well down on the block.
--
from Welsh poet, editor, and critic Arthur William
Symons (Days and Nights, London Nights, Amoris Victima, Images of Good and
Evil, The Savoy, The Symbolist Movement in Literature) (1865-1945):
All art is a form of artifice. For in art there can be
no prejudices.
Art begins when a man wishes to immortalize the most
vivid moment he has ever lived.
The making of one's life into art is, after all, the
first duty and privilege of every man.
Leave words to them whom words, not doings, move.
Vaguely conscious of that great suspense in which we
live, we find our escape from its sterile, annihilating reality in many dreams,
in religion, passion, art.
--
from American newspaperman and playwright Ben Hecht (Chicago
Daily News, Twentieth Century, The Front Page) (1894-1964):
The rule in the art world is: you cater to the masses
or you kowtow to the elite; you can't have both.
Criticism can never instruct or benefit you. Its chief
effect is that of a telegram with dubious news. Praise leaves no glow behind,
for it is a writer's habit to remember nothing good of himself. I have usually
forgotten those who have admired my work, and seldom anyone who disliked it.
Obviously, this is because praise is never enough and censure always too much.
I have written a raucous valentine to a poet's dream
and agony.
--
from American Oscar-winning director Vincente Minnelli
(Gigi); also known for Meet Me in St. Louis, An American in Paris,
The Bad and the Beautiful, Brigadoon, Lust for Life (1903-1986):
I allow an area for improvisation because the chemical
things actors bring to stories make it not work.
I use colors to bring fine points of story and
character.
I feel that a picture that stays with you is made up
of a hundred or more hidden things. They’re things that the audience is not
conscious of, but that accumulate.
It's the story that counts.
--
from English poet, dramatist, novelist, and essayist
Sir Stephen Spender (The Temple, Poems, Trial of a Judge, The God that
Failed, Ruins and Visions) (1909-1995):
Great poetry is always written by somebody straining
to go beyond what he can do.
What we call the freedom of the individual is not just
the luxury of one intellectual to write what he likes to write but his being a
voice which can speak for those who are silent.
But reading is not idleness. It is the passive,
receptive side of civilization without which the active and creative world would
be meaningless. It is the immortal spirit of the dead realised within the
bodies of the living. It is sacramental.
The greatest poets are those with memories so great
that they extend beyond their strongest experiences to their minutest
observations of people and things far outside their own self-centeredness.
Memory exercised in a particular way is a natural gift
of poetic genius. The poet above all else, is a person who never forgets
certain sense impressions which he has experienced and which he can relive
again as though with all their original freshness.
There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is
like a midwife—a tyrannical midwife.
All that you can imagine you already know.
An English poet writes, I think, just for people who
are interested in poetry. An American poet writes, and feels that everyone
ought to appreciate this. Then he has a deep sense of grievance...
--
from American children's author Megan McDonald (Judy
Moody and Stink series) (b. 1959)
If you want to write, find your splinter. Find the
thing that pierces you and won't let you go.
If you listen to your own voice, unknown friends will
come and seek you.
--
from English children's author Philip Reeve (Mortal
Engines series) (b. 1966):
I'm sure it came as no surprise to my friends and
family when I became an illustrator and then a writer because, from about the
age of five, I was one of those children who always had his nose in a book.
Even tiny children looking at a picture book are using
their imaginations, gleaning clues from the images to understand what is
happening, and perhaps using the throwaway details which the illustrator
includes to add their own elements to the story.
I still feel, as I did when I was six or seven, that
books are simply the best way to experience a story.
--
from country music singer-songwriter Jason Aldean (My
Kinda Party, Night Train, Old Boots, New Dirt) (b. 1977):
If you say, “I'm going to cut this song because I know
the teenagers are going to love it,” well, then you're going to alienate
everybody else. When I cut my record, I'm just going to cut the things that I
like, and whoever likes it, likes it. That's too much work to try to figure out
the demographic. That's too much like a business.
No matter what you do, you're going to have people who
have something to say about something you do. You can't please anybody.
My goal is that when the last song is over, and you're
walking back to the parking lot, you're already on your phone searching to find
the next show.
I didn't get into music to become famous and I didn't
get into music to become rich either—I got into because I liked it.
--
from English children's author Chris Wooding (Broken
Sky series, The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray, Poison, The Braided
Path trilogy) (b. 1977):
Everything you write makes you better. But if you
really need a tip, here's one: a good story begins in opposition to its ending.
That means you work out how it finishes first, and then begin the story as far
away from that point—in terms of character development—as you can.
We relate comics to the main super-heroes, but it's a
great medium through which all sorts of stories are told.
Imagination is as close as we will ever be to godhead… for in imagination, we can create wonders.