I have my own little sense of style. As far as image goes today for a new artist, you'll find that fashion is really important. I wouldn't want to show up for a performance in something that is absolutely the opposite of who I am as an artist.
There's just a lot of really, really great male artists right now, and it's good, too. And there's so many different influences in country right now, too, like hip-hop and rock 'n' roll and some blues. So I feel like if you turn on country radio, you will find something you'll love because it's so diverse right now. And that's a great thing.
At the very beginning of my career I felt very strongly about what type of artist I wanted to be.
The job of the artist is to point at things.
I definitely enjoy working within different contexts, with different collaborators, and in different locations. I need to keep feeding myself as an artist by working with different people. I see continuing with that. I've also enjoyed getting to explore different kinds of music and instruments in the last couple of years.
I identify as being an independent artist. I think people often forget that Indie is actually short for independent. For me, the word has a meaning more than what it connotes from an industry standpoint.
The center for me is my heart, actually, and my emotional connection with the work. That's where authenticity comes from. It's also the first thing that hits me about other people's work, or watching other people perform, "Do I believe the person?" Even if I don't like what someone is doing or if I don't like the sound, if I believe them, I do like them. I am able to appreciate them as an artist.
I think the role of the artist today is about being provocative. I don't mean shocking, but you have to provoke people into action. As an artist, you ask people for their time. It's the most precious thing anyone has. I'm asking audiences to come to my work and spend some time with it. What I'm really doing, of course, is asking people to take time for themselves.
People often think of artists and scientists as being diametrically opposed, but we both believe something is possible. We have a hypothesis and then we do everything to make it possible, but we don't know if it's possible! All the scientists I've worked with have a natural, easy fit with me. The solutions they find are truly creative. All scientists, in some way, are artists.
I want to do very useful buildings and I would like to find a method of producing these buildings through our technology because I think that this is the only way that we will gain wonderful environment easily in the future.
If you examine this, I think that you will find that it's the mechanics of Japanese architecture that have been thought of as the direct influence upon our architecture.
So what we have tried to do in our later buildings is to try to be completely consistent, as a painter is consistent or as a sculptor is consistent. Architecture also must be very consistent.
Because, if we understand how a building is to be produced and we find a way that it can be more simply produced, then obviously we are contributing to building better buildings more easily.
I want be an entertainer that doesn't just work in one specific field, but a variety of things. If I become an artist that influences people in many different directions and aspects, I think I would be satisfied for having achieved my biggest goal.
There's something peculiar about artists. They have ups and downs... After a while everything you do is just wonderful... then you slide back. If you're a good artist you're going to go down. And then it's up to you.
When you don't know how to pick up a brush, you don't know anything; at that moment you're an artist. I'll simply say, 'If you know less, you're better off as an artist.
I think I had the good fortune to watch Sly the Artist [Sylvester Stallone]; to watch him in all arenas. As an actor, not many people get to see him turn that character on, they don't understand that he's playing a role.
There were a million different things I could have chosen or wanted to do, but the path of an artist was the one that pulled me the most. I did local theater and plays in school. I think there was a sense of entertaining - being on the stage, making people laugh, making people cry - that I was drawn to. It was also one of those things like, "I can do this for a very long time."
I did a film [about a con-artist mom and son] called Bringing Up Bobby that Famke Janssen wrote and directed. No one's gonna hire me for their [big-budget] romantic comedy, so it's up to me to look out for great indie comedies and show people a different side of myself - even if it's for three people outside of my family.
I've never been that person to fake it, and say what everyone else wants you to say. Then you never have anything personal. If I wanted to be an actress all the time, I could do that. But I don't. I want to be real. I want to be a real person. That's what an artist is. An artist has to be honest. Without honesty, there's nothing.
Sometimes pop artists, it's all about clothes and pyro. My thing is about my band.
My Dad always told me that casting agencies are like artists picturing their paintings in their mind. They know what they want for a role and not to take it too seriously [if I dont get the part].
Draw a line; draw a line that pleases you. And remember that it is not the artist's role to copy the outlines of things but to create a world of his own lines on paper." (pp.28-29)
Nothing is ever too expensive if it furthers the repertoire and artistic standards of a dance company.
I'm inspired by nature. Other artist's work is important for developing my perception.
