"Put a color upon a canvas - it not only colors with that color the part of the canvas to which the color has been applied, but it also colors the surrounding space with the complementary." -- Henri Matisse (1869-1954)

"The artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition -- and therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty and pain." -- Joseph Conrad

"What I am after is the first impression - I want to show all one sees on first entering the room - what my eye takes in at first glance." -- Pierre Bonnard

"The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist's way of scribbling Kilroy was here on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass." -- William Faulkner

"It is precisely from the regret left by the imperfect work that another can be born." -- Odilon Redon (April 22, 1840 – July 6, 1916) - French Symbolist painter and printermaker

"It is all very well to copy what you see, but it is much better to draw only what you still see in your memory. This is a transformation in which imagination collaborates with memory. Then you only reproduce what has struck you - that is to say, the essentials, and so your memory and your fantasy are freed from the tyranny which nature holds over them." -- Edgar Degas (1834-1917) - French artist

"An artist makes things that become a focus for feelings and emotions - some personal, some public, some intended and some not." -- Andy Goldsworthy (British Environmental Artist, born 1956) from book titled Passage by Goldsworthy (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, NY, 2004)

"At best a work of art releases unpredictable energy that is a shock to both artist and viewer - I do not mean shock in conventional sense but an emotional tremor that articulates a feeling which has been in search of form." -- Andy Goldsworthy from book titled Passage (see above quotation)

"What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their sensibility and tenderness; second, their imagination, and third, their industry." -- John Ruskin (1819 – 1900) - art critic, social critic, author, poet and artist

"I get out my work and have a show for myself before I have it publicly. I make up my own mind about it – how good or bad or indifferent it is. After that the critics can write what they please. I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free." -- Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) - American painter

"How difficult it is to learn not to see like cameras, which has had such an effect on us. The camera sees everything at once. We don't. There's a hierarchy. Why do I pick out that thing, that thing, that thing?" -- David Hockney (British artist, born 1937) in an Interview with Mark Feeney, "David Hockney keeps seeking new avenues of exploration," Boston Globe, February 26, 2006

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