Quotes to ponder

If you have ever considered the question of art in our lives, then this small collection of quotes from ‘Life Force': A painter’s response to the nature poetry of Ted Hughes’ by Louise Fletcher may give you something to chew on.

Q1: If we do not make the most of our lives, if we do not throw ourselves into everything we do with commitment and passion, we will create art that is less than wholehearted. (pg49)

Q2:  Every work of art stems from a wound in the soul of the artist...Art is a psychological component of the auto-immune system that gives expression to the healing process.  That is why great works of art make us feel good. (pg68)

Q3:  Once I let go of the need to know, that was room for it [the why] to emerge. (pg 98)

Q4: ...capture this sense of direct experience of nature, without the filter of sophisticated understanding.  What would it feel like to feel water on your skin without knowing what it was? To float without knowing how you are doing it? To experience the world without the filter of knowledge? ((pg129)

Q5:  Hughes believed art had the power to tap into the universal energies and use them for good. (pg165)

Q6: ...the importance of art. It's about the ways in which an artist can touch us, move us, and inspire us, staying with us over the years and through the twists and turns of a life, offering nourishment, healing and inspiration. (pg7)

Q7:  So much of what we experience passes by only half-noticed. So much of our experience ...is subliminal. (pg23)

Q8:  ...it takes courage to go beyond pretty pictures or commercially viable art and to instead dig deep into one's own soul to find and share the deepest parts of yourself and then to share those parts with others...it means making honest, soulful, authentic art that leaves you no place to hide. (pg68)