
Every artist was first an amateur.
Ralph Waldo Emerson in Letters and Social Aims: Progress of Culture, 1876

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A primitive artist is an amateur whose work sells.
quote by Grandma Moses

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Amateur Hour
Dont make me sad
Talking bout tomorrow
Its not so bad
We were doing fine just then
Youll move on up, youll move on out
And you wont cry
cause your amateur hour is over
Youre only going where Ive been
And youll see what Ive seen
Youre no amateur - amateur
You know if someone likes your face
Youd be a fool to stay strictly amateur
Its strictly for amateurs
The world could be a better place
If some of us could stay
Amateurs
Theres no more time
To think about the way ahead
Just miss one line
Fall over - youll be left for dead
Your heart will play no part except
When memories of your amateur hour take over
Then screw yourself into a ball
And keep it rolling on
Youre no amateur - amateur
You know if someone likes your face
Youd be a fool to stay strictly amateur
Its strictly for amateurs
The world could be a better place
If some of us could stay
Amateurs
Dont make me sad
Its not so bad
song performed by by Joe Jackson

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I would hate to think I am not an amature. An amateur is one who loves what he is doing. Very often, I'm afraid, the professional hates what he is doing. So, I'd rather be an amateur.
quote by Yehudi Menuhin

Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Once the amateur's naive approach and humble willingness to learn fades away, the creative spirit of good photography dies with it. Every professional should remain always in his heart an amateur.
quote by Alfred Eisenstaedt

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I think the greatest photographers are the amateur photographers who do it because they love it. Arnold Newman is a good example; he is a consummate professional, but he's also an 'amateur' in the pure sense of the word.
quote by John Sexton

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Nude Artist
A Nude Artist
he says he is a nude artist
because he is naked when he paints
such nakedness has
nothing to do with being a nude artist
a naked artist who paints a cat or a chicken
is not a nude artist
there is no nude cat
thyere is no nude chicken
just paint a naked woman
and he will be called a nude artist
an artist is not an art
he must know that
- Frog Mantra, Accents Publishing,2012 -
poem by Suchoon Mo_

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The Hunter
A full-fledged gun cannot endure
The trifling of an amateur;
Poor marksmanship its temper spoils
And this is why the gun recoils.
A self-respecting gun I’m sure
Delights to jar the amateur
And thinks that it is no disgrace
To kick his shoulder out of place.
Moral
When you go out to hunt, my son
Prepare to circumvent your gun
And on your shoulder firmly bind
A pillow of the largest kind.
poem by Ellis Parker Butler

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The main reason he wanted to be a recording artist was because it gives you much more freedom in your writing. You only have to please the artist and the artist is you so you can be more daring and experimental.
quote by Cynthia Weil

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You are born an artist or you are not. And you stay an artist, dear, even if your voice is less of a fireworks. The artist is always there.
quote by Maria Callas

Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Artist
The Artist and his Luckless Wife
They lead a horrid haunted life,
Surrounded by the things he's made
That are not wanted by the trade.
The world is very fair to see;
The Artist will not let it be;
He fiddles with the works of God,
And makes them look uncommon odd.
The Artist is an awful man,
He does not do the things he can;
He does the things he cannot do,
And we attend the private view.
The Artist uses honest paint
To represent things as they ain't,
He then asks money for the time
It took to perpetrate the crime.
poem by Sir Walter Raleigh

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Making social comment is an artificial place for an artist to start from. If an artist is touched by some social condition, what the artist creates will reflect that, but you can't force it.
quote by Susan Sontag

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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It ought to be illegal for an artist to marry. If the artist must marry let him find someone more interested in art, or his art, or the artist part of him, than in him. After which let them take tea together three times a week.
quote by Ezra Pound

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Value Fever Pitch: An Artist’s Time
Bhoman F Jamhari said
'I am an artist - This does not
mean I will work for free.
I have bills just like you.
Thank you for understanding.'
Polite and to the problematic point.
Anyone who thinks believes
an artist’s time is worthless,
is definitely a person an artist
should avoid; such individuals
cannot comprehend
or remotely understand
aesthetic value of art.
Art takes time to produce.
Vision and artistic skill takes
even longer to realize to attain
expanding horizons. Time costs.
Artists of differing genre value
appreciate each other and art
which suits their temperament.
To create art
is the life blood
of an artist.
The air we breathe
is the home of art.
Creativity is our fevered mind songs
we sing in a legacy of image visions.
What kind of a con artist wants
to steal bread from an artist’s mouth;
therefore limiting the quality quantity
of future works of art, to be produced
by that artist. Answer an enemy of art.
poem by Terence George Craddock

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An artist is always alone - if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness.
quote by Henry Miller

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Being an artist doesn't mean that you're a good artist. That was the bargain I first made with myself: I'd say, I'm an artist, but I'm not really very good.
quote by Paul Simon

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The First Artist and Author.
The first artist painted the sky with colors, such beauty,
Look at those sunsets, and the mountains, such reality;
The mountains, have shadows, of splendor that only the Master can do,
Yes! It's God who was the first Artist, and He also taught me too.
The first great artist painted the colors on the sea,
Blues, greens, aquas, Only one could do this you see;
And when there is a storm near, the sea goes so dark blue,
Yes! God is the first great artist, to paint it for me and you.
The first great Artist, loved to teach David to write poetry,
And also king Solomon, writing words of such beauty;
Oh such magnificent works, of color and in each word,
Yes! There is only one who could do this it is the Lord.
Then. We see in every rainbow, and in each shell as well,
Look at the colored sands, and in every bird, it does tell;
Then look at each animal, and also the petals of each flower too
Then as you look at these, , give Thanks for doing it for me and you.
poem by Margaret Haig

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A Mouse Is Killed Today
a mouse is killed today
by an artist
who got mad because
the mouse ate his painting
of the nude woman
that evening while he got so furious
the mouse was at his hole
on the floor eating his usual cheese
the artist mumbled and murmured
and grumbled
and the mouse heard it
and called it
slapstick poetry
a doggerel,
the artist was not able to hold his temper
anymore
got an armalite and shot the hole with the mouse in it
in the name of art
the artist invokes his right to kill the mouse
he says it was
' clearly an artistic expression
and protected by the First Amendment.'
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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Sonnet -Indelible Art?
How far an artist takes his art forward?
If labour hard is continued for long,
It dedication has not disappeared,
And Pride has not polluted his art’s song.
One's art improves if Will of God is there;
If Luck and Pluck come timely to his aid;
If vices poison not his mind to err;
And love enters his art when it is made.
For art lives longer than the artist's age;
And brings alive the beauty it derived;
All life, the artist must truly manage;
To perfect works of art in which he’d strived.
Such art alone will stand the test of time,
For it has made the Artist's life sublime.
poem by John Celes

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While one should always study the method of a great artist, one should never imitate his manner. The manner of an artist is essentially individual, the method of an artist is absolutely universal. The first is personality, which no one should copy; the second is perfection, which all should aim at.
quote by Oscar Wilde

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Artist Oath
If to become a high minded, well respected
adult is to abandon the divine ideal
of universal kinship and good will in order to
maintain personal security,
I'll spend the entirety of my life
an irresponsible child of ignorance.
I'll run barefoot through the woods,
ignoring dinner bells,
oblivious to the darkening curfew hour of the street lamps
If profit and sales determine the merit of an artist
I shall forever define myself as dilettante
a dabbler, a hobbyist.
an amateur doing what he loves
in order to maintain personal sanity
After all, the purpose of an artist isn't
influence or profit,
it isn't to strike admiration or awe.
the aim isn't avant garde expression of emotion
or presenting a revolutionary idea that will change the world.
Art is simple encouragement,
no more than a smile,
encouraging people
to live out the ideals we all carry and know
in the most sure fire depths of our hearts to be true.
The ideals we forget lose abandon or are just too
afraid to act upon in life.
The ideals of 'the weak the senseless the naïve the eccentric
the quixotic the queer the fairy dusted bullshit'.
– its all just maya anyway
– were else can one live out ideals if not in dream?
poem by Gregory Allen Uhan

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