Chuck Close quotes

Never let anyone define what you are capable of by using parameters that don't apply to you. (Chuck Close)
You know, the way art history is taught, often there's nothing that tells you why the painting is great. The description of a lousy painting and the description of a great painting will very much sound the same.
Chuck Close
There are so many artists that are dyslexic or learning disabled, it's just phenomenal. There's also an unbelievably high proportion of artists who are left-handed, and a high correlation between left-handedness and learning disabilities.
Chuck Close
I don't work with inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work.
Chuck Close
[Do you have a motto or creed that as an artist you live by?] Inspiration is for amateurs - the rest of us just show up and get to work. And the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will - through work - bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of if you were just sitting around looking for a great "art idea". And the belief that process, in a sense, is liberating and that you don't have to reinvent the wheel every day. Today, you know what you'll do, you could be doing what you were doing yesterday, and tomorrow you are gonna do what you did today, and at least for a certain period of time you can just work. If you hang in there, you will get somewhere.
Chuck Close
A face is a road map of someone's life. Without any need to amplify that or draw attention to it, there's a great deal that's communicated about who this person is and what their life experiences have been.
Chuck Close
Painting is the frozen evidence of a performance.
Chuck Close
Ease is the enemy of the artist. When things get too easy, you're in trouble.
Chuck Close
I only have so much time and energy and money, and I'm going to put it into my work.
Chuck Close
You don't have to reinvent the wheel every day. Today you will do what you did yesterday, and tomorrow you will do what you did today. Eventually you will get somewhere.
Chuck Close
A photograph doesn't gain weight or lose weight, or change from being happy to being sad. It's frozen. You can use it, then recycle it. (Chuck Close)
Painting is the most magical of mediums. The transcendence is truly amazing to me every time I go to a museum and I see how somebody figured another way to rub colored dirt on a flat surface and make space where there is no space or make you think of a life experience.
Chuck Close
Inspiration is highly overrated. If you sit around and wait for the clouds to part, it's not liable to ever happen. More often than not, work is salvation.
Chuck Close
It's always a pleasure to talk about someone else's work.
Chuck Close
In my art, I deconstruct and then I reconstruct, so visual perception is one of my primary interests.
Chuck Close
Of all the artists who emerged in the '80s, I think perhaps Cindy Sherman is the most important.
Chuck Close
I knew from the age of five what I wanted to do. The one thing I could do was draw. I couldn't draw that much better than some of the other kids, but I cared more and I wanted it badly.
Chuck Close
I'm plagued with indecision in my life. I can't figure out what to order in a restaurant.
Chuck Close
Painting is a lie. It's the most magic of all media, the most transcendent. It makes space where there is no space.
Chuck Close
I always thought that one of the reasons why a painter likes especially to have other painters look at his or her work is the shared experience of having pushed paint around.
Chuck Close
Sculpture occupies real space like we do... you walk around it and relate to it almost as another person or another object. (Chuck Close)
It doesn't upset artists to find out that artists used lenses or mirrors or other aids, but it certainly does upset the art historians.
Chuck Close
The first thing I do is take Polaroids of the sitter - 10 or 12 color Polaroids and eight or 10 black-and whites.
Chuck Close
Every child should have a chance to feel special.
Chuck Close
Losing my father at a tender age was extremely important in being able to accept what happened to me later when I became a quadriplegic.
Chuck Close