“Art,” he wrote in 1974, “exists for a reason. The reason is simple and often forgotten.
Art is man’s attempt to communicate an understanding of life to man.
To give in a sculpture what I understand; to imbue concrete things
with parallels to human feelings; to do this in a real way;
to be believable in my purpose.”from this excellent piece on the artist
on paying for their own projects:
The freedom. To have this incredible pleasure to do what you like to do. All our projects are about freedom. Total freedom... And of course there is great pleasure -- Jeanne Claude always was saying we do our projects for ourselves first, and if people like it, it is a bonus. They are no strings attached presents... The projects are totally irrational, absolutely unnecessary. Free of everything... the greatest of art, like poetry or music, is that it is totally unnecessary. Because we are surrounded by a world that stifles our existence, we work better........................
on the new generation of artists:
...for young people who like to make art, they should work on their art. I never take a vacation; I work all our life because art is our life. And if you work all the time with no diversion, you will do what you like to do. The biggest problem is to know what you like to do. And often the young artists, they do not know. They are all dispersed, do too many things. I don't know. You need to be extremely focused.from my husband's interview with Christo, here.
"You convert the menace, the fear, the anxiety,
through the redemptive force of art. What is the color of fear? What
is its heat? What is its value?" She says, "I carry my
psychanalysis within the work. Every day I work out all that bothers me. All my
complaints." She asserts, "The only remedy against disorder is work. Work puts
an order in disorder and control over chaos, I do, I undo, I redo. I am what I
am doing, Art exhausts me."
"Art is a privilege, a blessing, a relief.
Privilege means that you are a favorite, that what you do is not completely to
your credit, not completely due to you, but is a favor conferred upon you.
Privilege entitles you when you deserve nothing. Privilege is something you have
and others don't. Art was a privilege given to me, and I had to persue
it..."
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When Moore saw granite poking through the ground in woods, his eyes took the stone in, texture and weight. I watched him as he spoke sometimes, holding a pebble's weight in his stubby fingers, rolling it back and forth, loving it and taking it in through the nerves under his skin. I watched him absently rearrange objects on a table -- ashtrays, boxes, pencils -- and alter their relationships in space. When he looked at a sheep or a cloud; or at salt and pepper shakers on a supper table; or at an elephant's skull; or at the founder's flatbed trailer; or at the photographer's Nikon, he saw edges and shapes and weights. Form-perception filled the constant breathing moments of his dedicated life.
poet Donald Hall on Henry Moore, from the beautiful Life Work
