I was thinking the other day that a creative life it’s not really measured by how many paintings you do or books you write. I think being creative means being constantly non-conforming, with ideas and ways of life, and even yourself. Perhaps that’s why Creativity allows you to confront and solve life’s problems, and find many solutions. I wonder if that’s the reason why we don’t teach Art in schools, so our kids can be conformists and incapable/unwilling to solve difficult life problems on their own. I think for me it’s simple: CREATIVITY=FREEDOM.

Patience is so hard to exercise. It makes you feel you are leaving yourself behind, like you are negating yourself and letting an injustice go by. In the end, though, it makes you a victor, whether you win or lose.

Ugliness is eternal, it remains, it stays because it breaks the silence. Sometimes we pointlessly watch time run by in hopes ugliness goes away with it, by itself, on its own, ignoring us while hoping it focuses on someone else, so we can get away in contempt and bliss. But that’s nonsense, because it doesn’t. Ugliness crushingly stares at you until the end, and then it becomes you.

I believe one of the purposes of Art is to encourage the viewer to give a hard look on things that are not really beautiful. We believe that admiring the ideal Beauty will bring us closer to happiness, and we completely forget that in the end Beauty takes us further and further away from salvation, compromising us and bringing us closer to our own downfall. Beauty turns you into a ghost.

Page read by LINDER STERLING from the famous Porthmeor Studios in Tate St. Ives, Cornwall, UK.

Oh, how many dreams have been shattered by way of presuming an outcome that would fit us. I think one thing, and you think another thing. I feel one thing, and you feel another thing. Sometimes I feel we’re lonely capsules bumping into each other and experiencing the contact under our own skin exclusively. But on the other hand, I think miscommunication can lead us to some wonderful things.

We think of commitment as some sort of enslavement, or a point of no return, a before and after situation, something you cannot retract from. Commitment is collaboration, a predisposition to say yes, an exercise in empathy, an opportunity to receive good things, a precious chance to let go of yourself, a chance to get softer and wiser. You can try committing yourself 1st to something, and then you’ll see.

I don’t think we’re genuinely interested in really getting the truth of things, we only want to find certitude, fossilized facts, things that are motionless, permanent, perpetual, irreversible, so no one can dispute us, no one can debate us and win. Whether things are true or not doesn’t really matter. Truth doesn’t really exist, only our own ego and its peace of mind.

If others have disguised themselves before, you can do so too.

When I first heard of the words ‘marry up’ and ‘marry down’, I found them so offensive. I’m sure every language has something that means the same, but simplifying it to an elevator-like meaning felt so shockingly harsh. In a place with tall buildings, no one wants to leave in the Lower Level. I wonder if in a place with one story buildings and no elevators this concept holds the same way.

It’s better not to spend too much time contemplating what chains you.

Perhaps there is too much emphasis on striving to be a more rational being. There is something empowering in being a bit more eccentric, in risking it all for the sake of ephemeral dreams, in embracing ecstasy, ready to give it all up in exchange of everything, or nothing at all. Perhaps we should strive to be a bit less of a rational human.

Thinking of plans for the future becomes such crushing reality when you are an artist. I don’t think there is a compromise, or a middle point, or a hybrid. Either you think of planning for your future and stop being a creative person, or you don’t think of it and become a creative person. It is an irreconcilable dichotomy.