Art From Black Artists Quotes & Sayings

I'm writing a book on magic", I explain, and I'm asked, "Real magic?" By real magic people mean miracles, thaumaturgical acts, and supernatural powers. "No", I answer: "Conjuring tricks, not real magic". Real magic, in other words, refers to the magic that is not real, while the magic that is real, that can actually be done, is not real magic. — Lee Siegel

A GOOD old-fashioned sex tape pretty much guarantees you a star on Hollywood Boulevard. — Aaron Eckhart

In advanced societies it is not the race politicians or the "rights" leaders who create the new ideas and the new images of life and man. That role belongs to the artists and intellectuals of each generation. Let the race politicians, if they will, create political, economic or organizational forms of leadership; but it is the artists and the creative minds who will, and must, furnish the all important content. And in this role, they must not be subordinated to the whims and desires of politicians, race leaders and civil rights entrepreneurs whether they come from the Left, Right, or Center, or whether they are peaceful, reform, violent, non-violent or laissez-faire. Which means to say, in advanced societies the cultural front is a special one that requires special techniques not perceived, understood, or appreciated by political philistines. — Harold Cruse

I come from an art history background. I studied at a master's degree level; I chose to dork out on art for much of my adult life. A lot of my heroes are artists and a lot of my musical heroes have an artistic side. — Black Francis

I personally have never trusted museums ... It is because museums, broadly speaking, live off of the art and artifacts of others, often art and artifacts that have been obtained by dubious means. But they also manipulate whatever it is they present to the public; hence, until Judy Chicago, in the 1970s ... few women artists were hung in any major museum. Indian artists? Artifacts only, please. Black artists? Something musical, maybe? And so forth. — Alice Walker

Like many people who dress in black, the lump of coal was interested in becoming an artist. — Lemony Snicket

Fueled by my inspiration, I ran across the room to steal the cup of coffee the bookshelf had taken prisoner. Lapping the black watery brew like a hyena, I tossed the empty cup aside. I then returned to the chair to continue my divine act of creation. Hot blood swished in my head as my mighty pen stole across the page. — Roman Payne

A lot of the early jazz artists, of course, couldn't even walk through the front door of the hotels and clubs they were playing in and had to enter through back doors and kitchens, and I think Jean felt this was a metaphor for his place in the art world: he had entered through the back door. He broke into the white art world in a way that had never been done before by any black. — Jennifer Clement

There is something about inside information which seems to paralyse a man's reasoning powers. — Bernard Baruch

Renaissance man, woman, either way it's a worthy pursuit! Like the painters of Emilia's day, I was raised in an environment that encouraged creative expression. Both my parents were artists, who didn't think much of TV and refused to upgrade our old black and white set. To entertain myself, I made art and wrote puppet shows. — Mary Pope Osborne

A 'black' man who draws a 'black' person with big lips is called observant. A 'white' man who does the same is called a racist. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

"Black culture" is ready for whatever. I sense some momentum and excitement around black artists (especially in comedy, which is where most of my own art resides), really pushing the bounds of what has generally been expected as black. I don't think it's a revolution so much as an exposure of what has always been there, and now that the production and distribution means are more accessible, people can more easily find each other. — Baratunde Thurston

Without artists, would this heritage have descended to us? Would the words and deeds - the revelation - have survived the arduous journey into the present without the painters, the mosaic workers, the storytellers, the stone carvers, the poets, the singers, the workers in stained glass? Wasn't it art, I thought - as I watched Bernard open a handsome black wallet and remove a handful of lire - that had been the carrier of the divine? Popes had understood that. The Emperor Constantine. Monks in damp Irish monasteries illuminating the Word. — Rachel Pastan

Diversity matters. Not only in what we look like, or what religion we practice, or in whom we love, but also in how we live our lives, including the order in which we go about things, the seasons in which we are able to create art. Those who are engaged in the arts should be the last to send any other message, because when artists endorse the traditional order of a society, it suggests that they have forgotten their own true role within it. — Robin Black

I would have artists be convinced that the supreme skill and art in painting consists in knowing how to use black and white ... because it is light and shade that make objects appear in relief. — Leon Battista Alberti

I feel like because black Cuban artists don't have the kind of pressure to thematize race in the way that African-American artists do, there's more space for them to do their art without having to discuss it in terms of racial identity. — Rachael Price

There was a manifesto in the late '60s/early '70s, and it basically laid out what 'black art' was and that it should embrace black history and black culture. There were all these rules - I was shocked, when I found it in a book, that it even existed, that it would demarcate these artists. — Kara Walker

I ain't as good as I'm gonna get, but I'm better than I used to be. — Tim McGraw

The supply transport's on autopilot most of the way down anyway. I'm just on board so that if it crashes, they can say someone died. — John Scalzi