Maisel Quotes & Sayings

You find that you have to do many things, more than just lift up the camera and shoot, and so you get involved in it in a very physical way. You may find that the picture you want to do can only be made from a certain place, and you're not there, so you have to physically go there. And that participation may spur you on to work harder on the thing, ... because in the physical change of position you start seeing a whole different relationship. — Jay Maisel

Dream, but expect nothing. Desire, but expect nothing. Hope, but expect nothing. Release your need to control and gain real control. — Eric Maisel

An inability to choose is a hallmark of anxiety ... The too-anxious artist, afraid to choose, will halt dead in the water. — Eric Maisel

When a thing is not done, continuing to work is the strength; but when it is done, the strength lies in stopping. — Eric Maisel

It's a lot easier to take pictures if you always have the camera with you. — Jay Maisel

The artist, busy and unsettled, can find a moment's peace - and even whole-being rejuvenation - by quietly attuning to a red sky, a gray sky, a black sky, a blue sky. — Eric Maisel

First, perseverance trumps talent. Second, do what you want to do, otherwise why bother? Third, be ethical; it might rub off on others. Fourth, don't give up. — Jay Maisel

I take pictures, and they are there for the taking. I'll tell you a quote that I have always thought about. Arthur Miller said, I try to create the poem from the evidence. — Jay Maisel

If you don't have a camera, the best thing you can do is describe how great it looked. — Jay Maisel

If you're just going to meet consumer or clients' demands, you might as well be a plumber - the work will be more frequently available. — Jay Maisel

The artist must possess at least as much conviction as does his enemy, the dogmatic, mealy-mouthed, anti-art bigot. — Eric Maisel

By 'expecting nothing' you are not 'giving up.' Far from it! You are making a decision to focus on what needs to be done rather than on outcomes. — Eric Maisel

It goes against an artist's grain to retire. But whether he retires or not, he will age ... What work will get done in the remaining time? ... Can he find a little peace in this twilight? Or must he still rush on, restlessly and hungrily, to the very end? — Eric Maisel

Do I doubt the painting I've just painted because it is not right or because I can never like what I do? — Eric Maisel

The wise artist makes peace with the fact that he will understand less than he had anticipated. — Eric Maisel

It is the artist's job to revere beauty without being enchanted by it, to aim for it but also to aim for truth and goodness - just in case they, and not beauty, are the real things of value. — Eric Maisel

Color really doesn't have interaction if it's full of colors. It's the interaction or relationship among or between colors that makes a color image. This usually happens with a few colors, not a glut of them. — Jay Maisel

Light gesture and color of the key compliments of any photograph. Light and color are obvious, but it is just her that is the most important. There is gesture in everything. It's up to you to find a gesture that is most telling. — Jay Maisel

It is the job of each artist to believe in the possibility of meaningful, substantial, and sustainable change. — Eric Maisel

Affirmations are not bound up in rules. An affirmation can be long or short, poetic or plain. If you love a phrase and find that it helps you, that is a valid affirmation. — Eric Maisel

Don't overthink things in front of you. I fit moves you, shoot it. If it's fun, shoot it. If you've never seen it before, shoot it. — Jay Maisel

The artist can't paint, sing, or dance without emotion: if he does, he is a machine masquerading as a person. — Eric Maisel

The artist ... may suppose that ideas are his chief currency; but unless he is also attuned to feelings, in life and in art, he will not move his fellow human beings. — Eric Maisel

You have to pick the right tool for the point you're trying to make and there is no one solution. — Jay Maisel

Let each of us dream of a community of artists and work to make that dream a reality. — Eric Maisel

If the light is great in front of you, you should turn around and see what it is doing behind you. — Jay Maisel

Affirmations need to be used if they are to become incorporated into the fabric of your being. — Eric Maisel

Allow yourself to lose your way. — Jay Maisel

Go directly to work' means ... when an idea strikes, you drop everything and when your work bell tolls, you answer it. — Eric Maisel

Deconstruction is great for the intellect, but it hurts the heart terribly. — Eric Maisel

Creativity requires introspection, self-examination, and a willingness to take risks. Because of this, artists are perhaps more susceptible to self-doubt and despair than those who do not court the creative muses. — Eric Maisel

The artist, who must venture into the studio and risk there, and then venture into the marketplace and risk again, is obliged to learn how her defences work, so that she can drop and raise her guard instantly. — Eric Maisel

Almost nothing beautiful or brilliant happens unless a person has thought about it a lot. — Eric Maisel

There's one of the great lies of all times, that computers save time. They don't. They're time suckers. So, I'm trying not to get involved in the Photoshop. — Jay Maisel

Your chances of creating deeply hinge on the quality of your awareness state. — Eric Maisel

You need minimum color for maximum effect. — Jay Maisel

It is in an artist's real interest to congratulate herself more often: not out of narcissism, but in her role as her own dear friend and advocate. — Eric Maisel

leave yourself open to accept things rather than anxiously searching for them. You — Jay Maisel

The more sophisticated we become - as we pierce reality and see the void beyond - the more our sense of wonder is destroyed, along with our reasons for being. — Eric Maisel

Try to go out empty and let your images fill you up. — Jay Maisel

If you're not shooting in the right direction, it doesn't matter how well you're shooting. — Jay Maisel

Live intensely and dangerously. The world may not depend on your efforts, but you do. — Eric Maisel

Hurray for criticism, if it means that an artist's voice is heard. Let the wise artist invite criticism and survive it when it comes. — Eric Maisel

The middle way cannot be achieved by dividing two extremes in half. — Eric Maisel

Remember that most people (those who are not photographers) don't even see the things that you missed. Many don't even look. Ergo, you are way ahead of the game. — Jay Maisel

A photographer's art is more in his perceptions than his execution. In a painter, I think the perception is only the first step, and then you have a kind of hard road of execution. — Jay Maisel

I love when pictures ask questions or make others ask questions. — Jay Maisel

Remind yourself of the value of detaching from work that's out of your hands and committing to new work that wants to be born. — Eric Maisel

When we are given gifts, we must be quick and able to accept them. — Jay Maisel

Keenly aware of their limitations, artists often remain insecure even as their list of successes grows. — Eric Maisel

There are an infinite number of rewards you could bestow on yourself for working at your creative projects, and you deserve every one of them. — Eric Maisel

You can't just turn on when something happens, you have to be turned on all the time. Then things happen. — Jay Maisel

We don't experience light, color, and gesture in a vacuum. We experience it in contexts. — Jay Maisel

Love is the spirit that motivates the artist's journey. The love may sublime, raw, obsessive, passionate, awful. or thrilling, but whatever its quality, it's a powerful motive in the artist's life. — Eric Maisel

To decide to reach for this blue and not that one, to switch styles or subject matter, to move, in the middle of a sentence, in one direction or another, to commit to this book when that one is also calling, are the sorts of choices that artists must make if they are to function. — Eric Maisel

Had I not been told to look, I would have quite, ignorant of what was really there, because I had 'made plans' and was wearing visual and emotional blinders that limited my perceptions and my vision. — Jay Maisel

If you are out there shooting, things will happen for you. If you're not out there, you'll only hear about it. — Jay Maisel

You can't plan in advance for everything - every mood swing, every mistake you might make in execution, every shift in your circumstances. But you can keep updating your plan ... — Eric Maisel

Because of our fear that we are merely excited matter and the consequent grudge that we hold against the universe, we feel lost and alienated, like a refugee far from home in a universe that cares nothing for us. — Eric Maisel

When you flow like water you bring all of your talents and resources to your creative work ... Flow around every obstacle you encounter, including any you've erected yourself. — Eric Maisel

The whole world is there for you. Gifts will happen, but only if you are patient with life itself, the shooting process, and your own limitations. — Jay Maisel

Forget what it was. Look at what it is. — Jay Maisel

There is no one solution to all problems. It's the problem itself that can lead to the solution. — Jay Maisel

The writer loves the fog as it pours in; he loves the sun when the fog pours out. The rest of California is Beach Boys country, but San Francisco has that moody thing going on, those blues notes wrapped in moisture, an atmosphere that tempers California dreaming and makes life more real. The fog brings reality, but it is still a California reality, one spent outdoors the whole year round. — Eric Maisel

When you shoot, that is opportunity number one to make a statement. When you edit, you have opportunity number two to make your statement. It could be an affirmation of your first choice or could go off in another direction. — Jay Maisel

I'm a New Yorker. I don't believe in air unless I can see it. — Jay Maisel

Pain is not a conduit to art or joy — Jay Maisel

If, because of anxiety and self-doubt, you procrastinate and only think about working, you'll feel more exhausted than if you'd created for hours. — Eric Maisel

You sort of have to be always aware, even when you're not thinking of shooting. That's when the best stuff happens. — Jay Maisel

If you want to make more interesting pictures, become a more interesting person. — Jay Maisel

It's not just when you shoot, or what you shot, or where you shoot, it's the combination of the three. — Jay Maisel

It's always around. You just don't see it. — Jay Maisel

All space is space in which to create. — Eric Maisel

Each picture you take has power as long as it brings experience to the person who's looking at it. — Jay Maisel

Art is manipulation, the management of material, the directing of fate ... Who does that directing? — Eric Maisel

The strange, unbeautiful face beautiful in its ugliness; the perfect, beautiful face ugly in its perfection. — Eric Maisel

There really isn't anything that you could call 'bad' color. It all has to do with the amount of color you use and in what context it appears. — Jay Maisel

The more light you have in an image, the less drama you get. The details start taking over; the mystery is all gone. — Jay Maisel

An alive piece of art may be more alive than much of its audience, and with this odd truth artists must make peace. — Eric Maisel

Because she favours solitude and indwelling, an artist can live a significantly more claustrophobic life that she had ever intended. — Eric Maisel

When the artist activates his being, awakens to his surroundings, and sets himself the task of creating, connections are made out of conscious awareness that return coalesced as inspiration. — Eric Maisel

If you create you will also wait, and while you're waiting you will want to be patient but not idle ... responses from the world often take a long time. — Eric Maisel

You cannot accurately remember color ... — Jay Maisel

An ability to choose is a necessity for the artist. — Eric Maisel

Art and business may be strange bedfellows, but an artist must make room in her bed for both. — Eric Maisel

The three elements of creativity are thus: loving, knowing, and doing - or heart, mind, and hands - or, as Zen Buddhist teaching has it; great faith, great question, and great courage. — Eric Maisel

You must not think of yourself as looking at the stage from the audience. You must think of it as theatre in the round and look at it from all sides. — Jay Maisel

One color alone means nothing. I acts as in a vacuum, with no other colors to relate to. It is only when colors relate to other colors that the fun begins. — Jay Maisel

Sometimes without shooting a picture germinates in your head. Other times, you keep taking pictures of the same thing and watch the images mature and grow. — Jay Maisel

An artist feels vulnerable to begin with; and yet the only answer is to recklessly discard more armour. — Eric Maisel

A smart person is even more likely to suppose that his brain is equal to the challenges he faces, even such frankly impossible ones. What a setup to send your brain racing! And what will it do when, racing, it realizes the magnitude of its challenges and the extent to which they can't be solved just by thinking? It will worry. — Eric Maisel

You can sweat by not practicing or you can pick up your clarinet. There's good sweat and there's bad sweat. — Eric Maisel

Whatever pain and suffering you've experienced in your life has been a blessing at least in this one regard: you now know some true things that you couldn't have learned any other way. — Eric Maisel

As people, we love pattern. But interrupted pattern is more interesting. — Jay Maisel

An artist must struggle to accept the shape of this universe - and achieve some important successes ... — Eric Maisel

You honor your writing space by recovering, if you are an addict. You honor your writing space by becoming an anxiety expert, a real pro at mindfulness and personal calming. You honor your writing space by affirming that you matter, that your writing life matters, and that your current writing project matters. You honor your writing space by entering it with this mantra: "I am ready to work." You enter, grow quiet, and vanish into your writing. — Eric Maisel

We can carve time out of thin air, or we can fill up even infinite stretches of time with nothingness. These are our choices. — Eric Maisel

Life is too short not to create, not to love, and not to lend a helping hand to our brothers and sisters. — Eric Maisel

Creativity is part sweat - not just beads of it, but sometimes buckets. — Eric Maisel

If you wait for a better time to create, better than this very moment, if you wait until you feel settled, divinely inspired, perfectly centered, unburdened of your usual worries, or free of your own skin, forget about it. You will still be waiting tomorrow and the next day, wondering why you never managed to begin, wondering — Eric Maisel