04/19/10
John Olsen on Making Art
The following is an excerpt from John Olsen's autobiography "Drawn from Life". It is his take on that hard-to-describe state that an artist gets into when they are "in a groove".
"...(in Art) there is no 'how'. There are ways of making a picture, but there is no known way of making a work of Art. Art is an affair of the heart-of love, if you like. When I am really working well, I am propelled by forces bigger than myself, I am conscious and unconscious at the same time, I become part of the big force, or a void. Perhaps art is the yearning to be part of that; this could be the reason why even mediocre painters cannot "give up art"; they have, if only for a moment, had a glimpse of the timeless present..."