All art really does is keep you focused on questions of humanity, and it really is about how do we get on with our maker.
David BowieRead
All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.
Interpretation
True artistic expression emerges when one prioritizes personal vision over external approval.
This quote by David Bowie emphasizes the importance of authenticity in the creative process. Rather than seeking to please an audience or conform to their expectations, true strength and creativity come from being self-directed and prioritizing one's own vision and desires in artistic work.
In practice
During an artist talk, I might share Bowie's perspective to inspire aspiring artists to stay true to their vision.
All art really does is keep you focused on questions of humanity, and it really is about how do we get on with our maker.
I guess, taking away all the theatrics or the costuming and the outer layers of what I do, I'm a writer... I write.
I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human.
Nothing prepared me for your smile
But I've got to think of myself as the luckiest guy. Robert Johnson only had one album's worth of work as his legacy. That's all that life allowed him.
I'm an early riser. I get up between five and six, have coffee, and read for a couple of hours before everyone else gets up.
Theater has an incredible capacity to move people to social change, to address issues, to inspire social revolution.
with poems one accomplishes so little when one writes them early. One should hold off and gather sense and sweetness a whole life long, a long life if possible, and then, right at the end, one could perhaps write ten lines that are good.
I hate studio. For me, studio is a trap to overproduce and repeat yourself. It is a habit that leads to art pollution.
I've made my pact with the Lord for the next lifetime. I would love to be a first-class musician. A super one.
There's something about the sound of a train that's very romantic and nostalgic and hopeful.
This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish extravagant spirit full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions; these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and delivered upon the mellowing of occasion.
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