Frustration is one of the great things in art. Satisfaction is nothing.
Interpretation
Frustration is a crucial part of the artistic process, while satisfaction is ultimately unimportant.
In this quote, Philip Guston highlights the importance of frustration in the creative journey. He suggests that the struggle and challenges faced during the artistic process are essential for growth and expression, whereas the final satisfaction of completing a piece is trivial in comparison to the experiences gained along the way.
In practice
In a discussion about creativity at an art workshop.
No good to paint in the head - what happens is what happens when you put the paint down - you can only hope that you are alert - ready - to see. What joy it is for paint to become a thing - a being. Believe in this miracle - it is your only hope. To will this transformation is not possible. Only a slow maturation can prepare the hand and eye to become quicker than ever. Ideas about art don't matter. They collapse anyway in front of the painting.
I go to the studio everyday because one day I may go and the Angel will be there. What if I don't go and the Angel comes?
You know, comments about style always seem strange to me - 'why do you work in this style, or in that style' - as if you had a choice in the matter... What you're doing is trying to stay alive and continue and not die.
If the artist starts evaluating himself, itβs an enormous block, isnβt it?
Painting is an illusion, a piece of magic, so what you see is not what you see.
Probably the most potent desire for a painter, an image-maker, is to see it. To see what the mind can think and imagine, to realize it for oneself, through oneself, as concretely as possible.
Sometimes when you're heavy into the shooting or editing of a picture, you get to the point where you don't know if you could ever do it again.
I dreamt of being a writer once I started to read. I started to write 'Bonjour Tristesse' in bistros around the Sorbonne. I finished it, I sent it to editors. It was accepted.
To evade such temptations is the first duty of the poet. For as the ear is the antechamber to the soul, poetry can adulterate and destroy more surely then lust or gunpowder. The poet's, then, is the highest office of all. His words reach where others fall short. A silly song of Shakespeare's has done more for the poor and the wicked than all the preachers and philanthropists in the world.
To express a marriage of two complementary colors, their mingling and their opposition, the mysterious vibrations of kindred tones.
It's a magical thing, the guitar. It allows you to be the whole band in one, to play rhythm and melody, sing over the top. And as an instrument for solos, you can bend notes, draw emotional content out of tiny movements, vibratos and tonal things which even a piano can't do.
I don't know any writer for whom it comes easily. Maybe John Updike - a story would just seem to come to him whole, you know, out of a personal experience. But the rest of us, I think, are not so lucky, and I had to work hard, yeah.
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