The On-Going list of Anna Devere Quotes...
Alert: Part of Presence is being Alert
Presence is your ability to be present
Presence is having something that you are wired to do, that you are committed to do, so committed to do that it’s almost like it’s in your DNA. It’s being ready at all times and looking for every possible opportunity.
Real presence is the feeling that the person on stage is right next to you because you long to have them there.
Often people who have presence know that you are there before you know they are there.
Presence is having a hold on the desires and fears of those around you.
Presence requires allowing others to make an impact on you.
Presence will probably, in the near future, be based on absolute authenticity.
Fundamental to becoming an artist is understanding the position of an artist… It is from that position that you will develop an eye, an ear, and a heart… [you] need to develop the eye, the ear, and the heart.
We do that by learning how to step outside of given situations to watch, to listen, and to feel, and to feel as others as much as to feel things about others.
To stop outside you must suspend opinions and judgments. It means that you can control them long enough to watch, listen, and feel.
Standing in and out at the same time is a structural matter. It is a way of bring order to the otherwise chaotic situation of life. I say chaotic because you as an artist are both in life as well as commenting on it. That’s your position.
Confidence: Choosing to value determination over confidence. Confidence is a static state. Determination is active. Determination allows for doubt and for humility – both of which are critical in the world today.
“Forget the form, get the horn.”
Self-Esteem: You can’t base your self-esteem on how well your work is selling or on how well it’s received.
It’s not that we travel the course alone, but we need the feeling of agency – that if everything were to fall apart, we could finda a away to put things back together again.
Part of self-esteem is resourcefulness.
????? – What gives people the basic solid foundation to know that they can “do it?” - 30
Ideas are a dime a dozen; to make them real takes consistent, persistent application of energy toward that idea.
Real Self-esteem is an integration of an inner value with things in the world around you.
In my experience, happier people are people who have not only a high price tag on themselves, but a high price tag on the people around them – and the tags don’t necessarily have to do with market value. They have to do with all the sense that adds up to human value. Be strong, be new, be you.
Discipline: We are on the fringe, and we don’t get such licenses. There are prizes and rewards, popularity and good and bad press. But you have to be your own judge.
Part of earning that title “artist” is the quality ofyour interaction with others.
We who work in the arts are at the risk of bein in a popularity contest rather than a profession. Your desire to communicate must be bigger than your relationship to these chaotic and unfair realities… We have to create our own standards of discipline.
Talking about Kiki Smith: Throughout the entire discussion, she never stopped moving her hands. Her hands are evidence of that – the muscles, the flexibility, the form of her fingers.
Talking about acting is a lot like thinking about swimming. Ain’t gettin’ it done.
Remember your gift.
The Man: It is crucial for you to know who the Man is in any situation in which you find yourself. And to know what your relationship to the man is, and how you would get to the Man if you needed to.
Exchanges: As artists, we all need concatc with our primal instincts - …
And so it was. And so deep down inside, my passion, myh desire to have my classmates hear “the parts” overrode the terror I had.
(One of the best things about being an artist, BZ, is that solving problems always comes down to sharing vulnerabilities, sharing the things that make us human.
I think that tapping into the sheer joy of whatever it is that you do – that is, when I go onstage, when you enter the studio to paint, when your cousin goes to ballet class – the sheer joy is what liberates us, opens the senses, the heart, the arteries, so that we feel that strong will to communicate that is greater than any chains we may have.
Procrastination: Procrastination is actually “active avoidance.” When you procrastinate you are only robbing yourself.
There is no way out of procrastination, or active avoidance, but to move.
Your focus is the center of your brilliance; why not avail yourself of that brilliance on a regular basis?
For Rent: As an actress I feel that my identity is for rent. Not for sale. But for rent.
Struggling Artists: America, as a nation, I am told, wrote and talked itself into existence. Everything starts with an all-night conversation. Find a spiritual twin to walk the city streets with, to waken the dawn with, to construct a world.
Agents: “Chance favors the prepared mind.”
In other words, the actors are obligated to the producers, and have to make a commitment to them, but the producers have no real obligations to the actors.
You must be armed with information, common sense, and presence of mind.
Put this on your wall: It is not enough to get the job. You must personally, intimately know, for yourself, the inner workings of the system around the job.
In the arts we tend to be… well… more touchy. Regardless of the displays of warmth and affection, it is still a business.
Find out – what was this artist’s relationship to his/her society at the time.
Artists are in a business in which there is absolutely no direct relationship between effort and success.
The Man (2): The most important thing to keep in mind while dealing with the Man is that he/she is, in fact, after all, just a man.
Support: Don’t be an art snob! You may be hanging only with artists. That’s a mistake. Make friends in all areas. Make friends with people who are headed to business school. Broaden your arena to people in your school who are going to be lawyers, who want to have business –
Your influence might help him/her look beyond stereotypes. And it works both ways. Your friends can broaden your scope too.
Forget about competition. Rather, commit yourself to find out the true nature of your art.
What is required in making art is insatiable curiosity.
Developing as an artist is a process of reaching out from. That is the difference from avoidance and denial; it is reaching out from your pain, to see and understand the pain of others. We are doctors of sorts, doctors of the soul.
Find your twin.
Auditioning: It’s hard to be a clown. To wish for approval is to make oneself vulnerable. Clowns are tough, ultimately. They have to outsmart the nonchalant ones around them, and at the same time endear themselves to the audience, the ones in charge.
It’s the only position to take in an audition – you have to preserve your outsideness as a platform from which you seduce others, while at the same time you have to do what it takes to get the job.
You are entering a generation where artists are full-fledged businesses – probably more than ever in the history of celebrity. Of course, what lurks is that everyone is in danger of being found out as wearing the emperor’s new clothes.
I like to think that the artist brings a certain health – and particularly a psychological health and balance – to society, even when the works of art communicate bad news and the darker parts of human nature.
We need to know how to talk and listen and revitalize the art of conversation. A work of art engenders a conversation.
Creativity is a supreme freedom. Choose it.
Teaching has to do with declaring a space in society – a space that allows for intellectual inquiry.
When talking to a painter, Brice: He said he’s looking for the questions that the artist is dealing with, and the way he deals with the questions.
Sometimes confidence is overrated! Questions and uncertainty are the stuff of artists! You need enough confidence to hold your paintbrush, and to show up in the studio, knowing that you are not wasting your time – but after that, I would say uncertainty should prevail. We can never be too sure.
More than one idea: “I find it interesting that so many people say she’s articulate. And he pointed out that the word articulate would probably not be used to describe white men in her position. I agree. Why were people commenting that she was articulate? She is highly educated, extremely smart. It would be like saying of a model, she’s thin.”
Rhetoric is the foundation of political life.
When asked why he chose to be a playwright rather than a statesman, the absurdist French playwright Eugene Ionesco answered, “Because as a playwright I can have more than one side, more than one idea.”
Art and reality: First, a caution. I think of art as work, so I worry aobut going off into the stratosphere with theoretical questions like, “what is art? What is truth?”
Although such questions suggest ideals, or perfections, or states of normalcy, or even states of excellence, a close look will show us that everything is corrupted by our limitations as human beings. My colleagues expand the idea of what performance is to include many things that you might call ‘everyday life.’
Perhaps art is a quest for the perfect, or even the imperfect.
Art is, above all, economical. By that I mean that it both condenses and amplifies the world.
This version, this artifact or representation, is, first of all, fixed. Life is not. Life keeps changing.
Art has a frame; it has a form. I don’t know if life, or reality, has such a frame. There is order to how we are as living organisms, but is there a frame? Some would say yes. Others would say it’s random.
Art is a product, a fixed thing, that ultimately stands apart.
An artist is a collector of life’s moments, a memorizer of its images.
Art creates community. It doesn’t necessarily unify, but it creates a community out of a disparate bunch of people who happen to observe the same thing.
You are not only a participant in the daily affairs of your life, but you are also reflecting. And if that happens, is it art? No, because art requires more than just the ability to step back. It requires discipline, ability, concentration, talent, a variety of perceptive abilities as well as motor skills to create another product, a thing. It requires that you make something else exist that is a representation of what your feeling is.
Presence is your ability to be present
Presence is having something that you are wired to do, that you are committed to do, so committed to do that it’s almost like it’s in your DNA. It’s being ready at all times and looking for every possible opportunity.
Real presence is the feeling that the person on stage is right next to you because you long to have them there.
Often people who have presence know that you are there before you know they are there.
Presence is having a hold on the desires and fears of those around you.
Presence requires allowing others to make an impact on you.
Presence will probably, in the near future, be based on absolute authenticity.
Fundamental to becoming an artist is understanding the position of an artist… It is from that position that you will develop an eye, an ear, and a heart… [you] need to develop the eye, the ear, and the heart.
We do that by learning how to step outside of given situations to watch, to listen, and to feel, and to feel as others as much as to feel things about others.
To stop outside you must suspend opinions and judgments. It means that you can control them long enough to watch, listen, and feel.
Standing in and out at the same time is a structural matter. It is a way of bring order to the otherwise chaotic situation of life. I say chaotic because you as an artist are both in life as well as commenting on it. That’s your position.
Confidence: Choosing to value determination over confidence. Confidence is a static state. Determination is active. Determination allows for doubt and for humility – both of which are critical in the world today.
“Forget the form, get the horn.”
Self-Esteem: You can’t base your self-esteem on how well your work is selling or on how well it’s received.
It’s not that we travel the course alone, but we need the feeling of agency – that if everything were to fall apart, we could finda a away to put things back together again.
Part of self-esteem is resourcefulness.
????? – What gives people the basic solid foundation to know that they can “do it?” - 30
Ideas are a dime a dozen; to make them real takes consistent, persistent application of energy toward that idea.
Real Self-esteem is an integration of an inner value with things in the world around you.
In my experience, happier people are people who have not only a high price tag on themselves, but a high price tag on the people around them – and the tags don’t necessarily have to do with market value. They have to do with all the sense that adds up to human value. Be strong, be new, be you.
Discipline: We are on the fringe, and we don’t get such licenses. There are prizes and rewards, popularity and good and bad press. But you have to be your own judge.
Part of earning that title “artist” is the quality ofyour interaction with others.
We who work in the arts are at the risk of bein in a popularity contest rather than a profession. Your desire to communicate must be bigger than your relationship to these chaotic and unfair realities… We have to create our own standards of discipline.
Talking about Kiki Smith: Throughout the entire discussion, she never stopped moving her hands. Her hands are evidence of that – the muscles, the flexibility, the form of her fingers.
Talking about acting is a lot like thinking about swimming. Ain’t gettin’ it done.
Remember your gift.
The Man: It is crucial for you to know who the Man is in any situation in which you find yourself. And to know what your relationship to the man is, and how you would get to the Man if you needed to.
Exchanges: As artists, we all need concatc with our primal instincts - …
And so it was. And so deep down inside, my passion, myh desire to have my classmates hear “the parts” overrode the terror I had.
(One of the best things about being an artist, BZ, is that solving problems always comes down to sharing vulnerabilities, sharing the things that make us human.
I think that tapping into the sheer joy of whatever it is that you do – that is, when I go onstage, when you enter the studio to paint, when your cousin goes to ballet class – the sheer joy is what liberates us, opens the senses, the heart, the arteries, so that we feel that strong will to communicate that is greater than any chains we may have.
Procrastination: Procrastination is actually “active avoidance.” When you procrastinate you are only robbing yourself.
There is no way out of procrastination, or active avoidance, but to move.
Your focus is the center of your brilliance; why not avail yourself of that brilliance on a regular basis?
For Rent: As an actress I feel that my identity is for rent. Not for sale. But for rent.
Struggling Artists: America, as a nation, I am told, wrote and talked itself into existence. Everything starts with an all-night conversation. Find a spiritual twin to walk the city streets with, to waken the dawn with, to construct a world.
Agents: “Chance favors the prepared mind.”
In other words, the actors are obligated to the producers, and have to make a commitment to them, but the producers have no real obligations to the actors.
You must be armed with information, common sense, and presence of mind.
Put this on your wall: It is not enough to get the job. You must personally, intimately know, for yourself, the inner workings of the system around the job.
In the arts we tend to be… well… more touchy. Regardless of the displays of warmth and affection, it is still a business.
Find out – what was this artist’s relationship to his/her society at the time.
Artists are in a business in which there is absolutely no direct relationship between effort and success.
The Man (2): The most important thing to keep in mind while dealing with the Man is that he/she is, in fact, after all, just a man.
Support: Don’t be an art snob! You may be hanging only with artists. That’s a mistake. Make friends in all areas. Make friends with people who are headed to business school. Broaden your arena to people in your school who are going to be lawyers, who want to have business –
Your influence might help him/her look beyond stereotypes. And it works both ways. Your friends can broaden your scope too.
Forget about competition. Rather, commit yourself to find out the true nature of your art.
What is required in making art is insatiable curiosity.
Developing as an artist is a process of reaching out from. That is the difference from avoidance and denial; it is reaching out from your pain, to see and understand the pain of others. We are doctors of sorts, doctors of the soul.
Find your twin.
Auditioning: It’s hard to be a clown. To wish for approval is to make oneself vulnerable. Clowns are tough, ultimately. They have to outsmart the nonchalant ones around them, and at the same time endear themselves to the audience, the ones in charge.
It’s the only position to take in an audition – you have to preserve your outsideness as a platform from which you seduce others, while at the same time you have to do what it takes to get the job.
You are entering a generation where artists are full-fledged businesses – probably more than ever in the history of celebrity. Of course, what lurks is that everyone is in danger of being found out as wearing the emperor’s new clothes.
I like to think that the artist brings a certain health – and particularly a psychological health and balance – to society, even when the works of art communicate bad news and the darker parts of human nature.
We need to know how to talk and listen and revitalize the art of conversation. A work of art engenders a conversation.
Creativity is a supreme freedom. Choose it.
Teaching has to do with declaring a space in society – a space that allows for intellectual inquiry.
When talking to a painter, Brice: He said he’s looking for the questions that the artist is dealing with, and the way he deals with the questions.
Sometimes confidence is overrated! Questions and uncertainty are the stuff of artists! You need enough confidence to hold your paintbrush, and to show up in the studio, knowing that you are not wasting your time – but after that, I would say uncertainty should prevail. We can never be too sure.
More than one idea: “I find it interesting that so many people say she’s articulate. And he pointed out that the word articulate would probably not be used to describe white men in her position. I agree. Why were people commenting that she was articulate? She is highly educated, extremely smart. It would be like saying of a model, she’s thin.”
Rhetoric is the foundation of political life.
When asked why he chose to be a playwright rather than a statesman, the absurdist French playwright Eugene Ionesco answered, “Because as a playwright I can have more than one side, more than one idea.”
Art and reality: First, a caution. I think of art as work, so I worry aobut going off into the stratosphere with theoretical questions like, “what is art? What is truth?”
Although such questions suggest ideals, or perfections, or states of normalcy, or even states of excellence, a close look will show us that everything is corrupted by our limitations as human beings. My colleagues expand the idea of what performance is to include many things that you might call ‘everyday life.’
Perhaps art is a quest for the perfect, or even the imperfect.
Art is, above all, economical. By that I mean that it both condenses and amplifies the world.
This version, this artifact or representation, is, first of all, fixed. Life is not. Life keeps changing.
Art has a frame; it has a form. I don’t know if life, or reality, has such a frame. There is order to how we are as living organisms, but is there a frame? Some would say yes. Others would say it’s random.
Art is a product, a fixed thing, that ultimately stands apart.
An artist is a collector of life’s moments, a memorizer of its images.
Art creates community. It doesn’t necessarily unify, but it creates a community out of a disparate bunch of people who happen to observe the same thing.
You are not only a participant in the daily affairs of your life, but you are also reflecting. And if that happens, is it art? No, because art requires more than just the ability to step back. It requires discipline, ability, concentration, talent, a variety of perceptive abilities as well as motor skills to create another product, a thing. It requires that you make something else exist that is a representation of what your feeling is.
posted by Jared M. Brown at
1:44 AM
0 Comments
