Quotes from Elaine de Kooning

A painting to me is primarily a verb, not a noun, an event first and only secondarily an image.

Every artist returns to things. The drawings that you make as a child or as an adolescent and the ideas that you have as a young beginning artist, no doubt they crop up again and again.

Women can also be creative in total isolation. I know excellent women artists who do original work without any response to speak of. Maybe they are used to lack of feedback. Maybe they are tougher.

Inspiration is indispensable to my work, but it is hard to come by. It is there or it is not; it is a gift of the gods.