Quotes from Jerry Pinkney

I want kids to understand that making pictures is similar to making music; there are so many instruments and so many tunes that the possibilities for how you play are truly limitless.

We live in a time when there is an abundance of ways we can express ourselves.

I feel the calmest when I'm drawing or when I'm creating images. I love connecting the mind with the hand and producing something - that is very comforting and centering for me.

I wanted to show that an African-American artist could make it in this country on a national level in the graphic arts. I want to be a strong role model for my family and for other African Americans.

Make it all about the work. Everything else will follow.

Part of what I'm doing with generations is that I try to express in my work pieces of my growing up years that I can look back on with great fondness - specifically, a sense of family.

I've tried to use the recognition as validation that I'm doing the kind of work that people are interested in and to feel that my work is a contribution.

this story offers far more than a simple moral of how the meek can trump the mighty.

If you do the best work you can, the reward is ultimately your self-satisfaction - the sense that you have done the best you can. And then there's that piece of how others respond.

I never demonstrate how art should be made or what the outcome should look like. Instead, give kids the tools and the materials to make their own art. Have them experience the process.