Quotes About Artistry

When I do my own books, I take it as more of my own confessional, but when I illustrate for other people, it is intriguing because I feel like I shouldn't be stepping too much into the limelight. It's like playing the piano while someone else is singing.

'Black Skinhead' almost got deaded because it was too much like a soccer song.

I really admire people who concern themselves more with how they perceive the world rather than how the world perceives them. I think, as an artist, it's very important to do that. You can limit yourself a lot if you spend too much time caring about what people think of you.

I feel like if you spend too much time on the record then theres something wrong. It shouldnt be like pulling teeth. It should come naturally.

Some of the kimonos took as long as four to five months to make, with all the layers that go into it.

I have come to the conclusion - and I don't know why it took me so long, but nevertheless, I'm here now - that a lot of people tell me they don't get enough guitar on my albums. So I decided to do an album where the guitar would be the singer, playing the melody.

It's so God-given - my talent - because it took so very little time to get it down to where I was able to perform.

You can take things that Jimi Hendrix took, from Curtis Mayfield or from Buddy Guy for example, because we are all children of everything, even Picasso. But if you want to stand out, you have to learn to crystallize your existence and create your own fingerprints.

I had been a hurricane all my life. And that was, of course, because I was bipolar and did not know it. And I was - you know, the mania took control. When you're on stage and when you're performing, you're heightened, and it's an extreme.

God has given us an imagination, and our imagination is really the principle tool from which all creativity and artistry comes from.

When they invented the Steadicam, every movie had to have a fight in a stairwell. Whenever there's a new thing, it's abused until artists realize what a Steadicam as a tool can be. And now I defy people to be able to see Steadicam shots, because we know how to do them and make them invisible.

From the very beginning, I started doing music performances with a lot of theatrical aspects to them, where humor was a part of it but not necessarily had to be. Humor is just another tool to make the palette more rich and interesting for myself and eventually for the public. It's a great way to break out of convention.

Clarinet is often associated with certain genres, like swing or folk music. I combine the old and new, using the clarinet as an expressive tool and not in one genre. I'm just happy that people are drawn to what I do.

Hands are the tool of the painter, the artist.

To me, the guitar is a tool for songwriting, and it's fun, too. The day that it's not fun, that's when I'm not gonna play guitar anymore.

Everything revolves around the music when it comes to Tool.

Jazz was more of a tool for me to use to enhance my musicality.

We're just four guys and we are enjoying what we're doing with Tool.

Records are one thing, and obviously, without hit songs, you don't have the opportunity to do your shows. But my live show has always been my selling tool.

A lot of people into Tool, for some reason, are not interested in humor.

I think improvisation is a technique and a tool. I think that even the best of them fail most of the time, and in the end, the audience is not interested in how you got there but in what you're saying. The more clearly and concisely and artistically you say it, the more effective it is.

Being a musician since I was a teen, Guitar Center is the staple. You need anything to create, it's there. You need a Guitar Center. You gotta give it homage. It's a tool shed, and without the tool shed, it's hard to create.

Everyone's on their phones, and everyone makes things with the aid of some electronic tool. Electronic music is no different.

Technology remains a tool: you can have the best tool in the world, but if you have nothing to say, it will remain an empty experience.