Of his work, Norman Mallory says –

I suppose I am rather traditional in that I believe in drawing from observation. But the older I get and the more I work, the more I become convinced that the best pieces arise unbidden. I don’t mean to imply anything metaphysical, or have it inferred that I work in a trance. But once the necessary techniques have been acquired, they have to be subordinated to a struggle to retrieve imagery from the unconscious. I don’t mean total abandonment to automatism, however, though much interesting work has been created that way.

Edward Hopper put it well when he referred to his “interested vision.” I think he meant that one should allow oneself to be pulled a little, perhaps even in directions that seem uncomfortable, or perhaps by work or subjects whose solution requires dislodging from comfortable or facile technique. To do that which you have already done well several times leads down the path to hackdom, and only deepens the ennui of the viewer/ audience.

Rilke got it right when he said an artist should pay no more attention to praise than to blame. Both are inimical to allowing art to appear. Likewise, thinking of everything you do as art can be stultifying and dull, like listening to school administrators talk about “quality.” Self-regard wars against art.

Philip Guston, too, essayed well about art in his statement, “Faith, Hope and Impossibility”: “The canvas is a court where the artist is prosecutor, defendant, jury, and judge. Art without a trial disappears at a glance: it is too primitive or hopeful, or mere notions, or simply startling, or just another means to make life bearable.”

A reviewer once mocked Degas by saying: “Monsieur Degas appears, when he draws, to lose all control, to work in an awkward, off-balance fashion without regard to elegance of line or tone . ..” To which Degas replied: “Nothing, sir, could describe my feelings while drawing better.”