The pistol-shot of the painter’s eye dislocates the real. Then the painter puts it up again and organizes it in that same eye, according to his taste, his methods, his Ideal Beauty.
“Artists can put images or music together, and think, ‘Well, that’s pretty good. That works.’ But the next day when you flip on the lights and get to work it’s often clear that you’ve been performing experimental art taxidermy. You tried to put a cat head on a fish. It just doesn’t work. The artist has to be a good listener. The artist has to be able to listen for that little bell, the sound an artist friend of mine calls ‘the ring of truth.’ The artist has to be aware when the little bell is silent.”
Steve Tibbetts