inspired.

i have been thinking lately about what it really means and what it really takes to be an artist. it is a definite challenge to think outside of the box and do something that no one else is doing...whether it be painting, music, film, whatever. but i believe that being an artist means not only having exceptional talent but creating something new and provocative and sometimes offensive. making people think and step outside of their comfort zone...SHAKING IT THE FUCK UP...being a revolutionary. i dont think ones art should really be measured by an industry standard, how much money you make or how off the charts your myspace page is...but unfortunately it sometimes is...because art has become a business and a business needs to make money and blablabla...i also believe in persistence and drive...never giving up...even when you feel hopeless, embracing your failures...using them to your advantage, constantly staying inspired, always speaking your mind...and i think most of all having certainty.

so, obviously, my inspiration this week is everyone who is a true artist to me...and if you want, leave a comment with a picture of or a quote from a true artist in your eyes. i could post pictures and quotes for galaxies...so here are a few artists that inspire me to keep going...

"My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all." -John Lennon

"I'm not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I've always been a freak. So I've been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I'm one of those people." -John Lennon

"I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration." -Frida Kahlo
"I stand for freedom of expression, doing what you believe in, and going after your dreams." -Madonna Ciccone

"You exist only in what you do." -Federico Fellini

"I don't think about art when I'm working. I try to think about life." -Jean-Michel Basquiat

my friend Kime Buzzelli...

"I constantly try to reinvent my sensibilities and my ideas. I enjoy some of the satisfaction that I get when I feel good about what I've done. But the process is quite lonely and quite painful." -Vincent Gallo

"At the point where I'm trying to force something and it's not happening, and I'm getting frustrated with, say, writing a poem, I can go and pick up the brushes and start painting. At the point where the painting seems to not be going anywhere, I go and pick up the guitar." -Joni Mitchell

"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our mind." -Bob Marley

"If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it." -Andy Warhol

alexander mcqueen...

"If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative." -Woody Allen

my love...

"A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do." -Bob Dylan

"Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country." -Anais Nin

my Storm...

"Now, live it, the prime time of your life." -Daft Punk

"The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul." -Wassily Kandinsky

"You are the music while the music lasts." -T. S. Eliot

"I'm just an individual who doesn't feel that I need to have somebody qualify my work in any particular way. I'm working for me." -David Bowie

"Fashion is very important. It is life-enhancing and, like everything that gives pleasure, it is worth doing well." -Vivienne Westwood

"Hard times in life, hard times in death. I'm gonna keep on fighting to my very last breath." -Run DMC

Chiho Aoshima...

"The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud." -Coco Chanel

"Making music, if you're a real musician, you carry on, regardless in this world." -Joe Cocker

"I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait." -Salvador Dali

"I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do." -Leonardo da Vinci

and the king, of course...

STAY INSPIRED!!

another day...

this time of the year always affects me...the smell in the air here. it reminds me of being little. feeling safe. weird highschool parties. my parents. the house i grew up in. my friends. a flower shop i worked at. my first boyfriend. waking up early...i could go on but i wont.

instead, some inspiration....Anais Nin, one of my favorites....



You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book...or you take a trip...and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure.
That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children.
And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken. -Anais Nin



"Good things happen to those who hustle."



"Life is truly known only to those who suffer, lose, endure adversity and stumble from defeat to defeat."





November 17, 1920

10 P.M. How the wind howls in the night and shakes my windowpanes. Perhaps because of the tempest raging outside or perhaps because I have just read Edgar Allan Poe's poems, I feel indescribably desolate.
Everybody else is sleeping, and I tried to bury my face in my pillow and forget, but after a long while the thoughts that passed through my head were so dreary and sad that I jumped out of bed, lit my lamp and sat by my dressing table to talk with you. I see such a queer reflection of myself in my three mirrors. If anyone looked at me now, they would faint, for I know many people think I am sweet and gentle, but there facing me sits a girl with a very haunted, stern, dramatic expression on her face. My eyes are long and narrow like Madame Butterfly's and that means trouble inside---a storm-tossed heart. My hair falling over my shoulders in wild, reddish ripples reminds me that I am not a philosopher battling with some great questions but an ordinary girl battling with her somber temper.
Among the weird and desolate poetry of Poe's are these lines: 'From childhood's hour I have not been / As others were---I have not seen / As others saw---I could not bring / My passion from a common spring--- / From the same source I have not taken / My sorrow---I could not awaken / My heart to joy at the same tone--- / And all I loved I loved alone---All the loneliness is expressed in them, the realization of the 'difference.' That is why I am so changed tonight, for just as when I read Shelley's life, I have lived again all the sorrows of other people's souls. I have not seen as others saw, or drawn my sorrows from the same sources, and I know the great, great loneliness of thoughts and dreams. Even when I sit thus, like tonight, while others sleep so calmly, I think and dream strange things all alone, all alone.

-from The Diary of Anais Nin


"The only abnormality is the incapacity to love."




"Ordinary life does not interest me"



"If what Proust says is true, that happiness is the absence of fever, then I will never know happiness. For I am possessed by a fever for knowledge, experience, and creation."



"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."



"i disregard the proportions, the measures and the tempo of the ordinary world" -Anais Nin

MY FIRST BLOG.

i have been thinking for some time that i need to start writing a "blog"... for some reason i have to put "blog" in quotes.

i have been feeling really inspired lately. ULTRAVIOLET is growing into a sicker band everyday and it feels rad. we have been writing, recording and performing as much as possible. i have also been working on my trashtastic jewelry line, House Of Hudson for Eveline Morel's show at EM&CO (everyone should come!! its on October 19th)...it will be an ultra hot show.

it used to make me sad to see so many true artists struggling. but now i know that the struggle makes you a true artist...it is constant. i watched a documentary on Andy Warhol last night called Superstar...it was totally nineties but amazing to see his journey...mostly his interviews....so genius. Totally Nineties....i kind of like it...i am truly convinced that SOONER than we think, dj's will start spinning nineties dance music and kids will think its so "vintage"....scary. i know its been kind of random on my very first blog, but what do you expect.

on my old website i had, what i called, an "inspiration column" every week. i am now going to resurrect that inspiration column just for you boys and girls.

For all two of you that are reading this, this weeks inspiration is Andy Warhol...love him.

peace and krusty beats,
sarah

If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it. -Andy Warhol




I'd asked around 10 or 15 people for suggestions. Finally one lady friend asked the right question, 'Well, what do you love most?' That's how I started painting money. -Andy Warhol

My image is a statement of the symbols of the harsh, impersonal products and brash materialistic objects on which America is built today. It is a projection of everything that can be bought and sold, and practical but impermanent symbols that sustain us.
-Andy Warhol


I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're beautiful. Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic. -Andy Warhol



I always think I don't do the first one good, so I try to do it more. -Andy Warhol




one of my favorites...

Art is what you can get away with.
-Andy Warhol