To paint is to love again. It’s only when we look with eyes of love that we see as the painter sees. His is a love, moreover, which is free of possessiveness. What the painter sees he is duty-bound to share. Usually he makes us see and feel what ordinarily we ignore or are immune to. His manner of approaching the world tells us, in effect, that nothing is vile or hideous, nothing is stale, flat and unpalatable unless it be our own power of vision. To see is not merely to look. One must look-see. See into and around. — Henry Miller, To Paint Is to Love Again
Great quote, via Brain Pickings go there for more on Henry Miller’s thoughts on observation and being an artist
I turn to painting when I can no longer write. Painting refreshes and restores me; it enables me to forget that I am temporarily unable to write. So I paint while the reservoir replenishes itself. — Henry Miller
Wonderful. God to change routine now and again.
For “paint” substitute “quilt” and “photograph” and a couple of other things. Yes, whatever the variables.