My Evening with Picasso

Hey, Mr. Picasso, what do you think about my sketch? I tried to copy your style. I'm afraid I fell far short.

Picasso: "I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it. "

Odd Chick: So.. you don't mind that I tried to copy?

Picasso: "To copy others is necessary, but to copy oneself is pathetic".

Odd Chick: Okay...good.. I was hoping you would say that.. but my little sketch appears so child-like....

Picasso: "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child."

Odd Chick: That's inspiring. I have been so inspired by you.

Picasso: "Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working."

Odd Chick: I am working, I want to paint, but I don't have much spare time.

Picasso: "Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time."

Odd Chick: wow, I wish I could borrow your mind for a day.

Picasso: "If only we could pull out our brain and use only our eyes."

Odd Chick: So great painting comes from our "seeing"?

Picasso: "Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen."

Odd Chick: So great painting comes from our feelings or emotions about what we see, our imagination?

Picasso: "Everything you can imagine is real".

"The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web".

Odd Chick: so I paint from my emotions?

Picasso: "I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them".

Odd Chick: I'm confused - you mix a lot of truths. So the truth is that art comes from the soul and the mind?

Picasso: "If there was only one truth, you couldn't paint a hundred canvases on the same theme."

Picasso: "We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given to us to understand."

Odd Chick: You've given me a lot to think about...

Picasso: "Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success."

Odd Chick: Okay, I'll think and work.... how's that?

Picasso: The older you get the stronger the wind gets - and it's always in your face.

Odd Chick: thanks a lot...... i think.

Picasso: Is there anything more dangerous than sympathetic understanding?