Edward Ruscha Artist Quotations

The big pay-off was to work as an artist and gain some shred of respect from your friends, who were also artists. But there was never any notion that you could make a living out of art. On the rare occasions you had a gallery show, and sold a little work, well, that was just gravy.

As an artist, I gotta stand up to my own work.

Most artists are doing basically the same thing - staying off the streets.

The fact that few painter-fine-artists used photography in their work made it appealing.

All my artistic response comes from American things, and I guess I've always had a weakness for heroic imagery.

I knew I wanted to be some kind of artist from about 12. I met a neighbour who drew cartoons, and I had an idea I wanted to be a cartoonist - or something that involved Indian ink, at any rate.