African American Artists

Famous quotes containing the words african american, african, american and/or artists:

    “I think it’s unfair for people to try to make successful blacks feel guilty for not feeling guilty.... We’re unique in that we’re not supposed to enjoy the things we’ve worked so hard for.”
    —Patricia Grayson, African American administrator. As quoted in Time magazine, p. 59 (March 13, 1989)

    “The soldier here, as everywhere in Canada, appeared to be put forward, and by his best foot. They were in the proportion of the soldiers to the laborers in an African ant-hill.... On every prominent ledge you could see England’s hands holding the Canadas, and I judged from the redness of her knuckles that she would soon have to let go.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “The mystical nature of American consumption accounts for its joylessness. We spend a great deal of time in stores, but if we don’t seem to take much pleasure in our buying, it’s because we’re engaged in the acts of sacrifice and self-definition. Abashed in the presence of expensive merchandise, we recognize ourselves ... as supplicants admitted to a shrine.”
    —Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)

    “If the artist is not also a craftsman, the artist is nothing, but calamity: most of our artists are nothing but craftsmen.”
    —Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)