21 ordspråk av Chris Van Allsburg
Chris Van Allsburg
The Polar Express ,
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A fantasy of mine is to be tempted by the devil with a miraculous machine, a machine that could be hooked up to my brain and instantly produce finished art from the images in my mind. I'm sure it's the devil who'd have such a device, because it would devour the artistic soul, or half of it anyway.
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Any system named Dewey was all right with us. We looked forward to hearing about the Huey and Louie decimal systems too.
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As much as I'd like to meet the tooth fairy on an evening walk, I don't really believe it can happen.
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At first, I see pictures of a story in my mind. Then creating the story comes from asking questions of myself. I guess you might call it the 'what if - what then' approach to writing and illustration.
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Certain peer pressures encourage little fingers to learn how to hold a football instead of a crayon. Rumors circulate around the schoolyard: kids who draw or wear white socks and bring violins to school on Wednesdays might have cooties. I confess to having yielded to these pressures.
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Each story I've written starts out as a vague idea that seems to be going nowhere, then suddenly materializes as a completed concept. It almost seems like a discovery, as if the story was always there. The few elements I start out with are actually clues. If I figure out what they mean, I can discover the story that's waiting.
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Following my muse has worked out pretty well so far. I can't see any reason to change the formula now.
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I am fascinated by the act of making something real that at one point is only an idea. It is challenging and beguiling to sense something inside, put it on paper (or carve it in stone), and then step back and see how much has got lost in the process.
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I don't make plans. All my life, one artistic impulse has simply led me to another.
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I pore over every word on the cereal box at breakfast, often more than once. You can ask me anything about shredded wheat.
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I write for what's left of the eight-year-old still rattling around inside my head.
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Lucky are the children who know there is a jolly fat man in a red suit who pilots a flying sleigh. We should envy them. And we should envy the people who are so certain Martians will land in their back yard that they keep a loaded Polaroid camera by the back door.
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Santa is our culture's only mythic figure truly believed in by a large percentage of the population. It's a fact that most of the true believers are under eight years old, and that's a pity.
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Some artists claim praise is irrelevant in measuring the success of art, but I think it's quite relevant. Besides, it makes me feel great.
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