Carolina QuotesAlbers [on Black Mountain College ] was a beautiful teacher and an impossible person. He wasn't easy to talk to, and I found his criticism so excruciating and so devastating that I never asked for it. Years later, though, I'm still learning what he taught me, because what he taught me had to do with the entire visual world. He didn't teach you how to 'do art'. The focus was always on your personal sense of looking.. .I consider Albers the most important teacher I've ever had, and I'm sure that he considers me one of his poorest students.
Robert Rauschenberg Connected to the Carolinas
Source
p. 198
- work
- The Bride and the Bachelors, (1962)
- year
- 1962
- locator
- p. 198
Cite this record
“Albers [on Black Mountain College ] was a beautiful teacher …” Robert Rauschenberg. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-30048C08DA. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/30048c08da
More from Robert Rauschenberg
I used to think of that line in Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl', about the 'sad cup of coffee'.. .I have had cold coffee and hot coffee and lousy coffee, But I've never had a sad cup of coffee.
[I have] various tricks to actually reach that solitary point of creativity. One of them is pretending I have an idea. But that trick doesn't survive very long because I don't really trust ideas – especially good ones.. .Rather, I put my trust in the materials that confront me, because they put me in touch with the unknown. It is then that I begin to work.. ..when I don't have the comfort of sureness and certainty. Sometimes Jack Daniels helps too. Another good trick is fatigue. I like to start working when it's almost too late.. ..when my sense of efficiency is exhausted.
I am sick of talking about What and Why I am doing. I have always believed that the WORK is the word. Action is seen less clearly through reason. There are no shortcuts to directness. [around 1965]