Janet Echelman Quotes

I never studied sculpture, engineering or architecture. In fact, after college I applied to seven art schools and was rejected by all seven.

In Portugal, my sculpture 'She Changes' refers to the town's fishing history, to the era of seafaring trade and discovery. The contemporary site is industrial, surrounded by red and white striped smokestacks, which is mirrored in the pattern of the sculpture.

The most powerful part of the art is experiential, yet it's the hardest to describe because it's nonverbal.

You can't stumble upon something new and wonderful if you don't have time to stumble.

In Amsterdam, the river and canals have been central to city life for the last four centuries.

I pay two full-time assistants in my studio, plus consultants who are architects, engineers, and landscape architects, as well as lighting designers.

When ideas are young and vulnerable, criticism can be lethal.

Once I began to hear and pay attention to my fledgling ideas, the biggest hurdle was to learn how to respect them. That was hard, because the real way to respect an idea is to invest the attention and work needed to develop it.

Advances in technology have opened up possibilities in the cultural realm throughout history. I'm intrigued by developments in technology - as an artist it gives me a new palette to explore.

My whole career I've been interested by the distinction between an emotional and an intellectual response to an artwork.

The spaces I want to be in are nurturing and soft and saturated with color. Our cities don't have enough of that, and as humans we need it.

I believe that public space should be intentional: it should be obvious that you belong.

Whether being battered by the surf or swimming through the gentle undulating surface of lakes, I find inspiration in the movement of water. Sometimes I think about the journey the water has traveled, reconnecting me to the larger cycles of nature.