Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.

A beautiful lady is an accident of nature. A beautiful old lady is a work of art.

In an oppressive society the truth-telling nature of literature is of a different order, and sometimes valued more highly than other elements in a work of art.

Even in modern art, artists have used methods based on calculation, inasmuch as these elements, alongside those of a more personal and emotional nature, give balance and harmony to any work of art.

Aside from birthing me my first grey hairs and keeping me up at night more times than I'd like to count, 'The Subtle Art' taught me a lot about the nature of work. And a lot of that had to do with how my perception of the work itself evolved over the course of writing the book.

At Roden Crater, I was interested in taking the cultural artifice of art out into the natural surround. I wanted the work to be enfolded in nature in such a way that light from the sun, moon and stars empowered the spaces. I wanted to bring culture to the natural surround as if one was designing a garden.

I don't know why you'd want to say your work comes from nature, because art is related to perception, not nature. All abstract artists try to tell you that what they do comes from nature, and I'm always trying to tell you that what I do is completely abstract. We're both saying something we want to be true.

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