Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees

Robert Irwin, on deciding to take painting seriously:

"There was a certain point when I realized that if I was going to play, I was going to have to make the commitment necessary to do it. There was no simple shortcut. It was a question of, 'Do you want to do it, or don't you?' And I don't remember what it was that instigated it, but at one point I decided I really wanted to do it."

Lawrence Weschler, Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1982), p.52