Hockney

An artist only gets little hints now and then that he's on the right track. The hints come in little intervals that are made for him and him alone, and that only he can see if he is actually an artist. The hints are like little tests to see whether he's continuing to make his art or whether he's given up, having gotten or not gotten any hints that he's on the right track.

The hints come so rarely as to cause him to consider quitting making art, though that they come so rarely may also cause him to make more art if he is really an artist.

Art's strange this way, art operates according to its own rules if it's art and the artist has to keep making art, whether or not what he's making actually is art, in order that art may come into being.