I never know what I'm going to put on the canvas. The canvas paints itself. I'm just the middleman.
Peter Max
Get into your own creativity. Sketch and paint with different mediums and follow your heart.
When I put my brush to canvas, I never know what I'm going to paint. It's like when you're walking down the street with your hands in your pockets, humming a tune, you don't know what you'll be humming five minutes from now.
Jimi Hendrix, the Who, the Dead, Zeppelin, the Beatles - I paint to this music all of the time.
My biggest love is still planets and stars. If I hadn't become an artist, I'd be an astronomer because I still love it so much.
I'm more American than anything else. I grew up in China, but I was fulfilled at a young age by American music. It was my biggest inspiration.
I have 17 full-time archivists working for me who put away in books all the diversity of artwork I do, from drawing to etching to monotypes to prints to lithographs.
I know colors like some people know a melody. And the tunes of my favorite musicians energizes me when I work.
The '60s were an amazing time.
I love so many different types of music - hard rock, bebop, jazz fusion, R&B. And I've loved meeting and painting so many amazing artists like Lionel Richie, Ronnie Wood, Sia, Steven Tyler, Swizz Beatz, Taylor Swift, James Moody, The Fifth Dimension, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and Michael Jackson. It makes me smile thinking about each one of them.
If I didn't choose art, I would have become an astronomer.
I studied realism when I was in art school.
I am very concerned about our planet and am about respecting all living things.
It was a special thrill to meet, paint, and hang out with Ringo Starr.
I met Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin when I hung out with Michael Lang just before the Woodstock Festival. They were as charismatic in person as they were on stage.
When I wake up, I can't wait to get to the studio, go into the paint room.
I kind of love my work. I really love the pieces I do.
There's nothing like New Orleans. When it comes back, it will be a tremendous highlight for America.
Seven days a week, I'm always drawing, doodling, or painting, whether I'm in the studio or on a plane.
My mother recognized my artistic talent and looked for someone to teach me to grow my abilities. She found an artist on the street who sent his daughter, Umba, over to begin teaching me when I was only three years of age.
I grew up in Shanghai 'til I was 10 or 11, with one year in Tibet. When I was 5 or 6 years old, the American radio station came to Shanghai, and I used to love bebop and jazz, but I didn't know where it came from.
Marlon Brando came up to me many, many years ago. He wanted me to do a little doodle for him on the back of an airline ticket.
All day long, I'm creative, and the second I get a little tired of any given medium, I just shut that area down and go to the next room. I just go do something else.
Angela King is a lovely person with a tremendous sense of art.
I do not view myself as a psychedelic person but as a yogi. Although most link the Beatles with bringing awareness of yoga to the public, it was myself who actually brought yoga into the mainstream in the United States.
I met Carl Sagan quite a few times - a fantastic and amazing person. I love him. Neil deGrasse Tyson is a good friend, too.
I stay busy, and it feels good.
I don't even think about maintaining a relevance. I just think about what do I want to paint, what am I gonna do now, what am I gonna do later.
I've done 44 portraits of Obama because he's the 44th president.
I appreciate America as being the most artistic nation because of its diversity.
I love the title of 'hippy' because it means someone who is thinking cosmic and futuristic.
Some people remember me for my color; some people remember me as a friend.
I walked out with 14 advertising projects.
When I am in New York, you know, my studio is big, about 20,000 to 25,000 square feet, and I have painting rooms and rooms I do etching in, rooms I do lithographs.
As I create art, it is like a love affair. My days go by loving what I do.
