Cupped wire hands hold a glowing eye-shaped paper lantern with a luminous sphere at its centre.

Original artwork, not a still

Toni Morrison

You need intelligence, and you need to look. You need a gaze, a wide gaze, penetrating and roving — that’s what’s useful for art.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

Morrison says making art takes more than cleverness. You have to really look. She wants a wide, roving gaze that takes in a lot and pushes deep, and she calls that kind of attention the useful tool for an artist.

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