Gerhard Richter (b. 1932)
Richter wakes at 6:15 every morning, makes breakfast for his family, and takes his daughter to school at 7:20. He’s in his backyard studio by 8:00, and he stays there until 1:00. Then he eats the lunch laid out for him in the dining room by the housekeeper: yogurt, tomatoes, bread, olive oil, and chamomile tea. After lunch, he goes back to the studio and works into the evening–although he admits that it’s not all focused work. “I go to the studio every day, but I don’t paint every day,” he told a reporter in 2002.
I love playing with my architectural models. I love making plans. I could spend my life arranging things. Weeks go by, and I don’t paint until finally I can’t stand it any longer. I get fed up. I almost don’t want to talk about it, because I don’t want to become self-conscious about it, but perhaps I create these little crises as a kind of a secret strategy to push myself. It is a danger to wait around for an idea to occur to you. You have to find the idea.
* Source: Daily Rituals by Mason Currey