Daily Inspiration Quote by Jock Sturges

A defensive sentence masquerading as a modest one, "What I'm good at is making art" draws a tight circle around Sturges' identity: not provocateur, not ideologue, not defendant - artist. The phrasing is telling. "What I'm good at" sounds almost shruggy, a craftsman's self-description, but it also functions as a boundary marker. It narrows the conversation to competency, to output, to the one arena where he can claim authority. In a culture that loves to litigate intent, he redirects the spotlight to the thing he can produce and stand behind.

That move matters because Sturges' name is inseparable from controversy around his photographs of nude adolescents. In that context, "making art" isn't a neutral job title; it's a shield and a demand. Shield, because it invokes the old exemption: art as a protected zone where taboo subjects can be transformed by composition, light, and gaze. Demand, because it asks the audience to evaluate the work on aesthetic terms rather than moral panic or prurient curiosity.

The subtext is a wager about legitimacy. If the images can be framed as art, the artist becomes a specialist in seeing, not a participant in harm; the viewer is invited to adopt a museum posture rather than a courtroom one. It's also a quiet indictment of everyone else in the room: critics, censors, rubberneckers. Sturges positions himself as the only person doing his job properly, while the public argues about everything except the photograph.