Jasper Johns is a painter, sculptor, and printmaker whose early works, completed in the 1950s, depicted invented maps and flags. They were alternately praised for their creativity and panned for their absurdity, but Johns carried on, working in different mediums as the mood struck him, and focusing always on his artistic process with little concern for the finished pieces. This quote gives us a glimpse into Johns’ philosophy of art-making. The purest form of beauty is the act of creation, and it’s something anyone can do.