another end of another year and here we go... the Los Angelenos are bitching about the cold under blue skies and waving palm trees and lackluster dealers are spinning their yarns and greasing the wheels of the big machine... business as usual. business as usual at years end. i'm killing time until my baby wakes, sipping wine and satisfied with the painting of the last week-- out here under the orange tree with the big-ass raccoons walking along the top of the wooden fence along the bamboo.

it would seem that a years end would be pause for reflection.

indeed... i ended my last few weeks in LA with 3 days in a burn unit-- 3rd degree burns over 20% of my body. so be it. i was lucky. you learn quite a bit about yourself in a burn unit. you learn quite a bit about what you can take and what it is that others may or may not be able to take. i was one of the lucky ones... period.

as artists its important to question yourself from time to time. what the fuck is it that we are doing?

more importantly, why are we doing it?

there should be the dance of the song of the lyric in our art. maybe not at face value (we can have our hard hard logics and geometries), but it should be there-- somewhere in the vapor of our output, our creation, our love. there is a place for the cold formalities and obfuscations- but the lust and flesh must (somehow) be there... the old, old passion and brimstone-- the likes of which drove any number of French poets and Russian novelists to a bottle, a bad woman, or God...

reflection.

reflection and gratitude...

you can fill a thousand notebooks and never realize that a page means nothing.

you can paint over a canvas for decades before there is art.

it means more to paint for no reason at all
than to paint for any number of projects or dollars.
i have made paintings with money in my pocket
and i was not as happy as i was
with the best paintings realized while poor...

if you are lied to twice by a man in the art world
you know he is not a man.

if you are lied to twice by a woman in the art world
you know she doesn't deserve to be a woman.

you can be a good painter,
but only a good parent can be a great artist...

20 years ago, my blonde dreadlocks pulled into a knot over my leather jacket,
Manhattan was a different place:
Chelsea was where you cruised hookers, not galleries...