the Zen Buddist

This is another one of them large ones.  You know it's funny, because my brother sent me a collection of his favorite large ones from 2013 and you know what?...I didn't recognize any of them not one darn painting...thank god I sign them usually the next day or so or I wouldn't know they were mine.   Or maybe I would. Just looking at it, I'd go hey there goes one of my little fellas.  Now I know this one has a watermark from 2013, but that is just a goof ball thing I don't know how to fix.

But I wanted to say that I think it's my unwillingness to judge them that allows me to keep so many, even crummy ones.  I just can't tell em apart.  They're kind of like children who all seem so beautiful, even when they're in a crummy mood.

I used to like some of Franz Kline...and I've looked at a bunch, as many as I could.  Now I like all of them, each and every one.  It seems I've gotten to know him.  So I am always glad to see him.  And I've gotten to know more about how he worked, thanks to de Kooning's wife.  She is always so real, so down to earth, and she says prosaically, well he did this with a board, then moved the top a bit and then really slopped on some paint.  I love that stuff.  You know I got that same feeling from Donna Tartt...well -whatever...

He laughed at the mighty efforts made by the artists of earth to reach beyond the boundary of human imagination (which must visualize everything); at how little, really, they departed from platitude, though straining to the utmost to depart...-Stanislaw Lem

There's something Zen-like about the way I work -it's like raking gravel in a Zen Buddist garden. -Chuck Close