I think it just impossible

So it is really impossible to paint pictures to reflect some external conditions like politics or socio-economic anythings.  Because I really don't know anything about them nor do I care about them.

All I care about is trying to make pictures.  Whatever those are.  That I don't know anything about either.  I just try to make pictures that are of something that I cannot quite think of.  I can't put my finger on it.

But it seems so close.  It feels so real.  And every so often I make a picture that I think is about this thing.  And I stare at it over and again, trying to understand it.

I really started painting right after college.  Though I certainly don't know why or what I was doing.  But I remember Laura Miner was there.  She had just got back from the Sorbonne where she got her MFA.  I was worried that all my painting looked like junk.  Scribbles that didn't match.  And still think the same thing.

But Laura was there and she looked at all my paintings and said how they immediately were identifiable as one person's work.  Well I thought well I'm glad for that.  Now of course I wish other things for my paintings.

I rather wish they could move someone somehow.  I don't know why though.  That really does seem like an odd thing.  Maybe I wish it were me they could touch.

decay and decadence

I was thinking about this quote: In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay.  And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable.  And help to change it. - Ernst Fischer...and it got me thinking about art today.

I was thinking that maybe surrealism may have had in it the first distinct expression of decay and decadence.  Now probably not because there are many individual expressions that could lay claim to this in the history of art -yet still, that R. Mutt toilet seems like it could be named as at least the first modern expression.

Now I'm sure this has all been gone over before by others much more educated than myself.  Really, I've just been thinking that this seems to be the only important function of art now.  And even then I guess there are other important statements to be made.

But I imagine the new art to be sloppy, makeshift, literally falling apart -ugly, stupid and gross in all ways possible. I'm not the one to make this art, that's not why I'm saying it, but I do collect via the mail and in the trash, free, most of the elements of my art now.

What I think is that art must always reflect the society in which it is made.  I suppose that might mean that new art will be made on, and sold on computers, traded via the internet etc.

But I'm thinking about my own stuff, which just never gets trashy enough.  When I make it, it is always too tame, to mannered, to predictable and balanced.  The new stuff must really be inbalanced,  temporary, made of junk by junk with junk.

And it should fall apart.  And rather quickly.  And have to be remade.  A new version. A better, more stylish, up to the moment version.  So in fact I guess the artist could just keep coming up with this new improved version...like one piece of art done over and over and over.

Maybe it will be an endless painting of money.  Every type.  Just hopelessly glued sloppily on paper.  That might just be the best answer.  I'll try it. See if it works.  See if it is ugly enough.

Of course I'll get bored of it I bet.  Not sure though.  But I love making these smaller postcard-size paintings with their small images, a kind of message from me to you.  And I don't feel qualified to speak for anyone other than myself.

I actually don't even like speaking about anything let alone anyone -other than me.  And even that seems phony.   And that is why I feel so happy getting any comments, good or bad.  If somehow these things can keep a modicum of conversation going, though it be about nothing, it is better as they say than nothing.

next

The main problem with the way I've been doing these is that I'm getting confused about which ones I've posted already and which ones I set aside.  You figure I could just go back and look...but how far do I go back and which ones am I looking for?

Thank god you will forgive me for publishing it twice...I know you will.   But its still irritating me...I keep thinking I've used these already...I got some new ones downstairs I haven't photographed yet.  That's a good default I think.

Have you ever written a book? I haven't either to my regret. though I did begin writing one.  But it never got anywhere.  I was trying to write about myself.  And I couldn't think of anything to say.

I'd still like to write it.  A sort of sporadic book I think.

I liked this top one because it reminds me of when I'm going crazy and I can't think of anything. I just get wound up.

It seemed like awhile ago I was writing great stuff and painting great stuff too.  I'd like to revisit that time for awhile and get to know it better.

today is bright and sunny

Today it is bright and sunny.  We haven't seen many days like this for a long time.  It makes me feel useful,  though really nothing has changed at all.

It's not that the meaning cannot be explained.  Its that their are certain meanings that are lost forever the minute they are explained in words. _Haruki Murakami

What we call the present in an accumulation of the past. -Haruki Murakami

Occasionally a painting follows the one before it and it makes sense somehow.  Then I feel, ah yes I am working on that.  I am an educated and informed painter.

But often, in fact all to often,  the next painting has nothing to do with the previous one...and I am left thinking I have no direction, I don't know what I am doing...why am I doing this?

But once in a while I look at them and I think...well these are all exactly the same, no more and no less...

...and I wonder, why am I doing this, what am I doing...what is going on?...I demand an answer!

I found these

I found these this morning.  I guess I just forgot them for awhile.  And when I pulled them out I liked them.  So here they are.  

In 1978 I was living in South Bend Indiana.  And one week we were left with 12 foot of snow on the ground.  It was illegal to go outside.  Some people did of course, but they disappeared.  I had to go outside too because a lady downstairs was diabetic and I had to go get some prescriptions for her.

I was walking along in the vast whiteness when I saw a long wire sticking out of the ground.  I kept looking at it until I realized it was the antennea on a giant truck which I had apparently been walking above.  I got a bit nervous.  I knew it was a bad idea but the pharmacy was only two blocks away.

I was worried about maybe walking over houses...but as far as I know that didn't happen.  But you didn't know what was happening.  The windows and doors on the first floor of the buildings were completely gone.  It was the strangest thing I've ever experienced.

But you couldn't step out from the second floor or you would just sink and be gone. period...so there was a small group of us going to this pharmacy.  Very mystical very strange and wild and certainly from another world.  There were no images.  None at all.  And it was quiet.  As quiet as I can imagine.

Thank god I was young enough not to understand the danger we were in...I do remember a couple of weeks later a giant earth mover moved slowly up our little street and loaded giant trucks with snow.  Where they took it I have no idea.  It was a magical event for me.  A wondrous thing that surrounded me.

Then my boss called me.  He insisted I open my store.  Well. For who?  We had Marshall law.

You couldn't be outside.  But he got crazy.  So one late morning I walked to my store.  I had no idea where my car was.  It took several hours.  And by god an hour later I got a delivery.  Sort of.

A truck from our warehouse had gotten through somehow even though all the highways were closed and it was again illegal to drive a truck into the northern part of the state.  I saw the truck pulling up to the loading place (thank goodness they were elevated.  But the truck didn't stop...it just slid on by on its way to the river behind the store.

But I was there with a wonderful group of girl majorettes.  One of them worked for me.  That day they all did.  We counted the inventory.  Then I went home for another week.  Until the next truck.