Improbable Schemes: Part 1

Last summer as I sat staring out the window at life's colors while working at S&B, I solemnly promised myself that I would not spend the next summer inside an office.

Here it is next summer, and there I am again (My God, this time I've even given the bastards my Fridays).

So here I go again: I solemnly swear that I shall not spend next summer inside an office, drawing lines or anything else. How hard it is to guard against security and normalcy. I have more money than most people ever save before age 40, and I'm working against my will. When I was laid off, I thought that if would be the truly correct and normal decision to go on unemployment and paint full-time for several months. If I had not been married (and that is a criticism of my won weakness, not of Sharon) I would not have sought another job.

How I admire Geoff Desobry's complete aversion of work and his exchange of small savings for 4 months in Europe. How I envy Steve or Bill Vought their long-term personal businesses and 2-3 day work weeks.

My, what unaccustomed bitching! I hope this will be the most negative (and last negative?) pages that ever this diary shall see. It is the 5 day work week (under particularly niggling circumstances - not heavy pressure, but the constant annoyance of a disorganized boss) which has filled me with woe. In the last month I have changed from a fortnightly dope smoker to an every-other-day toker.

And how sweet it is.

Change of Subject

It is hard to sell good work, or new work. Paintings should sit around for awhile - although one always has an opinion of them when they are finished, finishing art differs from finishing a race. Some of my paintings have been finished half a dozen times, only to be added to or altered time and again (sometimes to the better, occasionally to the point of contrived overworking), sometimes a month later.

The answer: not every painting can be the best. Some must be average. Some will be failures and it's hard to part with good work. Rather, I try to steer people toward "average" paintings that move me less, or toward older paintings, whose value and importance in my oeuvre, although considerable when they were done, has since been eclipsed by better work or different work.

Which presents this dilemma: is the artist disseminating his second rate work to public view while he keeps the good stuff at home, out of sight? Can he build a reputation out of "seconds."

The answer: not very painting can be the best. Some must be average. Some will be failures (and should be learned from and then painted over or destroyed). It is no dishonor not to hit a home run on each attempt, just as it is no dishonor to make god use of the doubles and triples.

Also, it is of vital importance to have a body of work to show - and I'd say that at least half of that body should be my best. Reputations are build much faster on shows than on scattered paintings in scattered living rooms.

I can't support myself at my work anyway, right now. It would be foolish to sell off best paintings for a few hundred dollars whose promotional value (toward a future pay of full-time painting) is not easily estimated.

And lastly, they are all part of me - I reserve the right to do with them as I will. Some will never leave; I want a living history close by where I can breathe it in.