I don’t paint in the studio everyday. I work on a computer some days. I make video and photographs. I also assemble collectives of artists. I demonstrate my aesthetics. I materialize concepts. I design. I channel narratives into objects. I manipulate subtexts. I examine, explore and map the arenas in which I operate. I coordinate workflow with other producers of fine things and manage my own workflow. I am a manufacturer of images and a generator of perception, or point(s) of view. I imbue surface with subtext. I render in real time. I composite layers of paint, meaning or binary code across media. I am the arbiter of the finish. I am a chooser by profession. I trade in free speech. I fabricate the signal code. I dwell in conscious suspension among worlds of performed thought. I enact poetics in the stuff of matter. I bury the dead in particles of remembrance. I fashion a focal area for the contemplation of human experience. I practice discernment for all. I am steeped in culture and trained to express it specifically. I am engaged in a social contract, wherein I must reflect and suggest real and possible outcomes. I regard each brushstroke as a harbinger of my own demise. I regard each brushstroke as a metaphor for your demise, and everyone else’s, too. I know full well that no living soul is captured by my art. I believe that something mysterious confounds the thinker, who attempts to describe “red.” Mystery and Art appeal to the artist equally. All art is under scrutiny and of its nature begets lies. The iconoclast is inspired and undermined by art. Art is the un-definer of sense and a good definer of the senses, especially the sense of inner or secret sight. Dreams and Art are profoundly related, but not the same. A certain type of natural dreaming is spontaneous and not controlled. A certain type of art is unnaturally spontaneous and controlled. This is not a superficial distinction. It is the difference between tribal arts and Fine Art. I practice both. I exhibit the latter. I build structures. First I build conceptual structures. Then I build actual structures. Then I oversee the progression that results from the conceptual and actual structure interacting. This is generally a destructive process. Milarepa is the patron saint for this process. The real or actual form destroys the imagined form. The imagined form avenges itself by interpreting the actual form in relation to its intended form, as opposed to its practical form. I study and apply symmetry in random environments and observe the subsequent displacements, looking for clues about movement. I create patterned “cells” that function as basic elements in complex arrays with multiple applications. I follow memes through society. In this way, I learn about social constructs and tolerances. In order to make good art, I consider it imperative that the artist understand and distinguish between individual and collective modalities and behaviors. The most important quality I can nurture in myself is adherence to freedom. I am a devotee of the astounding notion of “free speech,” especially as it applies to the visual arts and Fine Arts in general. I am proficient at resisting those whose interests and agendas conflict with free speech. I comprehend the value of free speech in the civilization, and also its limitations. I fully concede that my hindsight is as faulty as my monoptical now-sight. The more specialized my knowledge of art, my expert-ism, in other words, the more likely I will perform poorly as a prognosticator of outcomes (verified by CIA studies). This is another argument for the collective approach. I condone the ancient methods of generational information tranmissions, though I admit I am also a lover of books. I will state here that the “me” I thought “I” was never even existed. I do not support dualistic formalities and pantomimed conflicts among entrenched beneficiaries, in the name of universalities. Abstraction is difficult to paint. Just because something sells, doe not mean that something is not a treasure. “Ownership” is problematic, no? Art in the service of economic theory is politically treacherous. Art in the service of divine human intervention is dangerous and endangered by proximity. “Sacred” art is problematic, si? Colonialism is still an issue. I tread carefully among those who would own the sacred. I avoid causal thought and eschew relativism. Contingencies, aside, the language of art is paint, carbon, steel, stone and this sort of elemental thing. However, art and language diverge where it counts. Many things can make one cry. Some are real and others are imagined. I reside in the space where things are not where they appear to be, where an echo is not divorced from the voice that made the sound first, where the place and its features happen at this time, and it has always been that way. History is a beautiful agreement amongst us to not be afraid of what we don’t know about the future; that our collective existence is ordained and therefore secure. Without history there could be no nightmare and catastrophe, no drama to which to aspire, no ignominy and disgrace. I risk. I revise. I think that the illusion of failure (or the failure of the illusion) pinned to the artistic endeavor is a shadowy counterpoint to the truth of portrait of artist as young man. In contemporary civilized society, idealistic young men and women are herded towards the artist mythos. In Art – the myth - heart and the erotic cohabitate unfettered in orgiastic bliss. Judgment and judge are displaced by the necessity of revelation and communion. Brutality is stylized and lovely. I recognize my own mortality and embrace the flawed myth as a caricature of nothing that will never die. That the strongest among us would be diverted into cul-de-sacs to be humiliated and despised by the few and shunned by the many, wasted in every sense, is nothing if not a blessing. Whether one’s sublime is deadly ground or abject, whether one’s hero is a Buddhist target or an avatar of the most High, whether one’s revolution is a spinning orb or interpretive dance, one’s value is comparative. I estimate value. I determine the scope of the experiment, but I have no control over the cost of the content. I draw a line between two points and repeat, until a model appears. I apply rigor to the mark with straight edge or ruler, to ensure that an outcome can be uniform, if necessary. I’m not sure if Carl Andre is correct, or Sol LeWitt. Judd was right certainly. Jackson was right. Others were right. Art can’t be broken, no matter how fragile an artist is. Art is a sugar pill for wrongly diagnosed diabetics. The fix is in. We Masters are bank marks, numbers for shylocks. The best instructors have left the building. The rest are marking time for paychecks. The candidates ask the artists about money and the artists ask the students for drugs and the cops don’t bust anybody here. The truth has been outsourced and the war on terror has been downgraded to a fear-based initiative. As soon as the paint dries, I’m running for President, or at least Governor.
Once elected, I will give my salary to the nearest, best artist. This artist will look exactly like me, but will not be President or Governor. He will be fair-minded, possess equanimity, and be generous in the extreme. The people will adore him. He will reign for the rest of his life. Beyond that, he will reign. His self-portrait will see to it.
