November 1, 2019

Body

Estranged from nearly everyone to some degree, alone . Do you prefer death by a single stroke or by a thousand small cuts?

1. The Day of the Dead is fast passing 10:36 P.M. C.S.T.  Never learned Spanish though I tried lived in a neighborhood in Chicago

that became Mexican. Tried to play the guitar never could even get the thing in tune. Loved Calypso . Learned to dance my singing 

was ok better when when I was very young. 2. I remember an art work by Bruce Nauman where he tuned a violin to D E A D played

those sounds. Nauman was a very strange artist but he was also out in California when I was, he was in Sacramento. I was in Oakland

a bit later he knew Peter Saul and Wm. Wiley and others at that time. Those cats were a bit older than me so was Jim Nutt and Roy 

DeForest , Robert Hudson who were involved with the Slant Step. Long story short I found Sacramento very unpleasant only visited 

once very hot . I liked the Bay Area better very good weather very picturesque. Oakland was lovely albeit always seeming the same.

3. I worked with Peter Saul in my last semester at CCAC (now CCA) in my graduate seminar, he gave ruthless sarcastic critiques.

i liked his frankness and I loved his paintings but he was just too much sometimes other times he  was very amusing. His art though

was so intense so over the top inspiring and so nasty. I was glad to know him and still I was also transformed by his criticisms.

3. I had been close to Joe Zucker for many years like Peter Saul he was one of a kind very critical very ego driven and very verbal,

when we first met in Sonia Sheridan’s serigraphy class he criticized my artwork for being too sweet. That stuck with me as he

was hell bent on getting to New York and making a name for himself, which he did. 4. I saw Peter recently and talked with Zucker 

within a week of each other. Saul is 85 and Zucker is 78, they were like my antipodes aesthetically oddly they both knew each other

some from showing at Mary Boone’s Chelsea gallery at different times. Ziucker respected Saul to a degree but thought his sarcasm 

was counter productive. I know people who don’t like Joe, close friends but I always admired his chutzpah his bravura and he was

very compassionate and sensitive to my work though we had a long falling out decades really. 5. My bi-polar disorder has always 

kept me at a distance from people. The disorder is driven by stress and anxiety, sometimes it gets the best of me. And it has made

relationships difficult across the board friendships relationships etc. Bi-polar people are always prey to their moods and it is and has

been a struggle all my adult life. For a long time I took Lithium Carbonate which gave me back a measure of sanity and relative 

success but eventually it started killing me as well. I lost a lot of friendships in my life because of my illnesses my strangeness

dare I say my madness. 6. Other troubles poverty after many years teaching fine arts I was let go and well things went from bad

to worse. My health went downhill my hopes and dreams as well. But I kept art working writing and doing whatever I could to keep

alive. My various estrangement eventually included nearly everyone I cared about including my children. 7. When I had a serious 

accident I found out I had renal cancer, most likely from the lithium I had taken for decades and the stress adjacent to my many

failures and mistakes.  I despaired needless to say. My spouse and I struggled for many years to find balance between ourselves

we both had been in failed marriages and relationships before we found each other, we both had been messed with mightily. The

seriousness of my illnesses brought us together finally. Even though our ages and backgrounds were very different we were both

artists and intellectuals and most importantly lovers. 8. I remember years back that I professed a broken style, meaning I knew

i was not ok, that my dreams ambitions etc. had resulted in a sense of this brokenness like broken art ,broke dreams and ambitions.

i worked with this consciously the idea that I was needing to take into account this history of failing as an artist and as a human

being relative to my ambitions and dreams when I was young. 9, My brokenness now has a literal dimension beyond my mind 

since at nearly 75 my body is also failing me though at a slower rate. I am bewildered by myself by my own art even somedays

i feel as though all I do that makes any sense at all is my art!  10. I have never meant to hurt the people I love or myself. But I 

have hurt people and I have hurt myself. And I have struggled to love and survive but at times I feel utterly alone. As if all this

work has been in vain. But still I know things will work out though it meaning my life is a work in progress, I just feel still some

hope about my destiny. I am grateful for the love I have been given and I think I am alive because I have been loved. But I 

do feel like I am a dangerous being. And that art is a very dangerous profession. I love my love but it seems to be madness

of  kind too. Forgive me my art. Text ends here.

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