I guess everyone is wanting me to write something. Well here lately I’ve been so excited about the up coming show in Baton Rouge, LA that I’ve been putting all my energy into drawing and the writing has been neglected… I decided to delight you with some words.
Here is something I wrote a while back. I hope you like it.
Dreams and The History of all that other crap!
I was sitting in my nice big chair looking at my latest creation. I started painting on it around 1:00 P.M.. In the afternoon and it all just kept coming together and I got it to a point where it wouldn’t keep moving. It stalled like an overheated forty-nine ford creeping along a crowded highway. My painting, like that Ford it was a good make, but it stalled. It was begging to be like all the other crap on the market. “Leave me, Bob” it begged. It wanted me to leave it like a girlfriend sick and tired of my stupid face, but it didn’t have the guts to walk away.
That painting just sat there happy to be nothing, but I wasn’t content. I honestly, was about to toss the thing in the, “I once had hope for you baby, shit can.” Then the answer hits me hard like a hot rivet from the floor above. I get out of my chair and take the painting down off the piano keyboard where I’d placed it to have a look. I then, simply took a brush and painted a fish in mother’s hand, I put a fish in her hand! Crap! That was it! She had no need for a fish to be there, so that’s where I put it.
I’ve always known there was a ton of competition out there. I’ve been to the museums, street fairs and galleries. I’ve always seen the competition and I was discouraged by the layouts. Discouraged by the prices people are asking for their stuff. Then after today, I realize I’m all alone. I’ve been in the busy galleries and on the streets, but I’m out there all alone. I simply don’t have any competition. I realize, then that I’m alone only because I’m just so far ahead of the other runners, that I just feel alone.
I don’t need to stop and wave flags to get people to stop and look at what I do. I don’t need anyone to buy it. I don’t need to put it on expensive materials or even frame it. I don’t need to put it in the street fairs or on the walls of the arts council. I’m sixty-six years old and I don’t need anything any longer. I just need some more time. God willing, I just need more time.
It’s all so beautiful. I don’t have to do a damned thing. I just have to keep doing what I’ve been doing. I just have to keep on painting and drawing and making piles of stuff and cramming it into holes, boxes and shelves all over the house. I don’t even have to die to make my stuff great. It’s great without any of that other C.R.A.P. It’s great, because I know it’s great and there’s no other authority on this planet that has the right to tell me different. I’m my own authority and with the knowledge that I have on the subject, I’m extremely biased. Go ahead and shoot me… Call me names… Call me a conceited egotist, Call me a asshole! Just do what you might, but it won’t change a thing. How about just running? Yeah, Run, because its all you can do. You can try to run after me, but I dare you to try to catch up with me.
All I have to do is put a mark on the surface. That’s what the fish looks for. She sees a ripple and its something good to eat. I see a ripple and its food and that leads to another mark which leads to the next and those marks lead to a shape and I keep going until the thing is finished. I know when they’re finishished, because I just don’t have anything else to say. I paint as long as it is required and when it’s finished, I put down the brush. It’s like talking… Well talking more like Bull shitting. It all just comes flowing out and and none of it makes any sense. Like dreams… I have no control over them.
