Dead Folk Talking About Painting Long dead and recently gone painters wave to me as I walk through galleries in this city each wanting to say something Their messages enter my eyes and I take from them what strikes me and always it goes into my pocket for future reference I look and in a sense listen with my non-hearing parts and each time note that I might or will make my own reply to these old painters I have just ordered rolls of heavy duck canvas to paint upon, unsized, big ass rolls, the same rough canvas used for sailing ships Perhaps one might in this century be painting on some aerospace fiber or on the air itself It might seem so old fashioned to consider applying ideas to unfurled cotton, as if painting on cave walls Yet, I ordered, via the internet, the thickest and widest roll of cotton duck as tactile and substantial as canvas can be and yes, it had been years since I rolled out a painting surface beneath my feet on the concrete wareh...

Buckets and Buckets of Rain It had rained much of the night in Paris. One might call it a dark and stormy night. The Louvre night watchman who patrols the Grand Galerie of French Painting as well as the very elongated Italian Gallery noticed the rain pouring in, fortunately only in the Italian area. That night guard did what could be done with available resources, scrounged from lavatories and closets. Personally, I find this ad-hoc, jerry-rigged, miss-matched arangement of water-catchers an interesting installation, one that could remain on display in a contemporary Art museum, not the Louvre. No two buckets are alike. Yet together they prevented a flood! Diversity Prevails.

Homemade Cave Art Imagine yourself on a mountain top or in the middle of a field of grass. It is night time. There are no city lights and won’t be for another fifty thousand years. As you tilt your face upward you gaze upon an infinite sea of bright tiny specks. Your outstretched hand cannot touch these points of light held high in the firmament. No stone you hurl will shatter their rest, in the way your rock disturbs a calm pool of water and sends ripples outward. Yet you can own these sparks that flicker out of reach with your eye and mind. These specks beg to be named, put into order and relations revealed. A wolf may tip its head upward to howl at the moon and stars. But this wolf will not look at the clusters of lights overhead and impose a world of images: bears, lions, ibex, snakes, birds, or hunters. The act of naming and imposing or exposing structure is advanced and sacred knowledge. The vault of the night sky is a sacred canopy, a light bespeckled cloak...