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06.06.03 A Blast from the Past
This website updating is sometimes a pain in the ass:-) It's not so easy to imagine what you might be interested in knowing. If there was some revelation to be given I'd reveal it, but I confess to be in the dark about the psychological aspects of doing art and its merit. So let me use Harry Bush to give you a practical aspect of doing art. If you, by some chance, aren't familiar with his work you've got a treat in store. Harry was my hero. He was my mentor. But his world view was so dark it would take all I had to fight off his pessimism and look forward to good times. Re-reading his letter from the summer of '88 I'm humbled by how much easier my life is being than was his. Here he's being sarcastically charming comparing ourselves to the Old Masters while resigned to the emphysemic deterioration of his final years. It still gives me a wierd energetic push to read his words.
Thursday 30 June, San Juan Capsitrano, CA
Dear Tom, I see you, too, are noticing the tiresome interference of everyday 'busy-ness'. Home and garden alone: stuff like doing your own laundry, vacuuming, your own ring around the tub-- you could fritter your life away being a fastidious housekeeper, but where would that get you in the Art World? I also know well that you could hack and slash your way through the garden, endlessly grooming, etc. I have often considered the "Master", who very often had a bevy of people performing these pedestrian tasks for him. Wives and mistresses, neophyte and apprentices - all of them clearing the way to leave the Master free to do his Art. (Not to mention someone to look after the finances--to either provide patronage and support (even a place to live) or someone to manage those affairs for the Masters.
In many ways it takes two to tango. It is VERY difficult to do it all yourself. That's when you get trapped into the drudgeries of shaggy grass borders creeeping into the flower beds, a dismal round of demandng duties and tasks which keep you 'busy' at essentially non-productive (simply repetitive) work. And 'work' per se - a job- is the Kibosh of Art - the problem of the artist to sustain himself. And it inevitably proves out that the 'job' takes pre-cedence, takes over, and Art is down the drain. One has to eat, have a roof over his head, have this, have that, and very few of us artists get it by being artists...... I think I'm despondent because I never get 'better'. One somehow expects to 'recover' or improve from an illness. Guess I never will. In fact, it just seems to be a slow, sliding deterioration. Oh well, mustn't think of it.
It's beginning, in the afternoons, to heat up here, in uncomfortable, stick ways. Well, take it easy, yourself,
Harry
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For no particular reason my life hasn't taken the turns Harry had to maneuver. It heats up, but in the most enjoyable of sticky ways :-) |
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In my youth, consensual sex between two male adults was considered morally wrong, even disease. My own family, my church, the medical establishment - all adamantly opposed. Homosexual sexual acts were punishable by law and all of us felt the persecution. Finally, after years of supporting research, a paper published by one brave psychologist resulted in the medical establishment's eventual reluctant acceptance of homosexual sex as natural, not perversion. Slowly public opinion began turning as well, in the early 70's, coinciding with my first commited relationship. The sex was still illegal, although criticism and enforce-ment was muted. It took the United States govern-ment 30 more years, (beautiful for me, but marred by death from AIDS and political inaction), before these same acts became legal. It was my choice to live outside the law most of my adult life and this painting was created in a spirit of defiance rather than in gratitude to the powers that be. |