Gore Vidal Interview 2 American Masters PBS

https://youtu.be/LS0DQEhG1zg?si=7YrWwUDJDm8pbeQM


Sent from my iPhone

poem

 (untitled)

Yes, let us call them Mayfield Parrish Days,

when the season has announced itself,

and the breeze and light implore one

to be a god in the moment.

photo; autumn seems here

9x12" ink on paper

9x12" ink on watercolor paper

recent email

One of the things I wanted to ask but didn’t --who named Salty? Saw on Insta, loved it; such a great name, makes me giggle :) 

In regards to our talk today I wanted to use this reply as kind of a meditation on this moment in my life, so please take as sixty year old poet and couple of Coors, trying to say what will probably end up in the fourth book, I guess.

Most honestly I don’t want to talk about the convention stuff, it’s just a bridge way too far for most. I’ve tried to leave that aspect of my life three separate times over the past twenty years. I want to be seen as poet/writer/artist, but somehow the universe unfolds where I’m suddenly pitching the documentary idea again. Three separate times I’ve attempted to walk away and focus on art (after rupturing most relations, family and friends over it), but then something happens and I’m compelled again.

The art, because I’ve always been obsessed with it, is something I can’t believe happened, but did. I was an artist making stuff they liked under an overhang in a boatyard, tumble weeds blowing down the street, went on to promote group shows at the furniture store for five years, and from there money pours in, becomes hip spot, advertised extensively to Europeans, and now my colorfields are by the dozens in every major city of the globe. All my series combined—colorfields, abstractions, oil pastels, and ink paintings—I stopped counting at 1,500+ and it’s probably around 1,750+ now. I’m not saying this to crow, I’m saying I’m blown away how my life unfolded the past fifteen years—working, promoting shows, place blows up, hundreds of pieces everywhere. The reason I left is because a local rich artist dude who watched me post hundreds of sales on Facebook over two years, stole my abstraction series and the Blue Chip gallery in town (after the owner had visited and where I told him all about the motif of the scribble in art history and what I was doing with mine), did a solo show with his stuff. At that point I said, OK, struck out with the cool people, time to go finish fourth book.

The writer David Sedaris once recounted on a podcast how in his twenties and thirties he was just intense, “Like you how some people are like opening a hot oven--just really intense?” I wrote a letter asking if he ever feels that way today, he replied saying not much. I don’t like being intense, but sometimes can’t help it, it’s who I am and why most people have horrible stories about me and why I’ve never, never, never—what? Been an easily identifiable success? I’ve never been a lout, a creep, never debauched, never iniquitous, and why I can look anyone straight in the face, as many personal failures as I’ve had. 

Having met you and you calling, allowing me to put the idea across, I really do appreciate. I know I plied you with lots of information today, but it’s simple: we—Americans—have talked about this constitutional provision for decades while constitutional principles have been increasingly distorted and ignored (the city of Chicago today messaging ICE won’t be met favorably if deployed). Students going through the motions will be beautiful, display the takeaway, and likely win an Oscar.

In regards to teaching, because I did summer school in a unique environment where every kid there was there to learn art, I really did perfect a lesson(s) for young artists to cover a vast amount of intellectual ground about color and composition, all the stuff I had to learn on my own over the years. So, as a possible project, just a room, board and camera, to make tutorial for other teachers to watch and implement.

Attached is translation of Shakespeare, but just want you to read the introduction.

You really should have a TV show Kathy. Or maybe podcast; you’re an authentic thinker/artist with a big heart that still cares :) Which is what humanity needs.

If I don’t hear from you prior to NYC trip, please visit Horace Greeley Square and snap a shot or insta clip, I’m a descendant of his and why I’m a fifth generation Californian on both sides of the family; he had visited in the 1850s, went home, and in his newspaper told everyone to go west.

dear diary

 Well, it’s true, I do feel a weigh off my psyche; left good final message, phone machine of muse, and feel at peace. And today I happened to start going through old photos and found a number of myself, young. I’ve always been a monster; a monster in the sense that if you weren’t an artist fighting for truth, ok.