dear diary

So, as you know, I joined the Malibu Art Association less than a year ago, and had been showing with them at Legacy Park. I had talked with a number of the members everything was sanguine, and I let them know that I was happy to step in and take up some of the slack. I also told the various members, a couple of them at least, that I've already either been kicked out or left to other art associations. So not to be rude, I'd like to take a look at the bylaws. I then went on to email round-robin and never got the bylaws. At that point, I told the president of the association, P. that I don't care, I don't need to see the bylaws. I'm happy to show up and sell art, and left it there. Then another member who had been plying me to step in, and who was one of the people that I asked for the bylaws, brought it up again. I said we should have a meeting lotta things of changed, let's have a meeting for whoever wants to show up can show up, do a zoom. That never happened, and the association is allowed to set up one Sunday a month and that's what I had participated in. And so because I'm broke and I really needed some funds I decided to go down there to the farmers market and just bootleg some sales. Of course I got a call from the president, telling me I jeopardized the agreement with the city. And I said I never mentioned MAA, but presented myself as an independent artist, no one even asked. I got booted by mischaracterization. If they only knew that while I was there today, the moment I had to tell a drunk homeless dude, making some younger women, uncomfortable, to bail; or the kids who showed up with their parents, and as I always if they’re an artist? And I say if you want to be an artist all you have to do right now, because you're young, all you have to do is look at a lot of different types of art, and read about art; and then when you're an adult, you'll be able to call the shots. Point is, as often has happened throughout my life people are mischaracterizing a situation as grounds for dismissal. I now have to find out what the city and county licensing is for vendors. On the day I bootlegged it down at Legacy Park, I did $900, which I really really needed. I'm still trying to get my car to pass smog inspection.

Check out this title on Audible

The Age of Voltaire
By Will Durant, Ariel Durant
Narrated by Grover Gardner

Listen on Audible:
https://www.audible.com/pd/B00Y3VYEWM?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=player_overflow


Sent from my iPhone

photo

Poe as type

 edited excerpt from recent poe biography:

Cousin John and my mother have often attempted to describe Poe's appearance to me. They both said he was one of the most graceful persons they ever saw, never assuming by accident an attitude or making a gesture that did not seem to harmonize with his lithe slender but perfectly proportioned figure. Cousin John said he always appeared to be taller than he really was, he was so erect and carried himself so well, and he said he was a much stronger man physically than his appearances indicated. His hair was very black and slightly wavy and of the silken sheen and fineness. His forehead very high and broad and very white. There was nothing very remarkable about any of his other features except his beautiful expressive eyes. They were of a brownish gray color, sometimes called agate and sometimes a dark hazel. Very large and expressive and never just alike two minutes together sometimes they seemed black and sometimes brown. As they burned and glowed with the brilliancy of his changing thoughts, they were just as beautiful with a soft, dreamy, faraway expression, as if they were seeing visions never seen by man before. They both agreed more beautiful eyes they had never seen. There was a delicacy and refinement in the entire make up of his mobile and changeable countenance. His hands and feet were small and well shaped. With just a half or third of a chance he gave you the impression always of being extremely well groomed and dressed. When you came to examine his garments closely however, you were often surprised to find them well worn and threadbare. He wore them with such an easy perfect grace, and carried himself so well and proudly you rarely thought of his clothes at all in admiring his physique. Cousin John used to say Edgar was always unmistakably a gentleman in his appearance, when sober.

late notes on the Sun

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxgS9aR1bkU&t=39s

photo

photo

dear diary

 

yesterday i contacted the oxford english dictionary. as you know i had done so years ago about adding the word colorfield. again i suggested that it ought to be a word, a noun, denoting a particular school of art born out of human art history of the 1960s where for the first time color and color combination became the subject of the work. that there have many colorfield schools subsequent to the new york school, and a colorfield ought to be identified as noun just as an abstract work is, just as a figurative work is.

19x24" ink on paper

old photos

 

 

another Vidal interview

 Of interest in a number of comments....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiZ3J8XJuMo

art text

 Based on scientific studies going back decades, the body reacts physiologically to light and color; the 1950s, a doctor developed a color test which revealed that color and color combination is the emotional language of a human; why at a gallery showing, if the artist was/is working in your preferred emotional palette, you’re much more receptive; in greyscale art, one is not being led or repulsed emotionally by color, which obtains a serenity apart from art employing color.

Supports the convention process

https://www.theacorn.com/articles/supports-the-convention-process/


Sent from my iPhone

Gore Vidal Interview 2 American Masters PBS

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


Sent from my iPhone

poem

Yes, let us call them Maxfield Parrish days, when the new season has announced itself, and the light and stillness implores you 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.