I was done working on a big painting, the painting I had planned to make in my studio that day. It wasn't quite taco time nor was it time to leave, so I picked up my phone and started scrolling through instagram, a designer that I like, Philippe Malouin, posted a photo of a half lemon on a plate he designed. It was beautiful and I'd never made a painting like that.......so I picked up a little canvas and dipped my brush into the colors I had on my palette and started painting without thinking about it. Pretty soon it was Taco Time so I set the brush down and called my painting done. It's not perfect but there is an exuberance and liveliness to it that I really like.....it looks and feels alive. I didn't plan it out, I just did it and it feels to me very much about a moment in time, like a record of that moment.
Thinking cumulatively, everything I make was made in a specific moment in my lifetime so my entire body of work is a record of my life, I like to think of it as a record of the talents that the universe has given me and me becoming more and more comfortable with using them.... Getting out of my own way and turning down the volume on the voices who told me "You will never make it as an artist.....", "Maybe painting isn't your thing", "You can never be a success because you come from a broken home", "You didn't get a degree from the right school, you're not qualified" "You havn't read the right theory books, you're going to be found out...." etc etc etc....
My first solo show was 40 years ago and my last solo show was at Marlborough contemporary in NYC in 2019, neither of those events were accidents and if I was truly faking it I would have been found out and kicked out of the art world a long time ago but those voices never go away, they are a part of me and they fueled every single confident brushstoke in this painting and for that I express my gratitude to the universe and I embrace every single defect of character and all of my imperfections, they got me to where I am today and I'm grateful to be here....
