If The Artist Starts Evaluating

I'm Not Interested In Painting; I'm Not Interested In Making A Picture. Then What The Hell Am I Interested In? I Must Be Interested In This Process.

I Have A Studio In The Country - In The Woods - But My Paintings Look More Real To Me Than What Is Outdoors. You Walk Outside; The Rocks Are Inert; Even The Clouds Are Inert. It Makes Me Feel A Little Better. But I Do Have A Faith That It Is Possible To Make A Living Thing, Not A Diagram Of What I Have Been Thinking: To Posit With Paint Something Living, Something That Changes Each Day.

Sometimes I Scrape Off A Lot. You Have On The Floor, Like Cow Dung In The Field, This Big Glob Of Paint... And It's Just A Lot Of Inert Matter, Inert Paint. Then I Look Back At The Canvas, And It's Not Inert - It's Active, Moving And Living.

I Do Not See Why The Loss Of Faith In The Known Image And Symbol In Our Time Should Be Celebrated As A Freedom. It Is A Loss From Which We Suffer, And This Pathos Motivates Modern Painting And Poetry At Its Heart.

More Than A Process, Painting Is Being Possessed.