out in the street

when I'm out on the street, girl

well I never I feel alone.
when I'm out in the street, girl
in the crowd I feel at home.
the black and whites they cruise by,
they watch us from the corner of their eye.
but there ain't no doubt when we're down here
we ain't gonna take what they handing out

-Bruce Springsteen

My studios have generally been in the industrial or forgotten parts of town. In each of the spaces I've worked, the streets are either spooky quiet or the sound of sirens and trains fill the night. I think I long to be with the people but somehow end up being a phantom. Sometimes I long for comrades; artists who will drop by with a bottle and fresh eyes to release me from my exile.

I get lost. I have enjoyed this sensation for as long as I can remember. It is a fleeting sensation, but in these moments I confess I feel a vigor and electricity of life that is difficult to explain. I love painting because in its best moments it feels like jumping off a cliff without being able to see the water below. I can begin knowing, or I can begin without any objective whatsoever, but there is always that moment when I look at a painting and realize that I have no idea what to do next.


Generally, this is when I start to pack up and head for the door...and often when I turn around for one last look and find myself an hour later with a tray full of paint-soaked implements seeing something I had not seen before.

My process if filled with that sense of encounter, and that is what I want people to feel with my work. I seem obsessed with the idea of encounter, the phenomenological experience that is both ineffable and deeply shared. I might not get there, -now or ever, but that's what's behind it. That's the drips and stains and splatters and smears on the wall you so often see on this blog. I was here. I made these things. I will be gone and this is my record. This is my story. Maybe some part of it is yours as well.