black december

There are a handful of great American cities; world class places unique and irreplaceable as they are authentic. They can be counted on one hand, -maybe two. The Holy City made its way onto my list this week and into my heart as well. Lots to think about over the break.

Now it's back to work. Everything is wet. Put another coat on the study-sized canvases and just sat and contemplated the larger black one tonight; cigar and Donald Byrd and me and the rain and timelessness of it all. Hundreds of years we've been doing this thing called painting, and sometimes (perhaps unfortunately) called Art. There's a loss of self, but there is also the absolute presence of being, -one is never more present than when one is lost in activity. The rain and heat are retarding the drying more than anticipated. The cold air tends to dry it out more quickly, but now that the humidity has gotten in under the wet paint...we wait.

Mother-in-Law in town and so there's opportunity to get in here and not be missed. Me and jazz and stillness of black.

We spoke of Turkey the past few days. Walking across the street as they fired up the wood stove and we waited for the fresh coffee so unique and splendid as the call to prayer crackled over the bullhorns atop the mosques. Narrow sidewalks and bustle/anywhere-in-the-world-ness of all big cities but then the strange, other-ness of it all as well. Hagia Sophia; there I was standing in one of my damned art history books and it was even more of everything. Then on the Bosphorus in the Modern and seeing the post-war abstraction re-interpreted through another culture's lens. I remember it changed me, the best compliment I can give a place I guess...depending on the change.

Rain on the tin roof deafening tonight.

This work wants to see the world too. It needs to get out of here, I know that. Travel, make people understand, use the narrative of my life and this place and the sublime absurdity of it all. It's more singular than I realize, all of it. Probably better than I give myself credit for too in my humble or insecure moments.

and I feel as though I was born in the backseat of a car and never stopped moving; i can never stop moving; far from home.