I used to think that the MORE time I spent painting-actually physically working

hard was in direct proportion to how much MORE I learned and improved my work.

Working hard is something I have forced myself to get good at but now I think that maybe this was not such a good thing to get good at after all. Listening to the poet philosopher David Whyte speaking in San Francisco a couple of years ago I jotted something down in my sketchbook that he said regarding learning. He was talking more metaphorically, probably larger in terms of learning from our life – how to live, rather than art making, but it resonated with me. It was a quick sentence and at the time I didn’t really understand, so I wrote it down so later I would. He said, “…Visitation, absence, visitation, absence, visitation, absence, (this repeated over and over again) is how we learn.” In other words the time BETWEEN the periods of effort, the pauses in-between are fundamentally as important as the periods of work. He believes that this “on, off and on again “ process produces more consistent, more substantial results. This is true for me too. Does this resonate with how you learn?

I teach a 7-dayworkshop every year at Esalen. This is an amazing opportunity for people to spend an unbroken week just focusing on their art. The improvement is extraordinary. However I also teach a 6 week, 3 hours per week Artful Life ongoing course in my studio. What I am seeing, amazingly is that these students, even though they are only working 3 hours a week are also improving at an amazing rate. What I think is happening is that even though they are not physically painting they are nonetheless still THINKING about principles they have learned. Examples of color, value, composition all begin to creep into their everyday life and as a result their visual sensitivity increases. I see a marked improvement when they come to class the 2nd and 3rdtime, even though they have NOT been painting. Miraculously they just have improved.

So maybe, and I am mostly needing to tell myself this, we don’t need to work harder, but instead just put the brushes in the can of turpentine and go away for the afternoon. Suddenly, in the name of improving my work, bird watching, maybe collecting driftwood or even playing bocce ball all suddenly seem relevant.

Visitation, Absence, visitation, absence. I think I am going to like this new way of working.

The photograph was taken following my daughter Lyla, 19 on the final ascent of “Clouds Rest” a nine thousand ft. peak in Yosemite National Park.

This morning I arrived for Xfit class and waked in on the endof th eprevious class that starts at 5:15 in the morning. I stood there half awake firstly wondering what th ehell I was doing htere and secondly how it was amazing what all these incredibly motivated people were doing. It was apparent that the grooup or the enrgey go the group was making it apossible fo rthsese folks to pull this off. There i ssomehing about having th emomentum of a group of similiarly directed people that makes things possible for indiiduals that wouldn’t be othersiwe. I couldn not imagine, fo recxample any of thesse peopel doing this workout alond intherie livin groom at 5:15 in th emorning.

I often lament that art making does’t sometimes have this possibility. WE just are squirlled away in our

sutdios miles and miles agpoert with no idea what th eother one is doing. the closes tthing i have ever experiecnes this kind of group momentum in relatisonship to art making is dueing week liong workshops. To have the community carrying you along while yo are all individually working together is th ebest of both worlds. Lately I have come to the conclusion that my art definetly has improved becasue of my larger community. I think having shows, dealing with galleries, embracing and giving your energy to other artists and supporters who are intersted in your wokr as well as fellow artists. I now see that in order to do what I love I am convinced I need as many people involved as possible. It is the community that surrounds and when that is healthy and you all begin to rise up then you get carried up as well.

you that rises up carrying yo with it to pull off a

How much do we influence each? When does influence become copying?

These are all questions that all artists have to answer for themselves. If we are honest, we can all say, that at certain times we have copied others work. Nobody wants to admit this-it is so much better to be totally original. But can we all be exceptionally unique?

I know that when people have remarked that my artwork reminds them of someone else’s that it doesn’t feel very good. For one thing, the art they are invariably comparing mine to is usually better and more sophisticated. You can never ever be more original than the original. It does sting a little. The total opposite of creating something authentic, something personal is, rather sadly, creating something totally derivative.

I understand the need to do this. I know because I have done it. You get so tired of not knowing where the hell your going, not being clear that you are on any kind of a road that is eventually going to lead someplace worthwhile, that you just need a pause, a rest perhaps, to float along buoyed by the efforts of someone else for awhile. It always seems easier to see somebody else’s path rather than our own. The reason, (and I would say the argument) for not co -opting someone else’s journey, is BECAUSE we don’t actually know where we are going. It is not supposed to be clear as we haven’t gotten far enough along to even realize it as our own and that is why it is so engaging and worthwhile.

If you are paying attention to your work, you will eventually create a path that is wholly you own. Your work is a reflection of you and you are totally unique and one of a kind. You are, by the very definition of what it means to be a human being, already original. We all are.

Your not supposed to know where you are going. We think we want to know. We think we just need a few sales to make us feel hopeful. We think we need to be making likeable work at any cost, but in the end, the cul de sac that one finds themselves in when they start copying someone else is just simply that—a dead end. In the beginning it feels easier but it actually is detrimental to the development of the artist because growth has stopped and invariably the far more serious state of boredom begins to creep in. It just simply is not interesting to do someone else’s art.

The Poet, philosopher, David Whyte perfectly articulates this line of thinking…. “If we can see the path ahead laid out for us, there is a good chance it is not our path; it is probably someone else’s we have substituted for our own.”

We need to remind each other that none of us should stay very long in these stagnant somewhat embarrassing places for very long. Somebody needs to give us a swift kick in the pants and send us back out there, back out into the realm of passion, individuality and true authenticity.

My next show is opening May 11th in NYC and I don’t know what I am going to make.

I kept thinking that I had so much time. The year hasn’t even really started, my show is not until May which feels like the middle of the year – so close to June which IS the middle of the year. However I have learned that if you want to seriously promote and recover from making the work you need to be done a month early. That gives me till April 15th I like to have 3 months at a minimum. And now, today, I have less than that because the 15thwas 6 days ago. I always think that the next show I do, I will start way early, and just take my time…paint a little every day, spend more time outside of the studio, see friends and go for way more runs with my dog, Maizy.

I think I am kidding myself about how I work. I possibly am fooling myself into thinking that at some point here with all this art business I will figure it out and seamlessly place it in my life in such a way that it is just an enjoyable pastime that gently results in exhibitions every 6 months or so. It is almost as if I have bought into the idea or the fantasy that non artists have of what it is like to be an artist and how great it would be to do just dabble away all day doing what you love and get paid for it.

Well it is great. But in a way it is great after AFTER the fact. After you have had the show, after you have sold lots of the work- that part is really great, not just because obviously one needs income but it also confirms that the hunches you had early on, the insecurities, the questions you placed and eventually answered were resolved correctly. We need to know again and again that we still have IT and that it is not just a fluke that we are artists – that this ridiculously vague notion of being an artist, whatever that means, somehow fits what you do. I always thought it would be so great to be a fireman. That profession has such clear, defined boundaries. Not only does society, friends and family understand clearly what you do but you do too. If the house is on fire, if the cat is crying at the top of the tree you know exactly what to do. A frigging alarm even goes off that TELLS you when to do what you do.

First you get to slide down that pole. (I just love that-what career builds into it a joy ride, a mini thrill into your day?) Your fantastic day begins by jumping up from your bed, slipping down a slippery pole in order to save a few nano seconds of time. You are so needed, your time so precious, your job is so crucial that to run down the stairs one floor to get to your red truck would just not do. Your time is valuable. Lives, in fact, are at stake. You get a totally cool costume, sirens, giant water hoses, ladders, get to play with fire all day long and the distinct possibility that you could save somebody’s life. The job of the fireman is so not like an artist’s that it leaves me at a standstill. I have had thoughts about just getting a fire poll to leap from my bed and slide down to the studio but honestly there is no rush. If I get there a second or two earlier it makes no difference. I still don’t know what I am going to do when I get there. I could even dress a certain way but there just is no point. Nobody is waiting at a burning building to be rescued. There will be no possibility to be a hero today. I do have a dog. It is not spotted like a fireman’s but at least I have that part in place.

Being an artist is all about not having a clue and spending inordinate amounts of time being directionless. By its very definition there is no definition. It is a non -profession. The main missing ingredient is that there is no certainty. It is a mushy; find your way in the dark, figure it out as you go along kind of profession. Today, standing at the bottom of the hill starting to push a bicycle with two flat tires, it seems enormously unimaginable as to what I am supposed to do now. How am I going to get there? What am I going to make that somehow relates, somehow carries the thread of what I am interested in?

I will get to the studio today. It will probably take awhile as undoubtably there will be far more easier things to do before STARTING on that blank white panel that has been hanging in my studio for the past 8 days. I will get there, hopefully today, but I am not certain. I do know that I will begin here at some point. And that, according to my notes from previous years scribbled in the margins of endless half filled sketchbooks is how you start. How one thing will lead to another which in turn will lead you to the next. I am not sure it will work this way again like it has in the past but it is all I know how to do. I know of no other way to get there. I cannot wait to be able to look back 3-4 months from now and say I made the right decisions, that the hunches were right. That clearly, if I can make all this stuff, that this whole gallery 4 months from now is filled with intention, clarity and obvious certainty that I am still solidly and unmistakably an artist. I will not have saved anyone with my work along the way, nor will I be a hero for sure but I know I will be tremendously grateful.