Day Thirty-five

I Know It's Over


I know it's over....and I'm at home in the apartment, trying to find a place to write. I need to sit near a window and was hoping to sit near the back window in the kitchen that opens to the fire escape, since there are plants there and it's the closest I could get to a place that feels like it's outside (St. Barth), but the wireless wouldn't reach into the kitchen, so I'm in the bedroom near another window. It'll do. It's cool and lightly raining outside, a breeze coming in the window which is nice. The sky is flat white with a yellowish tint, the kind of sky that looks like lightening is lurking. There's an empty lot next door to my building that I'm overlooking at the moment, and beyond that is the building next door which is brick and painted entirely white, making it almost disappear into the whiteness of sky above it. There's a tree outside my window, one of those non-descript trees that easily take root in the city wherever they can. They usually get cut down as they are almost like weeds but if left alone, can grow tall and have the same presence as an oak or a pine. This particular tree, when I moved into the apartment was much smaller and didn't even come close to my window, but now it reaches above my window and I can even touch it if I reach outside. Unlike an oak or a pine tree, if there were ever a fire in the building and I needed to jump to this tree, I'm quite certain it would snap under my weight. I always imagined placing a birdhouse in this tree once it got this tall but I've never done it. I hope it doesn't get cut down or the lot doesn't get sold or built on. I imagine it will at some point because nearly every lot that was empty when I moved into this building, has been built on. This lot next door is a hold-out and thank god because once someone starts building on it, there goes the light in my apartment, and with it, my sanity.
I woke a bit late today as I was out last night at Avo and Manuel's 4th of July party which was a nice time. They live on the top floor of a building on the east side and have a terrace, so viewing the fireworks from there was great. You could see the entire display on the east river and part of the one that was below Battery Park, near the Statue of Liberty. Avo and Manuel own one of my paintings that they got a few years ago, before I knew them. They had the piece up in their apartment last night and it was really nice to see it. I was a little self conscious looking at my own work at a party, but I really wanted to look at this one because it had a technique in it that I haven't used in a long time and only used a few times, and I had forgotten all about it and moved on to other things in the studio without doing many pieces like the one they had. Anyway, it was nice to see it. At the party I thought I had only three small glasses of white wine, but a cute guy that was serving drinks kept filling my glass intermittently while I was chatting with people and I guess I drank more than I thought because when I left, which wasn't very late, I was pretty tipsy. I walked it off and crossed Manhattan to the west side and took the subway home. Jonathan stayed home as he wasn't feeling well and he made brownies. I didn't have any, I was too tipsy to even enjoy a brownie.
Went to the studio today and did stuff. I don't even know what I did, I guess some emailing and administrative stuff, then I left for a therapy appointment. I hadn't seen my therapist since before my time in St. Barth, although I did speak with him once while I was away. We talked about a lot of things, including the blog. I told him there are many things I wish I could write about in here but can't because they are either too personal or involve other people. I joked that I was creating an alternate blog of writing that picks up where this blog leaves off...a more personal, salacious and sinister blog than the writing I publish daily in this blog. This (fictional)blog I dubbed, The Secret blog, The Black blog, could only be accessed with a password, or is not even a blog at all, and is just a secret diary that could be published upon my death. A blog that's much more interesting than this, censored and tempered blog that you are reading now. We made a parallel between writing in the blog and living one's daily life; all conversations with people are tailored to the specific person or audience you find yourself speaking to. Certain things are shared and one acts a certain way around one person, vrs another, depending on what the relationship is. There are levels to every relationship. What I end up publishing in this blog is one level of my experience, interactions and goings-ons, but just one level. Not that I have many salacious stories and experiences to write about, but you'd be surprised. Most peoples lives have very interesting, deeper and darker levels than what they let others see. I would say nearly EVERY person has levels that only few people in their lives, if any, are allowed access too. Can you imagine how dark the world would be if everyone lived and shared freely, every level of their lives and experiences? Or if everyone shared all their thoughts at anytime anyplace and to anyone? .......This is starting to sound like the blogs you see on Entertainment Tonight, or CNN that they dig up off of MySpace after some teenager goes on a rampage in a mall or a school where they take excerpts of the killers blog and publish them in sound bites to create the illusion that this kid with the gun was indeed a Satanist or insane when actually, this kid is like most every other kid, but this one had a bad reaction to medication and access to his father's hand-gun.
The whole thing (writing a blog) seems narcissitic too, writing about myself and my experiences for other's to read, which get's back to "Day One" of the blog when I wrote about my hesitations on even starting this blog. But then in the end, who cares. If people read it and enjoy it, at least there's that. Now that I think about this, while I was in St. Barth, I spent a whole afternoon writing about this very topic, about blogs and narcissism, but I didn't publish it.....and looking back on these past couple paragraphs, maybe I shouldn't publish this either. Then there's the flip side; I should just get over it and if writing a blog seems self-centered, who cares. Art is the same way, Art couldn't be more self-centered of an endeavor and that doesn't' bother me so much anymore, and making art is what I do and enjoy -- ego be damned.

Which brings me to what I wanted to write about today, and that is a Smiths song from their 1986 album, "The Queen Is Dead" called, "I know It's Over". I heard this song recently on the radio in St. Barth ("94.7 The heart of St. Bart") mixed between a Commodores song and a Fleetwood Mac song. Being the age that I am, and being a Smiths fan, I'm sure I've heard this song over 500 times (is that possible?) but this time the radio was fading in and out and I could barely hear the whole song. Back in the studio today I searched for this song on my iTunes. I have every Smiths album in there but not "The Queen Is Dead". When I was transferring my CD's to my computer, the only copy I had of that album was not even an album or CD, but a well-worn cassette, so it never made it into my iTunes. I emailed my friend Nancy in Chicago and asked her to email me the song, which of course she had and promptly sent. Now that I've got all the unnecessary back story of this song that leads me to my point, here it is:
That song inspires me to continue writing. I know, I know, this is a sentiment I would have had (and probably did) while I was in high school...being inspired by a Smiths song (!) but this time around it's different. There are some songs, paintings, sculptures, poems, books that are so profound (like this Smiths song), it's a wonder how they get lost and left behind over time. It can be a inspirational experience rediscovering lost gems. And when I say inspirational, I truly mean inspiring...hearing a song like this one not only brings me enjoyment, it makes me think and then do.
Listening to this important song and hearing Morrissey's complicated vocal arrangement, Johnny Marr's guitar, I imagine what it must be like for them to perform such a song and also, to hear it on the radio, years later. Their are only two people in the world who can experience that song from the other side, and that is the singer, Morrissey and the guitarist, Johnny Marr. When they hear this song, do they hear how beautiful it is, do they experience how profound it is? When Morrissey performs this song, does he have a profound experience and if so, wouldn't it be wonderful to be be able to experience it the way he does, from the other side, as the creator of the song? It's like Cubism in painting, seeing the same thing (or hearing the same song) from different' vantage points, but all at the same time. Morrissey's experience as the singer is a completely different experience than mine, as a listener and fan, but how different are the two experiences?
I'm losing my train of thought. I'm just going to post the lyrics to this song below, and a bad video of it live that I found on YouTube. If you have never heard this song and are just seeing the live video below, my apologies because it won't do it justice. Go out and buy the album, "The Queen is Dead".....if you don't have it, you've lived without it for 21 years already, and that's far too long.
I feel a little silly spending all this time writing about a famous Smiths song, but it's testament to how art, even old and popular art, can still be inspiring and vital.
And if you're still reading this, I'm not on the island of St. Barthelemy anymore, I'm back in Manhattan....so no more exciting stories about going to the beach or watching the bats come out at sunset.....the blog could get boring now and if you go away and stop reading, it's ok, I'm still enjoying the exercise of writing. I feel like I'm learning something new, because writing is hard and people who can actually write well have an amazing skill that I really appreciate, more now than I ever did. It's very time consuming though, and I've got paintings and sculptures to work on, so we'll see how it goes.
Oh, and here's something to look forward to - tomorrow we have our second guest writer!
Enjoy your evening.



I KNOW IT'S OVER Lyrics
Artist:The Smiths

Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head
And as I climb into an empty bed
Oh well. Enough said.
I know it's over - still I cling
I don't know where else I can go
Oh ...
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head
See, the sea wants to take me
The knife wants to slit me
Do you think you can help me ?
Sad veiled bride, please be happy
Handsome groom, give her room
Loud, loutish lover, treat her kindly
(Though she needs you
More than she loves you)
And I know it's over - still I cling
I don't know where else I can go
Over and over and over and over
Over and over, la ...
I know it's over
And it never really began
But in my heart it was so real
And you even spoke to me, and said :
"If you're so funny
Then why are you on your own tonight ?
And if you're so clever
Then why are you on your own tonight ?
If you're so very entertaining
Then why are you on your own tonight ?
If you're so very good-looking
Why do you sleep alone tonight ?
I know ...
'Cause tonight is just like any other night
That's why you're on your own tonight
With your triumphs and your charms
While they're in each other's arms..."
It's so easy to laugh
It's so easy to hate
It takes strength to be gentle and kind
Over, over, over, over
It's so easy to laugh
It's so easy to hate
It takes guts to be gentle and kind
Over, over
Love is Natural and Real
But not for you, my love
Not tonight, my love
Love is Natural and Real
But not for such as you and I, my love
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my ...
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head
Oh Mother, I can even feel the soil falling over my head
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my ...

Day Thirty-four

Orange tree, blue pants

Day Thirty-three

New York City

10:54PM
Yeah, I didn't think I'd get to today's writing today either, but it's almost midnight,and here it is, for what it's worth...

If you've made it this far, you know that the website for the blog has been moved. Talk about time consuming. I have to hand make evey one of the pages I wrote, with pictures, while I was in St. Barthelemy for those 32 days. But for consistances sake, it's worth it. I have part of the archive done, if you look on the side menu here, you'll see. I will get the rest of them done soon, so it'll be complete. I spent most of my day working on this. I got home last night just before it got dark out. I stumbled off the subway around 8:30 (?) and Jonathan had made dinner which was great, because I hadn't eaten all day on the flights (thanks Jonathan!). It was great to see him. I gave him the gifts I had for him, including two, "Rum Jumbies" which are glass bottles of rum shaped like a handsome, carribean bango player (I know, totally racist, or if not racist, just weird) but I had to get them because the 'shirt' on the Rumb Jumbie is hand painted and they have a small, straw at on the top of the bottle where the cap is. Who knows if we'll end up drinking the rum, but I like the bottle and looking at the hand painted detail on a mass-produced product. It's a mini Warhol. The other items I brought back for Jonathan were: French nougat-which he promptly ate, a T-shirt, some shells I collected from the beach, and the best thing was, an intact, dried, puffer fish that I also found on the beach at La Grand Fonde a couple days ago. It's got all the little spikes and the teeth and the tail. It's kind of scary looking, but not so bad. He liked it. It's amazing that it dried in the sun without breaking, and that I managed to get it home - by placing it in one of my sneakers in my suitcase.
We tried watching some Twin Peaks that Douglas had lent me, but it was getting late, so we watched part of one episode. I woke this morning and tried not to open my eyes because I knew I was in Harlem and not on the island in the Caribean. I could hear birds chirping (amazingly this is still possible. There is a surprising amount of birds around my building as the empty lot next door has lot's of weeded ground cover and some random trees that they like). So in my half awake state, I tried to pretend that If I got up, I would still be able to walk out the door and go right to the beach, or up to the pool, or just out on the deck. I didn't want to get up. I wondered what Douglas and John were doing back at the house. We took some nice Polaroids the night before I left:


I got out of bed, made some coffee, realized there was no milk having been away for a month so I walked over to the Righ-Aid across the street to get some. I called my friend Chirs Caccamise so I could go over to his house to get the keys to my studio which I lent him before I left for St. Barths. I went over to Williamsburgh and visited with Chris and Christina and we had some lunch. It was nice to see them and it was good to jump right back into meeting with friends. After that I met Jonathan for a quick lunch in mid-town and we stopped by the Tom Friedman sulpture show in the lobbie of a building nearby.


I made it over to the studio in the early afternoon and that's where I've been for the past several hours.
I'm not sure how I feel being back, and I'm too tired to think about it. Maybe tomorrow morning will be a better time to try and write. I either miss being in St. Barth's a lot, or I'm already back in New York with no problem. I can't tell. I do know that several times today I was trying to think what time I should go to the beach. I went to the beach every day, for 32 days straight, that's what I'll remember about St. Barths. Swimming in the ocean.
Well, tomorrow is the 4th of July. We're going to our friend Avo and Manuel's for a party on their roof. Scooter Libby has been cut loose by George Bush, avoiding any jail time. Happy Fourth of July America........good times.
That's it for today, see you tomorrow.


Flying out of St. Barth:

Day Thirty-two

Au Revoir


Following a truck that is transporting a large rock.

12:16PM St. Martin/St.Maartin airport.
Woke this morning and had to say au revoir. Everything was packed, for the most part. I got up, jumped in the pool for a last swim and said goodbye to John Shankie and then woke Douglas Gordon who was still asleep. Big hugs all around. Martina Ashbacher picked me up at the house at 8AM, always the good hostess. We stopped at the bakery at the foot of the hill in St. Jean to get one last, crab sandwich, but alas in true island form, it was still not open. Got to the tiny airport, said goodbye to Martina and then got on the tiny plane. There were six seats, plus the pilot. An American couple in front of me, seated next to me was a handsome guy with dark hair and long eye-lashes. Behind me was Terry, a woman I struck up a conversation with at the airport when we landed in St. Martin. She and I shared a taxi together as we had to cross the island from the French side, to the Dutch side to get to the bigger airport. She is originally from Maine and works somehow with hotels. She was staying in St. Barth for a week. I told her I was an artist and I was on the island for a month. I’m glad we started talking and shared the taxi, as the taxi situation was so sketchy in St. Martin. They are basically just regular, beat-up cars that drive you where you want to go and having never been there before it was hard to tell what was a taxi and what was just someone driving a car. She said she had called a taxi ahead of time, a woman she’s used before but after waiting for a half hour, we went with this man who asked us we we needed a ride. He was a cab driver named Mr. D. Charles. He gave me his card. The name of his business according to his card was, “JUSTICE Car Rental” The “T” in justice is drawn in the shape of a judge’s gavel. It looked like was affiliated with The People’s Court or Judge Judy. This guy, Mr. D. Charles was from the island, thick accent but spoke english very well, and he was about 45. Such a nice guy. The three of us chatted the entire drive. Terry said, “The French side is much nicer - the Dutch are just pigs”, I don’t quite know what she meant but I think she was talking about the appearance of the island, the Dutch side being less desirable than the French. We got to talking about politics, Terry asking me if I liked Mr. Bush, and I went out on a limb with some profanity to drive the point home and said, “Fuck no, are you kidding?” and they laughed and joined in on the Bush bashing. Mr. D. Charles said he loved America and goes to New York whenever he can, for visits. He said, “I loved that Clinton. I’d take a bullet for him any day”, actually, he said it twice, to convince us. Judging by the courtesy and hospitality he showed us, I really think he was serious. “There may be another Clinton in the White House soon”, I said, to which he replied, “INDEED”.
I want to continue writing but I have to start boarding the plane. American Airlines, to JFK airport. I’ll be in the city at 6PM and I’m looking forward to seeing Jonathan and giving him the gifts I got for him on the island, including an intact, dried, puffer fish I found at la Grand Fonde beach yesterday.
Good bye Caribbean.

4:42PM I’m in the very last aisle seat on the left hand side of an American Airlines flight back to NYC. I think we have about an hour left before we land. I doubt I’ll be able to write much when I get home tonight so whatever I don’t finish today I’ll be sure to write about tomorrow.
American Airlines sucks. The fact that they charge you $2 for the crappy headsets so you can watch the crappy movie they offer is reason enough to not like this airline. And they have offered no snacks whatsoever. I wouldn’t eat them anyway, but what about everyone else? They don’t have to serve a meal, we all know that’s a thing of the past, but they could offer a small snack just so people don’t pass out or get grouchy from low-blood sugar levels. After the bombings in Glasgow this past week, and the other car bombs in London that were related, and with the 4th of July in two days, I’m sure the airport in NY is going to be in lock-down.
The movie that is showing on the tv’s in the ceiling of the plane is a movie called, “Breech” with Laura Linney, Chris Cooper and Ryan Phillippe. It’s so predictable, that even without the sound (I didn’t pay $2 for the crappy headset) you can tell exactly what is happening, almost down to what the actors are saying to each other, with Hollywood body language that is so rote it’s depressing.
After being on the island for 32 days and meeting so many people that speak 2 and three and four languages and that have lived and traveled in so many places, I feel really American, and limited. Watching this American movie on the plane, with it’s predictable pantomime and story line, camera angles, timing, lighting....everything....somehow illustrates this feeling of being limited. I’ve lived in a many US cities and traveled a lot within the US. I’ve been to Europe three times, but I know only one language. This woman Terry that I met today, said she was originally from Maine, owns a home in Maryland but has lived in the Caribbean for over thirty years. I met a lot of people like that in St. Barth; people that were permanently or semi-permanently away from their home country for whatever reason, some just because they prefer the tropical climate and some for sketchier reasons. I don’t know what my point is, but it’s interesting to meet people who have much more of a global wanderlust than myself.
Anyway, I can’t concentrate very well on the plane so I should go. The pilot just made an announcement saying we are 80 miles away from JFK and we’ll be landing soon.
St. Barth this morning, New York this evening.

Day Thirty-one

The four o'clock hour



4:28PM
The four o’ clock hour on the island really is nice. It’s late afternoon and the sun is preparing to go down in a couple hours. The light is really steady, and still. The wind is light and the ever present clothes on the line are at their happiest in the four o’ clock hour. The sun is giving the last of it’s steady, constant heat and the blue hues of the sky fade to a flat white.


I woke today and went down to the store to get coffee and gum. Came back to the house and chatted with Douglas and John for a bit and then I drove around the hill to La Grand Fonde and walked along the dead coral that covers the beach. The coral looks like smooth boulders or discarded ceramic pieces. After taking some nice pictures

at Grand Fonde, I went over to Saline for my last swim at my favorite beach. When I first got to the island, I set out to swim in the ocean every day of my visit, and I have. Today being day 31 in the ocean, most of those swims were at Saline. I took a movie with my camera while driving to Saline, so I could remember the drive and watch it when I get back to the city. The waves were big and a few of them nearly snapped me in half. It was also the gayest day at Saline today, figures, on my last day. I swam for about an hour and a half and only got out once. As I rode my last wave and gathered my things, I took a few pictures of the gays that were with me on the beach and then walked to the car. On the radio driving away from Saline was a calypso version of The Carpenter’s, “Top Of The World”, if you can imagine that. Luckily I caught it towards the beginning of the song and I couldn’t have been happier.
I’m basically all packed and I fly tomorrow morning from the tiny airport in the tiny plane. I really don’t know what it’s going to be like when I get back to the city after being here for so long. Chances are I’ll jump back into things like it never happened, or as Martina reports, most artists when they leave, have a bit of a time readjusting when they get back. We shall see. I’m looking forward to seeing Jonathan and getting back to my studio and routine.
Tonight, I believe we’re going for pizza and rum, easy and breezy. I’m going to miss it here.

Day Thirty

Other voices, other rooms




Welcome to day 30. I woke today thinking I’m ready to leave. The show is up and I’ve been here a long time. I guess I’m a little depressed. I’ve had some serious things to deal with back home while here that I haven’t written about that I’ve had to put on hold while working on the island, so that has been taxing. Anyway, probably shouldn’t write about that here, although I would really like to write about it, writing is helpful. I’m feeling self conscious about the blog too, like I did when I first started, but whatever.

I went to Gouverneur Beach this morning. I took this photo (above) on the way down the hill. I’ve only been there once since I got here, as I usually go to Saline beach which is very close to the house. I thought I’d go to Gouverneur for a change and to spend some time at another place on the island before I leave on Monday. I got there and swam for about five minutes and then left. I should have went to Saline, my routine. Routine would have been a better thing today. I was also driving on Empty, because I haven’t looked at the gas tank lately. Gas stations and everything else close in the afternoons for a few hours so they were closed. I made it home and I’m hoping I make it to the gas station later, coasting down the hill.
It’s a very sunny day today. The usual, weird birds are jumping in and out of the terra cotta bird bath to my left, just near the railing of the deck. I placed new water in there for them this morning. It needs new water every day, those birds use it a lot. There’s one of the large lizards walking on the path by the birdbath. I looked at it a few minutes ago and I thought about evolution and I thought, how can people not believe in evolution, it was very clear to me that the weird bird in the birdbath at one time, was related (and I guess still is) to that lizard on the ground. Who knows, maybe that’s not true.
I think I’ll do something constructive and wander around the house and start gathering my things that have dispersed around the premises during the past month. I’m going to have to pack a box and ship that separately. That’s the thing about having ROOMS.....you put down your glasses or your gum or your cell phone or your sunscreen or your diet coke or your shirt and whammo.....it vanishes into the ether of ROOMS. I can’t count how many times I’ve had to call my cell phone to listen for the ring to find it again. Back in the city, I have a one bedroom, so objects can’t travel far. My studio is one big room so that’s easy too. I think people who live in big places with ROOMS end up buying several of everything, because they lose them in the ROOMS. People that have the luxury of ROOMS usually have money, so if they temporarily misplace their hat or their sunscreen or their shirt or their shoe, they just purchase another one, eventually having doubles and triples of everything. That way if they misplace an item, there will be it’s twin or triplet ready to be found just by the sheer numbers of new purchases of twin items. I guess that makes sense, makes things easier, but think of the clutter and the funds needed to keep purchasing lost keys or chap-stick or socks or favorite books or sunglasses. Not to mention the lazy factor of just buying something to replace something you can’t find right away. Not to mention the TIME it takes to wander around the ROOMS to find misplaced items. It’s good exercise though, and it’s kind of fun wandering from room to room, except when you’re in a hurry and need to leave the house and your looking for a misplaced item.



ROOMS are nice to have though. I like walking from one room to another and that it actually takes me some time to WALK there. In New York, I get up and walk over to get something on a table across the room or in the kitchen and it takes a moment, here, walking from one room to the deck or from the driveway up to the kitchen is like a mini adventure.....you get to walk or stride or meander, depending on your mood, to get from place to place and you notice things about the ROOMS on your walk from place to place; the way a room has been painted, how the furniture has been arranged, the way the sun comes into a window during different’ times of the day, a plant enjoying a hallway all to itself, an abandoned towel that was dropped on the way home from an outing to the beach last thursday. I’ve seen some items never move even ONCE the whole time I’ve been here in these ROOMS....there’s a half spent candle on a coffee table I’m looking at right now that has never been lit while I’ve been here, but someone else enjoyed it on a previous evening. There’s a large, ceramic bowl or urn that was moved once when I got here, as it was used as a trash can until we bought a much needed new one. This bowl or urn isn’t necessarily in the most convenient or desirable place, sitting on the patio near the entrance to the kitchen, but there’s enough ROOM for it to sit where it is without someone being bothered enough to move it to a nicer spot, for instance over by the top of the stone stairs that connect the upstairs deck to the downstairs, or over in the sun by the steps that go up to the pool. Actually, when I’m done typing this, I think I’ll move it. And I think I’ll go around the house and move everything I can....a chair here, a lamp there, a towel over there, a plant here, the garden hose there, the birdbath over there. That will be fun, and I bet no one will even notice. If I moved any item in my apartment back in the city or in my studio, I know exactly where it is, when I moved it and why (well, for the most part).
ROOMS....ample......luxurious.....privileged.
Jonathan asked me last night what I was going to miss the most when I leave and I said the space (ROOMS) and the time it takes to get to the beach (six minutes) without the need to pack anything, just a towel, water, sunscreen, sunglasses, and optional shirt. I’m also going to miss the missed opportunity to finish the sewing/’outfits’ project I started and that I put in the show unfinished. I’m looking forward to continuing that project back in my studio in the city. I’m also going to miss wearing JUST a pair of shorts, every day, all day.
If I stayed here any longer and tried to continue with my work it would be interesting, some things would change, and it’s nice to explore new things, but you also lose a little bit of your identity that you’ve forged since day one of your birth. Which is interesting but also a little scary. This is kind of what I touched on yesterday when I mentioned Marlon Brando and Jim Jones, leaving urban environments and retreating to remote areas and letting eccentricities flourish, for better or worse. The city, even thought it’s jammed with thoughts and ideas, also gives you a set of self-imposed blinders and lets you work more in a straight, progressive line, with subtle and thought out discoveries played out in small, one bedroom apartments and conservative sized art studios vrs an eccentric loss of self that can happen on a remote island, with ample ROOMS.
That probably didn’t make much sense but it made sense to me. I’d like to go back and fix it a bit and try to write it in a way that makes more sense, but that would take the entire afternoon. I think it’s interesting though and important because where people live, wether it’s by their own choosing or more often by financial circumstance, and the objects they surround themselves with, effects every thing about them - their work, their well being, their interactions with people, everything. This is a pretty basic concept though, just ask Martha Stewart, but I think the differences between living in a remote area vrs an urban area and how that effects people is interesting.
It’s 2:28. I think I’ll go move some items around the house and find new homes for them. And then go for a swim and start packing just a bit so I don’t have to do it all tomorrow. I’m looking forward to seeing Jonathan. I wonder what it’s going to be like flying into NY and getting on the subway. Going from ROOMS on the island to the subway.


5:27PM I went over to Saline for a swim and I’m really glad I did. I swam nude too, one of the last nude swims I’ll get to do before I leave the island. It was so nice at Saline today. I love it there. Got back to the house (without running out of gas) and talked with Douglas and John. We’re going to dinner tonight for some seafood. That will be nice. The sun will be setting in an hour and I’m feeling much better than I did this morning, when I was rambling on and on about ROOMS.
Monique landed in Newark last night and today she’s in Manhattan for the day before she flies back to SF in the morning. She sent me this picture via camera phone, she was on 53rd and Park....it’s Damien Hirst again:So there’s your semi-live shot of Manhattan, via sell phone to the Caribbean and then to the blog. Thanks Monique for the picture.
That’s it for today. Jonathan, I hope you are having a good day in New Jersey. Mom, I hope you are having a good day in Maine, Liz, I hope things are going well in Florida.

Day Twenty-nine

Picasso, David Hockney, Orson Welles, Jim Jones and Marlon Brando

handsome hitchhikers outside the gallery

HELLO!
It’s day #29....the final day of my visit to St. Barthelemy in the French West Indies, but I’m not leaving today as scheduled. I’m leaving Monday. We named the show in the gallery after the title of the blog, but altered a bit; “Exactly 29 Days (32 Days)” on account of the extension of three days to my visit. The opening last night went really well and it was an enjoyable time. Everyone had their billowing, light colored, comfortable island clothes on, but with just a little bit of added flair....it was an art opening after all. For instance, Monique wore an all white, dress that looked fantastic. I wore PANTS for the first time in over a month, but they were light, seersucker slacks, you know - baby blue with white pin stripes and a David Hockney T shirt advertising his exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London that I was lucky enough to see (I bought the T shirt in the gift shop, and almost bought the mouse-pad too, crazy). It was nice to have a touch of Hockney as part of the evening. Martina had on a longer dress, with shades of brown that was also beautiful. I think Douglas was wearing some light colored pants that had an interesting camouflage pattern on them. He went all the way and opted for sneakers, I wore flip flops. I couldn’t bring myself to put on shoes or sneakers just yet, no way. I’ll save that for when I get back to the city. Marc, one of the two directors of the residency, who flew in just for the evening and flew back to New York today was wearing a nice, off-white (?) jacket and jeans, I think. There were quite a few people there from town, some of the usual characters like Christoph the Macintosh specialist on the island who has tended to all our computer needs, namely the modem that was on the blink around the house. Suskia was there, the woman who works down the street from the gallery in the upholstery shop where they sew sails for boats and who was the woman that was going to help me sew the ‘outfits’ together, that I didn’t have time to sew, but they are in the show. Serge was there, a guy who writes for a French magazine. He interviewed me today to write a review of the show, more on that later. John Shenke (sorry John, I don’t know how to spell your last name and I think you’re sleeping right now) was there, a friend of Douglas’ that arrived from New York yesterday. He’s staying with us at the house for a few days. He’s a real sweet guy, nice to have him here. There was a man there who owns Maya’s restaurant that we’ve been to a few times. I forget his name but I had a nice conversation with him. He’s originally from Nantucket Massachusetts, so we talked about New England for a bit. He said he’s been living on the island for 30 years, I can’t really imagine that. There were various other folks there whom I didn’t know, milling about.
Placing the entire blog on the wall in the gallery was a great idea and everyone enjoyed reading it.It was great to have something huge that people can stand around and read. It created a nice, community atmosphere, kind of like standing around one of those announcement boards you find in town squares or when you go into grocery stores, where people pin up handmade signs offering pets or lawnmowers for sale, or people looking for baby sitting jobs. Having all 29 days glued to the wall created a very big space to stand around and read. I’m amazed at how much space it actually took up. You could read day one and jump to day ten, or back and forth and not feel crowded like you were bumping into someone else that was reading. Sharing an entire month, in it’s entirety, all at once, was interesting. Even though I did all the writing and posting, I like that it became a group effort with people commenting in the blog, so it wasn’t just my work on the wall, it was the work of many people. When more and more guest writers partake in the blog, it will be even more of a group project, and that’s exciting.The opening ended at 9pm, we locked up the gallery and went to Le Soreno for dinner, just six of us; Monique, Martina, Douglas and John, myself and Marc. The perfect group of people. Le Soreno is right on the water. The table at which we sat was round and the seating was a rounded couch. The tables are on a roofed deck with mesh, see-through curtains they roll down if it rains or a shower passes through, which happened while we were eating. It’s not a dense mesh though, so when a big shower passes through, you still get an errant raindrop here and there landing on you, it’s nice. I think we all ordered the same thing, which was some kind of salted fish. I’ll have to ask Douglas the name, it’s something in French. The waiter brought out this large platter that had this mound of huge, salt crystals, toasted to all manner of browns and tans, it looked like dirty snow, but shiny and sparkling, and under it was the fish. The waiter smashed at the mound of salt crystals with a wooden hammer until he reached the fish and then placed it on our plates. It was delicious. I don’t have a photo of it to show you, I wish I had. Next to the fish was placed a few, baby tomatoes.
We got back to the house around 2am and jumped in the pool for a while. The moon was very bright. After cooling off we set up the table and computer and watched, “F for Fake” an Orson Welles documentary, of sorts. I think it was from 1974. It featured a rotund Welles hiding under various capes and hats mumbling lines through an ever present cigar hanging from his bearded maw. Wells weaves two high profile stories about forgery together narrating the story of Clifford Irving who wrote the fake “Autobiography of Howard Hughes” in 1971 with that of the famous forger of paintings in the 60’s / early 70’s Elmyr de Hory.
The movie was a mishmash mess but a total delight to watch, especially the bad lip syncing of Orson Welles in various restaurants on the island of Ibiza, bantering on about these two, sensational stories. His complete fascination with the topic and his ongoing blather about the two forgers was really fun to watch, and since it was made in 1974, it was full of odd, and meandering segways that bordered on the surreal....It was a psychedelic collage of film masquerading as a documentary in all it’s 1974 glory. At one point the movie wandered off into a story about Picasso renting a studio on some random, beautiful, eccentric, wealthy island (a lot like St. Barth) and in that studio on that island he became fascinated with this beautiful woman as she passed by his window several times a day on her way to town, or to the beach. Well, they illustrated this scenario of the beautiful woman walking up and down this street ad nauseam - each time dressing here in a new outfit;
beautiful woman walking by Picasso’s studio window in mini-skirt, beautiful woman walking by Picasso’s studio window in black bikini, beautiful woman walking by Picasso’s studio window in tube-top, beautiful woman walking in a head to toe blue chiffon wrap,....it went on and on....and each time they showed her walking by, they would cut to a stock photo of Picasso looking out a window staring at her with those huge, black eyes he had.
Anyway, I swear this went on for about 10 minutes and the three of us, Douglas, Monique and I started nodding off. Eventually Picasso gets her attention and she, of course, poses for him and the story wanders on about the paintings being forgeries somehow, which is never fully explained.
I don’t know if that description of the movie made any sense, but I recommend renting it, if only for a good, confusing laugh. We had a good time talking over most of it, laughing and marveling at it’s 1974 atmosphere. The stoies of Elmyr de Hory and Clifford Irving and their respective fakery really are interesting though. I’ve heard bits and pieces of their stories, but now I want to learn more. And speaking of Picasso, look at this nice drawing:

Ok, moving on....which brings me to today, Friday. Monique and I woke early. We had little sleep which I’m paying for now. A bit of chocolate that I found in the fridge is doing me just fine though, giving me a tiny boost. We woke early to get to the beach one last time together as Monique left today. She flew to New York for two days and then to a connecting flight back to San Francisco. We went to Saline beach, took some pictures and did some swimming, at my favorite beach, and then drove to Gustavia for Monique to get a couple T shirts to take back. I got Jonathan a secret gift too, which I think he will like. We then went to the tiny airport where Martina met us so she could also see Monique off. We were sad to see her go. The time here has been really special, over a month for me and having Monique here for a decent amount of time made it extra special here at the house. Thanks for coming Monique and see you soon. At least she’s flying back to what I think is the most beautiful city in the United States, and that’s San Francisco.
When you check your check-in to get on the tiny, six-seat plane that takes you off the island to St. Martin to the bigger airport for connecting flights, they ask you your weight. That’s how small the planes are.
After saying good by to Monique and taking some great pictures of the plane’s departure (I’ll email them to you Monique) I went to the gallery as I had to meet with this guy named Serge for an interview for the French magazine he writes for. Even though I was tired, this turned out to be a really great experience. He speaks French with very little English and Martina who served as our translator is from Vienna and speaks German with some knowledge of French, but she’s not fluent. So getting through this interview was a nightmare for Martina, but really fun for me. He would ask Martina a question and then she would feed it to me but with missing information, so hammering out a conversation was a real task. I can only imagine what how the final article will read. I’m very excited about it because the language barrier will probably create quite a distortion in his interpretation of the work. At one point we were talking about working on the island, vrs in the city and what that meant and how it did or didn’t effect the art. I started talking about Marlon Brando’s reclusive, eccentric retreat to the island of Tahiti and Jim Jones and his followers moving from San Francisco to Guyana, South America in 1977 and other thoughts on working, living (or dyeing in the Jonestown case) in a remote location away from a metropolis. Anyway, with the language barrier the discussion became more and more confusing and magnificent. Martina did her best with translation. It was fun to watch her try to figure out what he was asking and then get that information to me. I even tried to decipher what he was saying through body language, facial expression and the bits and pieces of English he would use when trying to speak to me directly. At one point I took Serges’ pen and wrote down, “Jonestown / Jim Jones” near the notes he was taking, in hopes he would google it and then try to figure out how this was connected to anything we were talking about. I also wrote “Charles Manson” for good measure, to see if he could do anything with that. Good luck Serge.
After the interview I went back to the house and tried to take a nap, but alas, it didn’t work so I started on today’s writing. It’s now 9:38PM and a rainstorm just passed though and it smells really nice. I wish I could take a picture and place it here to show you what it smells like....wet dirt and palm fronds mixed with large, prehistoric sized plants hanging low with the weight of rain water, mixed with the wet sheets on the clothesline.
I briefly looked at the news today, online. Went to CNN quickly and NY-Times online to see what was happening as I’ve been in a bubble the past few days (like Brando, although much thinner). I saw that there was some sort of an attempt at a bombing in London, a car bombing. I also see that the immigration reform that Congress has been batting back and forth is now dead again. This is incredibly depressing and totally fucked up. Every member of Congress that has stood in the way of bettering the lives of the thousands and thousands and thousands of men woman and children caught in between SHAME on you. “Shame on you” doesn’t quite cut it, but it’s all the energy I have right now. This is incredibly sad. And shame on the men and woman who work for Immigration and Customs Enforcement who go around arresting people and tearing apart families and relationships and lives.
I have many photos I want to post for today’s writing so I’m going to get to work on that so I can hopefully have this posted by the midnight deadline. I hope you are enjoying your Friday evening.

Day Twenty-eight

Art show



Tonight is the opening of the show. Actually, it’s in an hour so I have to make this really quick. The past 36 hours we’ve been working hard installing the show. Monique and I went to sleep around 4 this morning and then we hung the rest of the paintings today. The entire blog has been printed and pasted to the wall, it looks really great and it’s interesting to see it in its entirety, at once, on one wall. I’ll make a longer post to the blog tomorrow to with more photos. The picture at the top of this page is me drilling into some plywood, which was never used in the installation. You know how that goes, random projects that suck up time that never come to fruition.
I want to thank Douglas for his satanic post to yesterday’s blog and for coming by the gallery around 1AM to bring drinks and snacks! It was a great entry and I’m honored to have him as the first, guest writer.
I also want to thank Monique and Martina for all their hard work on the show! So thankful.
Oh, and I want to thank Marc Jancou for arriving today from New York for a one day visit, just for the opening.
The sun is setting and we have to leave to get to the gallery.

Day Eight

Mischief and abandoned property


Woke this morning and met Martina to give her a ride to the garage, they were fixing her Jeep which topped working the other day. I guess the battery went dead. She and I went for coffee and then to the pharmacy because she knew of a spray to put on my mosquito bites, it helped. After meeting with Martina I went to Saline beach, which has now become my routine. I saw a cute guy that was alone, I was hoping he would say hello as I don’t have any friends on the island, but he was keeping to himself. I snuck a photo of him, see above. I don’t need any friends here anyway, I guess I was just feeling mischievous. I got a little sunburned at the beach today too. Jonathan will be so mad at me. He’s always pushing sunscreen on me, even in the city. I put some on before I went to Saline today, I swear, but the thing is, I can’t reach my upper back, so that’s what got burned. Not too bad though, not a crisis. I’ll just have to be more careful tomorrow. I think I stayed in the water a little longer than usual, in hopes I would strike up a conversation with the cute guy, but instead, alls I gots was this sunburn. When I got back to the house, I drenched my tee shirt with water by throwing it in the pool and put it back on while it was wet, which helped sooth my sunburned back. It’s a nice technique, works well.
All I did today again in ‘the studio’, was to paint black onto paper. Ever since I thought of the yellow painting idea (see blog entry for ‘day six’), all I want to do is work with yellow. I saw another bright yellow house today and thought it was a sign to go through with the yellow paintings:
Since there are very few art supplies to be had on this island, and absolutely no acrylic paints which I am looking for, I asked my friend Nancy in Chicago to purchase some yellows for me and to Fedex them. Nancy is my oldest friend and one of the best painters that I know, so putting her on the case to find just the right yellows that I needed was perfect and a big help, thanks Nancy! The Fedex place in Chicago told her they can’t arrive here any earlier than Wednesday, which is five days away. It can’t be. I have a feeling they may show up Monday, I really hope they do. If Fedex takes five days, I can only imagine how long it would take to send a letter here using the postal service - they probably bundle the mail from here to the States in a waterproof pack and strap it to the back of a dolphin and have it swim to Miami and then disperse it from there by mule. I think I’m still going to name any yellow painting that I do here, Fedex Yellow. I kind of like having to wait for something to arrive that I can’t readily get here. Overcoming obstacles make things more precious once you overcome them. Who knows, maybe once the yellow paints arrive and I start working with them I’ll think, what a stupid idea, but I have high hopes for the yellow paintings. If the drive to use yellow does sour once I start working with it, I’ll still follow through with them, out of ‘spite’ or ‘work ethic’ or ‘following through’, because the concept of making these yellow works is more interesting to me now than the actual paintings themselves and when that shift happens - decoration and form taking back seat to concept - that’s when the good art starts happening.

I got into further mischief today when I went exploring and found an abandoned building, high on a cliff, right on the ocean, see here:

I was taking pictures of some plants along the beach when I saw and old road or driveway. At first I thought there is no way I’m walking up that just to take pictures when clearly there must be large iguanas lurking and ready to attack, or a pack of insane, island monkeys hiding in the bushes. I know there are no monkeys here, but you never really know. Anyway, I eventually got the nerve and started walking. The path circled around to a staircase that went up to a house. I have no idea how this place could exist on such prime real estate, with nothing surrounding it except for an overgrown landscape, and an impossible drop down to the ocean over what looks like that kind of rock that forms when lava cools. The staircase looked like the façade of The Munsters, but the tropical version.
I didn’t know if I should go up the steps, but how could I not? I was a little nervous because I really didn’t know what to expect; wild animals, larger lizards, drug addicts or sassy teens hanging out....maybe even the Manson family - now in their mid-sixties, relaxing and hiding in the Caribbean, avoiding extradition back to California to face the grizzly murders they committed back in 1969. If this had been New York, all of the above would have been inhabiting this place, and instead of lizards it would be rats. But this being St. Barths, even an abandoned building was astonishingly beautiful. As I walked up the stairs, and wandered about, I found, three separate buildings that at one time must have been some extravagant home. In the middle was a sunny courtyard with a huge boulder in the middle.

There were trees growing up through some of the empty rooms, so this place must have been uninhabited for quite a while. I Googled it thinking there must be some info on it on the internet, I searched; ‘abandoned homes, St. Barth’....’old homes, history, St. Barth’....and found nothing. So who knows what it is.

It was surprisingly devoid of any trash or garbage, I figured the exposure to high winds must keep it clean, blowing the used condoms and Coke cans off the cliff into the rough ocean below. The roofs were falling down on some of the structures and all windows were gone. I found some great paintings on the walls and graffiti which I couldn’t read since it was in French:
I tried using my Mac to translate the graffiti from French to English, but no luck. I took some pictures pretending it was my new studio. I may go back. I think it would be a nice place to work on a secret, permanent painting on one of the walls, but I’d hate to be up there and run into someone, a wild monkey, Manson, or worse, the police. Maybe I can do a painting ahead of time and go back up and adhere it to a wall. It would be nice to actually work there though, the views are freakishly amazing, and it’s sunny and quiet there, actually quite nice.
After being there for about ten minutes it was almost relaxing and I
figured I was alone. I was thinking, gosh, if you were homeless and could stow away on one of the tiny planes to get to St. Barth, you could live here in this place, set up shop, and no one would know, the weather’s great and you’d have a lot of privacy. When I was in grad school at UC Davis in California, I thought the same thing. There were so many buildings with empty rooms and corridors one could live in, although modestly, and no one would ever know. In New York, every crack and crevasse is owned and patrolled by the fuzz, so squatting isn’t what it used to be back in the day, like in the East Village when there used to be tons of empty buildings one could set up shop in and no one would care. Now New York is so wealthy, there’s nowhere to hide if you’re poor and looking for a place to make a home on the cheap. Oddly enough, St. Barth couldn’t be any wealthier, and there’s this abandoned mansion ready for the taking! Course if you’re homeless, you’re hungry and depressed, so even if you did find yourself squatting in a gorgeous ocean front, abandoned home, you’d still be pretty fucked.

Anyway, I would really like to go up there again, and maybe do some work on the wall, but I wonder if I would get busted. I’ll have to do some more research on the place. Obviously some graffiti projects have been completed there, that must have taken more than five minutes to finish, so maybe I can get away with it, but If I do go back and work on something and insane island monkeys show up, or sassy drunken teens, it could get awkward.
Finally, here is a picture walking back down the drive from the Munster’s tropical home, and below that are photos of the landscape around it. At the very bottom is today’s sunset, which was the best one yet.....