Imagine you were seated at a table, fiddling with your swizzle stick when a great spotlight lit upon you. “Congratulations, you are GREAT, prepare for life at the head of the queue!” As soon as your fancy calls to mind images of yourself, splayed naked on the back of a jewel encrusted sea tortoise, someone comes along and smashes all your fingers with a ball peen hammer. Well, glory is fleeting!
I have been offered a show in Duesseldorf in a gallery immediately following Alex Katz. Aaaaaaand, I have arthritis in my painting hand. As tempting as it is to get all Morrissey about how the brightest lights attract the bleakest fates, I am not actually all-that-plussed about it. You see, something terrible happened to me at the end of last summer. After experiencing my first ever painful injury, I was subject to the alarming discovery that I am mortal…possibly even vulnerable. I am going to die like the rest of you scruffy louts no matter how many cherry stems I tie into bows. This was a a great shock, and has me picturing gruesome tableaux of hideous fates within sight of cars, trains, staircases, knives or large holes. I assume I will get back to taking existence for granted again and thank heaven! No sense tiptoeing around in awe and fright like some grateful pilgrim. I welcome even a slight return of reckless nature. If my hook withers like a monkey’s paw, I will just have it fitted with a rig for holding my paintbrush. Whatever. As it is, I have a pretty cool brace in my current favorite color, “spoiled mayonnaise”. It comes with a fingerless gauze glove, like crippled Madonna!
I have been hard at work in the factory, trying to make this show happen. You can have a look for yourself, as Cheap & Plastique magazine came to visit. Mary was also so kind as to update my website, so there is a lot of new work there.
Did I say I wasn’t going to get all Morrissey? I LIED.
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