Statement for SEED

These paintings started with a large blue dot. Later smaller dots began to appear around the circumference of the large dot. They multiplied. The large dots grew scales or petals. At various times they became planets, suns, amoebas, flowers, snakeskin, and even eggs—sunnyside up. On white grounds they floated. White like bleached bones. They asked for eyes. I added pupils. We looked at each other. It was summer and I gardened. Everything seemed very alive. What if plants could speak?  While war was being waged I sat dotting paintings, all those souls, dot… dot… dot... This work seemed so pretty and so white—then I remembered that widows wear white in Varanasi. The dots began to have wings. One looked to be flying above a pool of metal. Two comforted each other. One reminded me of a poster I saw often as a child. It read “War is not healthy for children and other living things”. One night in August I caught Donovan at Joe’s Pub. I left remembering that plants can talk. In America would people really rather die free? It was looking more and more like they would rather die full. I started seeing faces in the large dots. I painted them in and then painted them out.

Seeds are potential. They are plants ready to leave home. They are journeyers from a dying flower, fruit, or pod. They are ready to be dispersed, laid in soil, given warmth. They carry the genetic make up of their parent, like an egg. I considered calling this show Spawn. Is it possible some fastidious fish might carefully arrange his or her eggs in a circular pattern for aesthetic reasons?

The whole group really started because of Joan Miró. I remembered seeing a painting in Madrid with a large blue circle in it. It was one of my favorites. Later I poured blue enamel paint onto a canvas and watched it spread out slowly forming a wonky circle. When I began writing this statement I went to find the name of the painting I had seen. I searched through three books on Miró. It wasn’t there. The Blue paintings, which I was sure the work had come from, were in fact blue but had red and black circles on them. The Smile of the Star to the Twin Tree of the Plain did yield a blue spot but a gauzy one. Could that be it? No, I knew I had never seen it and besides it was in Paris not Madrid. I considered quoting it anyway just so I wouldn’t have to admit to myself that I was wrong about Miró’s blue spot painting but felt it would be cheating. It is a funny moment when you realize how thoroughly your mind can conjure. I would have bet money on finding that piece of art. Still, to me, the whole group of work started with a blue circle painting that Joan Miró made—2004

Statement for A Few of My Favorite Things

1.Thoughts about rainbows in no particular order:
are what people look like to angels
were used extensively in the sixties
the grateful dead album with a big boot on it
a festival I never made it to
the color of our chakras
astral vision
lsd
prisms
the beginning of philosophy
good luck
roads to pots of gold
no more floods
skittles

2. About the Installation
It was 1975 and I was staying at a Hare Krishna temple-I had nowhere permanent to live and the only rules were that you had to be in by 9pm and up at 3am for the morning puja ceremony.  As long as I didn't have to solicit at any airports, or be out on the streets chanting, I was cool. They also had great vegetarian food.  At 3am bells were rung and we would all go down to the temple for a 3 hour elaborate ceremony called puja. Drumming, singing, bells, oil lamps, and loads of flowers were used to wake up the Deities. There were three sections with different idols of Krishna and I always stood in front of Jagannath—a simple wood carved idol with a black smiley face and large exotic eyes. I stayed a month before moving on.

After making this painting I recognized the face to be a Jagannath. Jagannath is the black-faced  Krishna popular in  Orissa India, especially Pur,i where every summer there is popular celebration called the "Festival of the Chariots". Huge carts, some as high as 40 feet, are pulled through the streets with carvings of Jagannath and his brother and sister riding in them. In the past, believing that one could be freed from suffering cyclical existence, a person might fling themselves in front of the cart to be crushed.