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It seems like the whole idea, I might be wrong, but you seem to do something and then obliterate it and go on to something else, and then you obliterate that.

Sometimes I'm seduced by the act of painting. You know, I paint a picture, and it's six p.m. It's gotten dark, and I think about it, and sometimes I get up in the middle of the night and look at it. And the next morning, I try to tear it up. I say, "Can I live with it? Do I like it?" Now, Im beginning to say, "No, I can't live with it." And I find that to be very healthy. That means I'm going to do something about it. I'm never satisfied. When I look at most work, I'm not satisfied. Like Cezanne wasn't quite there. He bothers me because he was still so figurative. I mean, he was good, but maybe he preempts it all; I don't know. I just keep changing, not for the sake of change but FOR THE SAKE OF THE SEARCH.

It's this thing about going forward, in the same way that someone like Miles Davis did, see? Miles Davis always went forward; he couldn't stand the old way, so he kept moving, you know? He kept on moving.

Absolutely, because that's what it's all about. See, some people try to change for the sake of change, just because they feel it's time to change. There is no way I could paint a portrait now. But when I was, that was the avant garde, for me. And the whole point of view was doing what I wanted to do, not that I thought anything abstract was better or anything else. So, I keep changing, changing, changing. So, I think I'm going to go on a trip; I'm going to go somewhere else with the work. Not completely different, but Ill look at some others' works and at my own work, and I'll have to do something else. I'm not satisfied. I don't even have an answer to why things should change. I want to see a picture full of energy, full of appeal, and what I'm really striving for is to be abstract but even for the regular folks to like it, you know? The servant and the intelligentsia both.

Where are you going with your art now?

When I change, I want to change in a healthy way. I can't wait to do some more in a vein that I didn't realize, right? Maybe not in form, but the colors might change. It's something about color. And instead of volume, more like tubes, I might flatten things out. This is what I'm thinking of, but it never goes the way I think it will. You know, I'll be thinking that way. I'm going to set myself in some other place and wait for it to come, you know?