This morning I was surf casting for fluke on Long Beach Island and after being shut out, went for a run along the shore. A day of driving and a night in the studio later, time being the ambiguous slut that it is, we will say that, some weeks back, the ladies and I took a taxi down to 25th Street for the opening of Joan Mitchell at Cheim & Read. I will publicly admit that I now feel I never looked at her work properly. I didn't get it, thought I did and worse yet, voiced opinions that now seem pretty ridiculous, given how moved I was by the exhibition titled, "Trees".

Fair enough… Perhaps the recent protocols of dead lifts, tequila and grass-fed beef evolved my patterns and processes.

Sorry Joan, I fucked up. But I can live with myself, I don't worry too much about the guy on the treadmill...

And Soulages… These are the times that make life here a bit more worth the living.

While we dealt with the frozen challenges of the past winter, my Wife and I (more or less) seriously discussed moving to LA. Now, after beautiful adventures on Fire Island, Montauk and Long Beach Island (and a month in LA to look forward to), I think we're both happy where we are… Now, as this season winds down, I'm benefiting from that buoyant optimism that is the reward of endurance in the face of hardship-- the optimism that is the rarefied status of an artist living and creating in NYC. Yes, it sucks that the drive to my Brooklyn studio can take up to an hour. But fuck it-- I live in Manhattan…


And there is the optimism of labor- good hours in that Brooklyn studio…
And there is the optimism of the paint of others showing and selling and sharing.

Having just returned from Montauk, I turned around and drove the German Steel back East to Bridgehampton for the Art Market Hamptons Fair. The triumphant James Austin Murray met me at the  gate and we took it all in before the rush of crowds and plastic surgery. With 4 new good sized pieces in the Lyons Wier booth, my man was clearly (to my eye) the star of show. But there was also (with Lyons Wier) the killer work of Jeff Muhs- painterly, ethereal, what have you…

At Katherine Markel Fine Art, Suzanne Laura Kammin stood out with her painterly attack, as did the nuanced pyrotechnics of Jeffrey Cortland Jones-- a few weeks off of his solo show (that should not be missed) at KMFA.

The day of his opening, Jones graciously paid a visit to my studio. Fittingly, I picked him up in front of The Met. What could be better?

There will always be the talk and the ink reserved for a Marden show, or Soulages, Mitchell or the latest debacle at the Whitney (perhaps a Koons retrospective, or the manufacture of chocolates?). But with so much fine painting in one season, the soul smiles and the drinks taste better...