I’m sorry for being rather inattentive to this blog, but I’ve had a bunch of things going on.  And the biggest of things going on is that we are moving to Milwaukee.  It’s where my work is, where our families are, where my sense of a visual sensibility of the world exists.  Milwaukee is not perfect by any stretch, but it’s an imperfect that I understand.

I’ve learned a lot from these past six years in Boston.  I’ve learned how to be an observer.  I’ve learned the importance of being anonymous.  My work has gotten better.  The way I think about art has become more sophisticated and critical.

But Boston is a frustrating city for creative people.  There is a palpable drought of creative resources and outlets; being four hours from New York City will do that to a town.  Boston is good for a lot of industries: high tech, healthcare, education, etc.  But a city can’t and shouldn’t be all things to every field.  Art got the short straw here, and that’s okay.  There are other places to paint.

I’ll always be connected to Boston.  My family lives here.  My doctors and nurses are here.  Misia’s job is based here.  But I want to go back to Milwaukee.  What Milwaukee lacks in financial stability it makes up for in community connections.  Milwaukee has heart, and you can’t put a price on heart.

See you soon.

1. Always look at art.

2. Always read about art.

3. Maintain a close circle of creative friends.

4. Stay in the studio.

5. Keep painting.

6. Make as much work as possible.

7. Draw everyday. Write everyday.

8. Spend your spare money on travel.

9. Read everything: blogs, reviews, The New York Times, art magazines, foreign presses.

10. Build and maintain a solid web presence.

11. Understand how to operate power tools.

12. Enter shows.  Submit your work.

13. Be nice to everyone.

14. Be prepared to work for free or cheap a lot, especially in the beginning.

15. Save your receipts, and make friends with an accountant.  Understand self-employment tax codes.

16. Have a point of view or something to paint about.

17. Don’t abuse your body.  Be mindful of the fitness of your hands, arms, back, and eyes.

18. Spend money on supplies; you don’t need a car or cable or a totally killer apartment.

19. There are no shortcuts.  Painting takes time, and that’s its beauty.

20. Be a good citizen.  (Duh.)

These are the three books you need to be a painter.

Today I sent her a few of my “Rhymes With Fever” Justin Bieber-themed coloring books.  I hope she likes them.  Cancer treatment sucks; it’s gotta be a million times worse for a kid.  She deserves a little joy.

For information on AT/RT and how to donate to treatment research, please visit their website at www.cureatrt.org.

And get out and be a good citizen.

The other day, Sara was texting me all these ideas for next year’s opening day that she’s planning for me and her.  She’s going to get us a shack, some beer, and fishing licenses.  Not many people know that Sara has a weird fascination/phobia regarding fish.  (Sorry dude for outing you.)  I think this is a big breakthrough for her.  To think that someday she’s going to sit on a block of ice, spearing a dinosaur fish, and cooking it up in a pan.  To dream, to dream.

Congratulations, friend!

I think the reason why people like Whitney have such predictably tragic endings is that we as humans are not yet equipped to handle that kind of stratospheric fame.  Whitney Houston’s talent was so great that she seemed to change gravity.  A certain level of self-medication is understood, almost encouraged to some respect to deal with that level of giftedness.  Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain: all of them felt the pressure of their greatness.  We like to see people fly to the sun and are unsurprised when they burn up.

But I can’t help but be broken up about Whitney.  Hands down the best voice ever.

Part of the sacrifice of being an artist in 2012 is that there is no way to go back to a romantic notion of the bohemian artist.  We will never get to be, accidentally, Alice Neel.  We will never get to live like Giacometti or Picasso or Pollack.

But, what being an artist in 2012 does mean is that by paying some attention to the digital integration in our daily lives and by being a bit clever about how you sell your work and how you brand yourself, you can still manage to live the life an artist should live, the kind of life an artist needs to live.

In 2012, an aspiring artist cannot hope to become a Hirst or a Currin or a Koons.  To do that is to miss the mark entirely on why we become visual artists.  If one wishes to become a star, if one dare cultivate his/her own fame or celebrity, one is doing it wrong.  When you begin to look at the finished product rather than the act of making the product, when you seek to have a gallery opening rather than the work to necessitate a show, that’s when you know you’re doing it wrong.

Technology and digital connectivity are choking our frame of references, our ability to create new thoughts and sustain concentration, in a way very akin to the Ab-Exers.  Alice Neel painting portraits in the time of the hurricane force of Abstract Expressionism was seen as so out of fashion, so old-timey, but she weathered the storm and came out triumphant.

All forms of art matter.  All art forms inform one another.  You cannot remove one or choke one out of the room in the hopes of making more room for one medium over another.  Digital work does not improve with the absence of painting.  Abstract painting doesn’t improve by removing figure painting.  Our digital world is best understood through the common reference of analog art.

And look at more Alice Neel, for pete’s sake.  It’s good for you.

1.  “The Clock” by Christian Marclay. I saw four or so hours of this 24 hour masterpiece at the Paula Cooper Gallery this February.  I wrote about it here, and I’m sure I’m not the only person to put it on their top 10 things of 2011.  Hell, it should go down as one of the top 10 amazing things ever.  It’s a celebration of film and culture, but also of viewership and consumerism.  It’s a 24 hour love letter to the movies.

2.  “Love Is What You Want” by Tracey Emin at the Hayward Gallery.  One of my undergraduate professors taught us that you can’t spend more than three hours in a museum and expect to retain anything that you saw.  Emin’s show was one of the most comprehensive retrospectives I’ve ever seen, and to really absorb everything, you need to spend nearly three hours in the gallery.  The result is triumphantly consuming.  It was a great journey back through her work and also back through my memories of being an art student (a link back to my original write-up is here.)

3.  Just Kids/The Chelsea Hotel. Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids was an incredible read.  Her writing at times little embarrassing, using words like “chalks” instead of pencils (her crush on French poets is at high school tragedy level), but its heart and spirit are deeply moving.  We all have a bit of Patti in us, or should anyways, and I was surprised by her lucidity.  So much of the book is centered at or around The Chelsea Hotel that I couldn’t separate the two.  The last time I stayed there was right after I read the book.  It’s closed while it undergoes renovation, and none of us will ever go back to the Chelsea that was in the book.  Shame.

4.  Podcasts. I need people to read to me or talk to me for hours on end every day while I sit in my studio.  Podcasts aren’t linked to 2011 in any tangible way, but there were a bunch of really good ones that I added to my stable of voices this year.  Two of my favorites are “WTF” and “Walking The Room.”  I listened/still sometimes listen to the Nerdist podcast, but I get super annoyed by the way Chris Hardwick steps on everyone’s speech.  Plus, you get the sense that he’s a nerd that really wants to be a cool kid, rather than a nerd that says “fuck those cool kids.”  So yeah, podcasts.

5.  London’s Free Museums. This is the way museum experiences are supposed to be.  Not the way they usually are, where you pay $20 and then race through everything trying to get your money’s worth.  There is a relaxing of the shoulders, a slowing of the pace in the museums of London.  If you don’t see everything one day, you know you can come back the next.  You can linger at one painting and walk past another without a second thought.  It’s civilized.  One can look at art on one’s natural body clock.

6.  The Los Angeles Subway System. It’s a marvel, really.  It’s a subway in an earthquake zone in the largest square-mile city in America.  It has about 14 total stops.  And yet, the stations are so elegant.  So huge, so artfully decorated.  It’s an ode to the 20th century.  Bradford and I walked from the Arclight at Hollywood and Vine up to the Metro stop at Hollywood and Highland simply to ride the subway back to the Arclight.  Los Angeles: where everyone seems high and time is always on your side.

7.  Protests. The Occupy Wall Street protests are grabbing all the current ink, but what I’m referring to are the protests in Wisconsin this year.  The governor is a complete fuckwit and has no business managing a Fleet Farm, let alone a state.  And he finally pushed the good people of Wisconsin out of the bars and into the streets.  Wisconsinites are a proud, keep-to-yourself kind of folks, but they got back to their Socialists roots and demanded respect and representation.  I may live in Massachusetts, but I am a Wisconsin citizen at my core.  You, rah-rah.

8.  Technology. The iPhone 4S is a marvel.  The camera in it is worth the price alone.  It’s so pretty and perfect.  Its made me think about how we’re in the middle of a quantum leap of sorts, akin to that of the Industrial Revolution.  Our notions of connectivity and access are changing before our eyes, and the dust has not settled.  It’s exciting, it’s slightly disconcerting, and our lives will never be the same again.

9.  Melancholia by Lars von Trier. I love movies that make you shake with uncertainty at their end, because you’re not sure how you’re supposed to react.  I burst out laughing when the credits rolled.  It’s like my body didn’t know what else to do.  It was the best kind of unsettling.  I had similar experiences with Black Swan and Synechode, New York.  All great films, depending on who you ask.

10.  Chopin. Again, this is not a 2011-specific inclusion.  But we all need to listen to him more.  His is  not just classical music, but rather it’s the soul of mankind music.  And it’s so current.  He’s my go-to guy in the studio, in the same way Tom Waits and Sarah Vaughn are my go-to guys.  Whether I need to focus or need to clear my head, Chopin is it.  I’m listening to him right now in fact.

And there you have it, the best of 2011.  I hope you have a great holiday season with your families and friends, and I will write again in 2012.  Merry Merry, everyone.  Keep working.

Me, right now, as I write this blog post.