Botero is at the Bower Museum where I enjoyed a lovely lunch with Kate and Mac.  Mac and I have big tree passions in common.  And books - we both love books.  They don't own a TV.  I never watch mine.  They don't indulge in wine for lunch while working.  I do.  They have seen a whole lot of the world.  I want to.  We got a lot of things sorted out.  I just love Kate and Mac.  So nice to meet happy couples.

Working the late night shifts with long lost Jan Ford.  Everything is outlined with a 3/8ths  brush and requires 3 coats.  Each of the five stacked lobbys are visible to the world so we may get invited back to do them all.  Maybe I'll just bring my laser pointer and a beach chair and conduct or spend the day by the pool or catch the hotel shuttle to Disneyland like most of the other guests.  Negotiate a bonus incentive if she nocks it out in a week.  Yeah - that's the ticket.  Actually I wouldn't want to miss out on the testosterone contact high.  Cowboys, Carpenters and Captains - my favorites!

It was a blessing the projector fell while I was maneuvering it around as I'm certain Jan would have crumbled under the stress of it.  Luckily everything is available in the proximity of LA.    Cha-ching! ! ! 

Forgive me Father for I have worked on a Sunday.

A little trompe loeil Italian terrace scene near the Park.  Oh they were so overjoyed and just in time for the holiday season guest parade.

On Being Busy

When do you pause?

When do you paint or pant?

When write family, loll on moss,

 hear Mozart 

and watch the glitter of the sea.

Yahoo it's Sunday - if I could get away with it I would spend my day doing militant murals dowtown.  A long dotted line painted on the side walks then climbing up walls and bursting into shattered colors organized into recognizable images, then continue on to something that looks relatively ugly only to paint it beautifully.  No interruptions, no one telling me to stop that.  An assistant would be nice who drives my car and keeps handy all the tools I would need.  Various sized brushes, some rollers and trays perhaps, loads of dust cloths cuz everything down there is probably pretty dirty.  Hate painting on dirty surfaces.  Anyway I would tackle a few retaining walls, lots of suffering planter boxes, utility boxes, a parking lot, neglected store fronts.  Patterns, scenes, shrubbery or simple gradations of color.  It would be my contribution to the betterment of quality of life for those who work in that environment.  Of coarse not many people would agree that what I was doing was acceptable.  A committee would have to assess the value and process the concerns of the citizens and re-adjourn to discuss the latent affects or the encouraged responses of other artists and how it was all going to get managed and who will be hired to monitor further militant painters to constrain their actions to within defined parameters perhaps within the barrios only and steered clear of predetermined eloquent architecture.  

In other words it's a one shot deal - get in - get out and do it stealthly as it's not likely the City has the funds to pay for such committees and monitors and those who would want to be apart of an approval of images process.

I was approached by a woman, while working on the Point, to paint utility boxes for a stipend of $200.  The boxes she offered me I thought to be in inferior locations given the fact that I had just created a master work of art in the neighborhood.  Then it occurred to me that this amount of money would not keep an artist afloat for a day.  Her position is probably salaried and her job description is to find willing artists and put them through the approval precess as all images have to be processed.  What if - in a perfect world - the Port had hired one talented artist to paint all the boxes - keep said person afloat for perhaps five years at a reasonable salary.  Veto out the other person who is the facilitator and creator of nothing.  

If they think they are doing a good thing by giving us such opportunities I challenge all to consider how far $200 gets you these days.  Pay a water bill, fill a gas tank, buy lunch.   Two days effort to do a good job, another day for drafting out sketches.  That's 24 hours divided into $2oo equalling $8.33 an hour.   I could probably survive if it was an everyday gig and I lived in an SRO.  As for exposure - have you ever seen a motorist pull over and seek out a signature on a custom painted utility box?

 What would Michelangelo do - get a real job?  Become a tile setter, a waiter in a pub.  Perhaps he gave sexual favors to wealthy patrons.  Hey that's the magic word - PATRON.  Anybody out there sitting on a wad of cash that wants to see immediate results and garner massive gratitude.  Like HGTV we could find floundering small business and offer them a make over.  Revitalize our inner city.  Does not a fresh coat of paint invigorate your chi?  Or lets just find big walls and turn them into fabulous vistas.  Let's start a new Renaissance - mimic the Medicci's.  Come on - let's make something cool happen.