I began writing in a journal-drawing notebook in my freshmen year at college. That was the beginning of many a notebook to come. Like looking in a mirror when I’d read it back, it amazed me that I had written some of the observations. College and that journal were the first awakenings in a self conscious way of my own mind.
It is often said that when you gain something you also loose something. Maybe the advent of becoming a better word crafter is the downfall of being an absolutely pure painter. I remember hearing that Matisse had said that if you want to become a painter that one should cut out their tongue. On the use of words, I often find them flowing though my paintings or being the first inspirations for many a sculpture.
I continued my exploration of writing after college when I
got my first office job at Conde Nast Publications in New York City. Part of my job was learning how to type on one of those wonderful IBM Selectrics (A great drawing machine, D.M. IV), I loved that little ball that was able upon command, to spin in an instant and hit in just the right spot. Maybe it was that same fascination with the mechanical that was carried though to my early drawing machines. In any event, I remembered a co worker of mine at GQ Magazine once explaining basic office politics. She informed me that if you look like all your work is done, then they give you more work, so that I should always look busy. I never did employ that bit of office politics except for when I was temporarily on some of the other magazines in 1984. I found as the new kid in the office on a different magazine, I was often given the grunt work. So for that position, I came well equipped with reams of Strathmore bond paper and played away on the IBM Selectric. I must have looked so busy. And in retrospect, I must thank Conde Nast Publications for being an early environment that served to cultivate the poet in me.
I continued to write poetry on the side continuously for almost 15 years though never calling myself a poet. I finally acknowledged one day in 1994 that I actually wrote poetry. There was obviously some strong idea I had about myself as an artist, and being a writer was not part of that perception or or goal.
It is part of this poetic self that often flows into words and may begin a painting or (like a conversation) may switch languages mid stream. A painting may shift from pure color to words and then back again.
My latest venture with words is a book that came flowing out of me like an open channel fast flowing a 100 MPH. Though there is much play with the format, the subject is rather profound. In between modern life taking place, the message that keeps coming to the forefront is to ‘stop all the fighting on earth and learn how to all get along’. Essentially, the focus of how to make peace in the world. In some lofty fashion, I’ve thought that I may hope to actually find the key to Peace on Earth before the writing of the book ends.
