NOW it is a different sort of contest—not what you saw—not what you—we—talked about. Now the contest is between knowing and not knowing. Since you were here—a week ago?—I’ve painted three pictures—the first—a brick wall, me & Musa behind it. In front of the wall, a sort of scrimmage is taking place—arms, discs, etc., the abstract forces are trying to pile themselves up into a permanent mound—BUT—a hammer looming in from the top-side is definitely hitting this structure, making it seem as if it is crumbling, collapsing. Added to all of this, and below my profile and Musa’s frontal view, is a fluttering, a merry mix-up of buzzing insects—bugs—demon bugs—a happy commotion. They, too, seem to be adding (I know they are) to the general dismantling of the piled-up structure. It is a painting of crumbling—of dissolution. As I look at it now—today—I was heading for another state of feeling not known to me.
The second picture is of me talking and smoking in a vast blue-gray but dense atmosphere. I am talking feverishly—there is a big pileup of cigarette butts plastered right smack on my cheek—and they form—God knows what—some sort of thick cluster of stuff, which moves in a sort of radial-like movement—in—out—and across (BUT THEY ARE STUCK!). I started to shake when I painted this picture. God, there is no picture plane! It is just real, that’s all there is—just real—no plane at all—What nonsense—this idea of a plane—No—all there finally is left is just the moment—the second—of life’s gesture—fixed forever—in an image—there—to be seen. (You could put your hand right into the image!)
Everything else is only a notion—a cluster of notions about art, just programming you might say. Well, this smoking talking man set me on my ear—I couldn’t wait to start on the next. I decided to do a large one—on the wall this time. It is Thursday—the day you were here a week ago—and I have painted a large—large—cluster of people—beings, in a flood of closeness—there is no picture plane now whatsoever—There is now instead every mood—from anger—to sorrow—to peace—to resignation—to awe—to stillness—no movement, no diagram at all of held ideas—it is a mound of flesh, of eyes, cheeks, ears, bones, craniums—you could run your hand over it all, go into the narrow spaces between the heads, but there wouldn’t be much room at all. A feather might barely get in. There is no order especially—if there is an order to it at all, I don’t know it—don’t comprehend it—it is like nothing I’ve done before—not one area in this mound stops to let you look at it. Ah, so that’s what “art” is—lets you stop—isolate it—lets us “see” it—but here in this new picture there is “nothing” to see—except multitudes of masses, that go on forever—in the mind. There is no plane—at all. You could mingle with this crowd, move into it—submerge yourself in it—be part of it. You would hear voices, murmurs, weeping—
[1978]