Van Gogh: A Self-Portrait; Letters Revealing His Life as a Painter

page 162

I so hope everything will come out right, but her future as well as my own looks gloomy. I am inclined to believe there is some latent good in her still, but the trouble is, it ought to have been roused already. Now, as she has nobody to rely on it will be more difficuly for her to follow her good impulses.

page 170

I shall find things to paint everywhere. It is spelendid here, and I think I learn to paint somewhat better while painting. And my heart is in it, I need not tell you that.

page 172

One's real life begins at thirty, infact, that is to say, it's most active part.

page 174

Zola says, "Moi artiste, je veux vivre tout haut-veux vivre" [I, as an artist, want to live as vigorously as possible-want to live]

How fundamentally wrong is the man who doesn't feel himself small, who doesn't realize he is but an atom.

What shall I do now? The common phrase is, "What is your aim, what are your aspirations?" Oh, I shall do as I think best - how? I can't say that before hand - you who ask me that pretentious question, do you know what YOUR aim is, what YOUR intentions are?

page 175

Now they tell me, "You are unprincipled when you have no aim, no aspirations." My answer is, I didn't tell you I had no aim, no aspirations, I said it is the height of coneceit to try to force one to define what is indefinable.

These are my thoughts about certain questions. All that arguing about it is one of the things of which I say "embêtera"

ode to the hwy

oil on canvas

jim in HWY

it's not done yet but im so excittted

Not that I thought that I was any great drawer, but I did feel like I was putting an orderliness to the chaos around-something like Red did,

A new world of art was opening up my mind. Sometimes early in the day we'd go uptown to the city museums, see giant oil-painted canvases by artists like Velizquez, Goya, Delacroix, Rubens, El Greco. Also twentieth-century stuff-Picasso, Braque, Kandinsky, Rouault, Bonnard. Suze's favorite current modernist artist was Red Grooms, and he became mine, too. I loved the way everything he did crushed itself into some fragile world, the rickety clusters of parts all packed together and then, standing back, you could see the complex whole of it all. Grooms's stuff spoke volumes to me. He was the artist I checked out most. Red's stuff was extravagant, his work cut like it was done by acid. All of his mediums-crayon, watercolor, gouache, sculpture or mixed media-collage tableaus I liked the way he put the stuff together. It was bold, announced its presence in glaring details. There was a connection in Red's work to a lot of the folk songs I sang. It seemed to be on the same stage. What the folk songs were lyrically, Red's songs were visually-all the bums and cops, the lunatic bustle, the claustrophobic alleys-all. the carnie vitality. Red was the Uncle Dave Macon of the art world. He incorporated every living thing into something and made it scream-everything side by side created equal-old tennis shoes, vending machines, alligators that crawled through sewers, dueling pistols, the Staten Island Ferry and Trinity Church, 42nd Street, profiles of skyscrapers. Brahman bulls, cowgirls, rodeo queens and Mickey Mouse heads, castle turrets and Mrs. O'Leary's cow, creeps and greasers and weirdos and grinning, bejeweled nude models, faces with melancholy looks, blurs of sorrow-everything hilarious but not jokey. Familiar figures from history, too Lincoln, Hugo, Baudelaire, Rembrandt-all done with graphic finesse, burned out as powerful as possible. I loved the way Grooms used laughter as a diabolical weapon. Subconsciously, I was wondering if it was possible to write songs like that.

About that time I began to make some of my own drawings. I actually picked up the habit from Suze, who drew a lot. What would I draw? Well, I guess I would start with whatever was at hand. I sat at the table, took out a pencil and paper and drew the typewriter, a crucifix, a rose, pencils and knives and pins, empty cigarette boxes. I'd lose track of time completely. An hour or two could go by and it would seem like only a minute. Not that I thought that I was any great drawer, but I did feel like I was putting an orderliness to the chaos around-something like Red did, but he did it on a much grander level. In a strange way I noticed that it purified the experience of my eye and I would make drawings of my own for years to come.

chronicles by bob dylan

you tend to look deeper and deeper inside yourself to find the music

Being a musician means-depending on how far you go-getting to the depths of where you are at. And most any musician would try anything to get to those depths, because playing music is an immediate thing-as opposed to putting paint on a canvas, which is a calculated thing. Your spirit flies when you are playing music. So, with music, you tend to look deeper and deeper inside yourself to find the music. That's why, I guess, grass was around those clubs. I know the whole scene has changed now; I mean, pot is almost a legal thing. But in the old days, it was just for a few people.

playboy interview - march 1966

NO, BABY, I’M NOT A CYNIC. I’M A ROMANTIC WHO’S SEEN THE WORLD