I have a meeting with the city of Elizabeth about the Bridge Exhibition. The Youth and Culture Department want to see the art, to give a presentation. I emailed them and was told to call them. So I did that. And now this is the next step. I want to buy a portfolio book and put digital images in it, along with writings, and maybe a dvd. All I can do is let the art speak for itself as itself.

I contacted Matt today, he is coming over to build the frame for the Bridge Painting, which will be in the Large Kean Gallery across from where I had the show. I am excited to see it stretched and ready to hanG. I feel close to this painting, like something is new about it, something that combined all the paintings into one. I don't know.

I called Derick in the tunnel, I think his mother picked up, she said she hadn't seen him in 3 days. His girlfriend's number was not available. I will keep trying, or wait for his call. We are going to have a collaborative tunnel art event, jazz and painting.

The tips of tubes
are now chimneys
and smoke-stacks,
oozing with paint,
paint as puffs of smoke.

I have been lacking in the reading. I have been caught up underneath the bridge for most of my days...

Sometimes I do not even recognize my own working.
Things just happen.

I stapled a cotton canvas to my purple wall. I began painting it. It is another bridge. Acrylics and colored pencils and gesso and pens and pencils. It is empty, lacking human presence.

What is this bridge? The bridge is something that I pass by in my daily walk to and from the university. The bridge that I have been painting, however, does not resemble the bridge that I pass by. I have brought the arc into existence. These painted bridges resemble the arcs in the Pont Du Gard in Tarascon, Les Baux, St. Remy. I feel that the architecture of the bridge is the dominant iconography for a universal bridge. I feel that it is strong and spiritual.

I once saw a man underneath the bridge, awaking from the the weeds and stretching his arms to the sky, yawning. He just woke up. I stood there for a while. I thought to myself, “What a brave thing it is to sleep underneath a bridge, to sleep outside, by yourself, in weeds, amongst garbage and critters.” As time went on, I began to formulate a community that took part in the shelter of the bridge. The bridge is under construction.

The bridge stands on its own. The bridge is the work of a 21-year old artist who is sometimes obsessively aware of his surroundings or aware of nothing-at-all, save his own walking feet and a few wrappers here and there. The artist looks at things. Objects. Forms. I pass by a dead mouse almost everyday. It is on its back at the base of an oak’s leg. Its too small to be noticed by the city who clean up the road kill. It slowly disintegrates into the earth. My mother says, “Animals do not have a mind, do not have a soul, do not have a spirit.” This is the fundamental Protestant belief. Human-beings are the highest form of creation.

I want to paint a broken bridge. I want to paint the man yawning out from the weeds. I want to paint drug-dealers dealing behind one of the pillars. I want to paint AL sticking himself with a heroin-needle. I want to paint his daughter looking for him in the weeds. I want to paint a beautiful woman who walks underneath the bridge for no apparent reason except that she is curious of the sounds and echoes she heard coming from there. I want to paint two rival gangs about to slash each other to bits. I want to paint what happens, what is shouted outside...

Engage yourself. Explore youself.

A quantum leap has happened, a dosage of "miracle's drug" has happened, the avant-garde of the tunneL has happened! Last Night the sTage belonged to Derick, "Derick in the TunneL". HE played foR me the tune "Passion" and spoke about the Art and his life afterwords. We wish to work with the tunnel, in the tunnel as a collaboration of visual and jazz art. I can re-learn the sax I once played and join him, maybe. I wish to paint him in the tunnel as he plays on a large vertical canvas. The tunnel will no longer be a tunnel to pass through, but to stop in, and listen and watch. And another thing, I have it all on tape!

Last night, it was a miracLE.

The Miracle expanded after my encounter and exchange with Derick. I met a man on a bench as I was waiting for the train and thinking about all that just happened with Derick. My blood was pumping really quickly and the pieces I had collected to add into the bridge painting had really excited my spirit and given me joy mixed with impatience, but I really tried to relax and soak in the suds of sound and smooth listening. This man on the bench, I shared with him some of my sketches and words about the art.

This man had just returned from jail for 2 and a half years. I showed him one of my artist statements, the one where I mention Daniel who is a man I had met about a month ago, who said he hasn't cried since he was 15, he is now 25, who said he was in a dark place in life, a lonely place, where he finds escape and love in his dreams, these dreams that do not come often.

When this man was reading about Daniel in the statement he said, "You know something, its funny, this man that I am reading about, this Daniel who is 25, well ... My name is Daniel and I am 25." Something was happening to him as he was reading it, he was shaking and shivering.

He gave me a vision to paint the prisons, to paint the people behind the bars, to visit them, the recreation yard where men play softball and lift weights and play basketball, the cells where the men read books and think about their wives or about their children or about the things that really matter. I gave him the sketch book and he drew what he saw. I believe a time will come where this vision is expanded and made actual.

I watched a film today, a film about New York and the artists there. It was made in the 90s. I saw an artist painting with a stick. He said he had no plan when he painted with the stick. He was very confused about his work and about himself.

Another artist flipped his canvases over and over, rotating them, so that he might see something new in each new position. One artist drew stereotypical cartoons on chalk-boards, and then would erase them violently, as a gesture towards erasing the stereotype.

One artist looked at the ground and saw beautiful objects in the muck of the sidewalks. She painted her own shoes. One artist worked with wood. She liked tools and how wood responds to tools. She liked primitive tools.

Almost all of them expressed the deep need for survival and the many long hours put into their work. It was said that the greatest artists are usually never discovered, and the artists just belown that level, whatever that is, wherever that is, are usually the ones given all the attention. One artist said an artist doesn't know what he is doing until he can talk about his art.

This artist life. Why do I do it? One artist in the movie said, "You are born an artist." She said, "It is a virtue to be an artist." I do it because I feel it is my nature. But it is something that I do not want to be selfish. I want it to confront the councils and cities and cobble-stone streets. But I am often discouraged and live in fear of living a poor life. I am ready to take it on.

An artist should leave open the portals within. Its like a clothes-line. Art is, I mean. You feel the weight of the clothes as you pull them in one by one, the artist feels the weight of the art as he pulls them out one by one, the visions suspended and pre-existent in an elevated space, to be reeled in, squeek-squeek. Or so this is something an artist should believe.

I was made aware of Jeff Koons today, in a film. The professor made him out to be the successor of Andy Warhol. The professor made him out to be the monster machine that all of us younger artists are up against, as if he drew the final line of standard when it comes to the art-making and art-production and art-performance process. Koons has assistants, specialists. These specialists mix colors all day and fill in his paintings for him, like paint-by-numbers. He has "management" that oversee the "specialists" who paint, to make sure they are not "doing their own thing", or "going off in their own trance, forgetting who they are working for, forgetting that they are Jeff Koons, the hands of Jeff Koons."

I was amazed, if that is the right word, I don't know. I was definetely feeling something. Maybe it was the fact that he hitch-hiked from Pittsburge to New York City to become what he has become today. I hear stories like this. Artists hitch-hiking. I think of Bob Dylan. For Jeff Koons to be in the position that he is in now, which is a position that functions like a machine, a new Andy Warhol's Factory, is something to look at and respect. This man conceives of concepts, day and night, referring to the old masters and bohemian modernists in his works. The history of art is crucial to his aesthetic and confidence. I did ask myself one question though. What would he create if there was no history of art? If there was no commercialism? Then I do ask myself, what would I create if there was no train station, or no musicians playing at night, or what if everybody decided to go cold-turkey when it came to cigarette smoking?

I think this is where the intuitive nature and being, spiritual vision and belief, come into the realm of our waking and subconcsious existence. You can tell I've been reading about Existentialism, it has been revealing as well as a scratch to my head.

Maybe if everything disappeared except the human race, maybe we would have many many self-portraits or many many void barren landscapes. Who knows? The fantasy would be born all over again.

Something is cooking at 27 Mix restaurant at 27 Halsey St.,in Newark. Feels like taste of spicy new ART there!

Paintings titled: "Derick in the tunnel", "Spare a Quarter?", "Guitar Man in the tunnel", "Captain Cycle" and "Rush Hour" represent selection of the paintings recently shown at solo exhibition "Trains, Stains and Hymns" in November at Kean University Gallery in Elizabeth, NJ where this highly involving, expressive and stirring art rocked the audience.

From the artist's statement of the author:

"Art allows me the expression to understand what it means to be human. I see the raging human. I see the relaxed human. I see the hungry human. I see the addicted human. When I see them I sometimes ask, "Will you glue something to this painting, will you give something?" Sometimes it is a snippet of clothing, a piece of welfare information, ticket stub, or one-dollar bill. I want people to be involved in this art, for the art to stimulate human exchange, for word and image to create a new ground in-between."

- Daniel James Brophy

The artist resides in Rahway NJ, 1234 Bryant St. and can be reached at home phone:
732 396 3364 or by email: dbrophy20@yahoo.com

Exhibition Place: Restaurant 27 MIX Newark NJ
Phone: 973 648 0643 http://www.27mix.com
Directions: http://www.27mix.com/directions.htm

I just returned from "27 MIX, Restaurant and Bar", 27 Halsey St. in Newark where the paintings hang from the brick waLL. Around the corner from the Restaurant is the "Red Saw Gallery", 585 Broad St., Newark, where I saw the opening of the "Surfaces" show. This was a painting show, small scale and large scale works. I hope to show in this gallery in the near future. The director wants to keep in touch so this can happen.

Photographs were taken and it was filmed with the camcorder.

This may seem exciting and good, but right now, what is exciting and on fire is the Bridge. Not only that, but the One-Night Bridge Exhibition that I believe can happen underneath the train station bridge in Elizabeth. Imagine that! I see a spot-light spinning in the summer night sky, letting everyone know what is happening, something is happening in that bridge over there. I see lights hanging from the Bridge, completely lighting up the space underneath so that everyone can see the paintings and each other and the garbage on the ground and the pigeons hiding away. I see hundreds of people coming, many invitations will be passed out for this main event in Elizabeth, NJ. I see stylish dressed women and men, young and old, walking underneath this murky bridge, women trying not to fall down in their high-heels. I see those coming just as they are, ripped sweaters and scruffy beards, dripping make-up and ripped stockings, all walKing underneath this bridgE. I see wine and cheese. I hear trains above me, the horns and the racket of the track. I see strangers dining with strangers. I see photographers and videographers documenting this event. I see the art hanging, large scale, detailed, energetic color, expressive line, miniscule bricks and stained glass windows. I sense the uncertainty one might experience when they first see the location. "What, its under a bridge, is it safe?" I hope the lights and noise will draw them in, draw them in to the art.

This vision that I have I believe is real. I know I must go through people in the city of Elizabeth to receive permission. I hope it is possible and well received as a cultural event for the city of Elizabeth.

ANNE TRUITT (1921-2004):

"Most people talking about art bore me to tears because they’re talking about something that I can see perfectly well exists, but it seems to me they’re talking about it from a very narrow point of view, as if it were an exercise or something you learned like a language, which of course it is. But that’s its least aspect. And they don’t talk about the experience that goes into it. You take a man like Piero della Francesca or you take Rembrandt or you take any great artist -- Picasso -- they wouldn’t be who they are if they weren’t human.

It’s the humanity. It’s the human experience that is distilled into art that makes it great.

You can be a good artist."