I believe God finds his way into my studio at times. He visits me. He holds me. I kiss His feet. To tell you the truth, I sometimes think of my studio as a sanctuary, as a place of hiding and healing and at times, yes, horror and cries from hell. For most of the time I feel whole when I am resting or painting or reading or sketching in there, sometimes I am distracted by areas left unpainted, stealing me away from my studies.

The subject of the Expulsion from the Garden. This was my project for the night. I am tired. These are your colours. The paints are full of life.

I threw another canvas on the wall, it is becoming something like Mascasio's Expulsion, inbetween I study. Attic is backwords. A Mess. I've been eating pretzels all day. I threw a frozen bagel in the microwave and toasted it and had cream cheese on it. I drank some orange tangerine juicy juice. I slept in. Paintings are crashing down. Moszart is static on the classical station. What is before us today? Why does one want to always stay in? The day is cold. Gray tones in the sky, silver drips of rain, dark wet branches, the squirrels slip and fall, there is a flood of water in the garbage cans, heavy to pull, the hems of jeans wet till morning, assignments late, my mind a "fuzzygraph", a broken slate, I could fall in the mud, lay there till the sky is on fire.

I see on a receipt on the ground .... condemns and m&m's, that would be some painting, wouldn't it? A man and woman under the sheets having sex with a mouthfuL of chocolate.

I am lonely, so lonely, and I have every reason not to be lonely. I cannot read. I cannot paint right now. There are too many paintings and drawings. I need to move out, I need to run somewhere, I need to walk the earth, I need to escape, I need to wander, without shoes, without bag, just pencil and garbage on the ground I can draw upon ... of course I will not, however, this soon shall pass, these emotional battles are present. The truth it stands, it stands like plywood, it staNds! The paintings breath in every Direction! In every corner of the earth there the breath is seen, the surface of paint extending at the hems, jean strings, of the MESSIAH man, the REDEEMER!

Today I went to visit Miro, Dali, Picasso, Van Gogh, Chirico, Derain, Matisse, all of them moderns, at the new modern art museum. The rooms were packed because Friday it is free to get into the museum. Duchamp's Wheel was there too. I only had time to explore the 5th floor. It is amazing to observe all that come. All of us have an interest in the "art" but it seems no one has an interest in "each other", so it seems when I stare at the bodies waiting in the lines to get in the museum. Cold we are. Cold I am. Afraid. Intimidated. The Art is like walking on a tight-rope ... "Watch what you Say" ... "Watch what you create" or one will fall into the abyss of art agony. When such a time comes, however, we know artists of the past have disconnected all ties within the "art realm" and went out to find their new self, their new art, and to return with the new art inside their shoe, hidden inside the sock, yes it is there, and hope is alive. Such times life can allow. Sometimes I think such a thing will happen to me. But I do not think of this because my life is not and cannot be just my life, for it is the life of others that we can only find life in. Sometimes I think I will become homeless because the art will not carry me, will not give me "success", but then I think if that is the way it should end up, then I must accept it if it is to be true of my life and then the motivation in me will only have to become stronger to keep the art alive. Not practical? NOt truth? My last resort will be rocks on sidewalk slab, and I will take it if it comes to that. But my family shows me so much Love. They assure me not to worry about such things. But being an artist sometimes it is hard to not think of such things. I want the art to serve Humanity. This is the only way I know how to give away. Isn't this what life is? Does Art give away? Art gives weight to the viewer and to the artist, it sometimes feels like a naked body warming up a blue body that is also naked and near death, but does not die. You know I saw something in Van Gogh's "Starry Night" tonight, you know what it was ... it was at the edges. The canvas was seen. The old canvas at the edges, not covered with paint, just bare. I almost felt like that was an opening into the painting itself, a backdoor, and I wanted to enter it, hide behind the blue and green paint, everyone in the museum mobbing towards it.

My paintings have been scarce as of late, but I have been drawing endlessly. I have been low on paint and canvas and the garbage as of late has not provided me with any nice wood boards ...

The studio is becoming a prehistoric cave. Anyone who now enters I take their hand and imprint it on the wall with charcoal. It is a spiritual silence as I spread their fingers to get inbetween. It has become a monastery of writings, words written in the early dawn. The words we don't know why we write them, we just do, we want the spaces to have faces, to have life, to cry out like the stones, mumbling and moving like palms. The gospel, something not of this earth, not contaminated with politics, something like prehistoric artists created instinctively.

There, the Truth. The Love. The Beauty.

Sometimes I choose the fingers over the brushes, resulting in blistered tips and splinters. In the act, however, the burning of soul and vision surpasses the burning of flesh on wood. The artist must bleed, must be splattered, become broken, walk through the thickets and fall. The artist wants to know, to know words, faces, ideas. The artist wants to love, wants to believe, wants to create every second but also knows a time of observing is a fruitful thing, a time of listening and lounging, sipping and tasting in the subtle surprises, sitting in spaces where holiness is smelled, where life leaks through the roof and the thunder tumbles to the window panes, the candles lit, darkness and pajamas, yawns and praise.

Is it crazy for me to ask something of you? Paint. Paint from where you are. Would you send me a couple of tubes? I will use them in the show. I am humbled in asking you, is it too much? Forgive me if it was wrong to ask you, I wish I had cans and cans and cans, please pray, pray for love and peace and will of God and unselfishness and humility and nourishment and things that make us whole and alive, things that make the cripple walk, make the addict come back to herself, the prostitute to shut her legs and walk away, the mentally ILL to be renewed with a new spirit of life, pray for such things, pray for me, I am wild and mild, quiet and loud, sad and angry, broken and full with life, afraid and overjoyed in confidence, visionary and filled with vice, a loser and one who tries to win, lost and sometimes feeling as if I know exactly where I am going, filled with pride in my own world and the other side of me saying, "Shut your mouth, you have much to learn, much pain to feel, much work hours in the supermarket to earn, you art dreamer, be on your knees, plee for a miracle, stop raping woman with your eyes, be on your knees, you look at her whole and complete, beautiful and a creation of the Spirit of the Kingdom of Heaven, be whole yourself, you broken lustful creature, be still, be afraid, fear me, you are a spec, you are not even a grain of sand, you are losing your mind, you need a therapist." You see how I am. Can you see it? Can you see me? Daniel and James. Daniel James.

I hope the walls hold strong. Some of these paintings are overweight. But they have to be heavy and they are heavy for a reason, the reason is, I found them that way, and I plucked them into a new existence, far away from the wood grinder or the next boring housing development sight where all the houses look the same. Sometimes I think to myself that I work and think to fast, to the point where I lose something, Bill, remember Bill? Well Bill said to me yesterday, "Slow down, slow down like a Hippy, take it easy, you have a lot of time." He really did slow me down too. But right now I feel as if I need to disregard the speed limit and push forward because this is becoming a reality, the opportunity near, the day approaching, and I have no idea how I will feel when that day comes, I will probably be scared like a mad man, I could see myself not even making an appearance at the opening, and who will even come? Who will come? Who will I invite? Not many know me. I have family. Some friends. But I should not worry, maybe no one will come, maybe no one will even enter, but that is ok, at least it will be hung, hung over and heavy.

I do not even want to go to work, I just want to stay home and paint, write, read in the art books, draw on sidewalks, throw pip in the air, be with my father and talk with him, cry with him, tell him about what is to happen, I pray that it is real and not a dream, that this is the will of the FAther in the Kingdom of Heaven and that He would know that this project, this showing, the exhibition, is one that I want to display His GLORY, even though some have said that some of my paintings seem to degrade religion, but I respond telling them, these are not religious paintings, they are paintings of man and woman, life and death, human telling and untelling, yes, some of the paintings may resemble religion, but this is not the objective, it is the emotion spilled out in these so called religious or gospeL paintings, it is the pain, the globs, the shrieKs, the miracles, that so very much connect to the human spirit, and all of us at some point have believed we held a human spirit or soul within us, the possibility is there, alive, or half-alive, agnostic thinkers, but I am painting the possibility of such miracles, or the imagining, or the interpretation, of such gospel happenings. And these happenings are not just limited to the sacred text, they are very much NOW and happening NOW, for it is us humans standing around, laying around, living, dieing in our chairs, leaning against walls, jumping onto tracks, winning the lotto, losing the lotto, picking up cigarettes on the ground, staring at each other from far away, from close up, smelling each other's minty and sometimes, bad, breadth.

Can you see the fragments I am seeing? Can you see it coming together, as one, as one strong and important, heavy, show about what it means to lift our eye lids and forever see our days new each day, becoming old and sitting in our benches, looking and remembering into faces across from us?

Am I crazy? Do I know what I am doing? Maybe I ask these things because I have never had a show of my own. People, strangers, many relatives, have never seen my work as a whole, many of them together in one gallery. Some are large, some are small, some are painted all over, some are half-painted, you can see the canvas or the wood, blank, grainy, sliced, broken, notches. Maybe the show is one large portrait of myself, my mind, my soul, my eyes. People say, "The artist is displaying his or her self". That is said, yes. I think it can be true, I think it is true. I think I paint other selves, how I see them, how I do not see them. I know them but I do not know them. I want to know them and I do not want to know them.

Am I lost? Do I not have this sense of reality that many say one should have? Like some say, "Get with it", or, "Wake up", or, "Who do you think you are, Picasso?" But we are artists, no? Just artists, with a little something to reveal, opening a candy wrapper only to find a message inside, "I Love you". You are taken back because that is the last thing in the world you would expect when opening a candy wrapper, you just can't wait to open it and chew on that sweet milk chocolate that melts in your mouth because it tastes so good, but to read this on a candy bar and it not being the valentine heart candies that you pop in your mouth, it is something you never expected, something maybe you keep to yourself. Maybe it is like this for the art. I pulled out all the paintings I've done, this morning I did so, both half rooms of the attic are packed with paintings, I had to do it so I can see how much I have actually done, and which ones I will choose for the show, I talk to them, I say, "AL I want you there" or "I hope I can put you in, some may not like you though, but I do".

I am trying to write out what this is to be or look like, the face of it, the leper face of it all, the gospel face of it all, the father face of it all, the prophet face, the tunnel face, the stranger face, of it all. The show is soon, I did not realize how soon, and my nerves and my kinetic energy, my cells, my blood, my veins, my vessels, my soul, my heart, my emotions, my adrenalin, my paint, my pain, my nails, my hair, my eye lashes, my fingers, my foot it cannot stop tapping and kicking things, I am nervous, afraid, excited, filled to the brim with determination and foreseeing the show hung, hung like broken hangers underneath the abode of a bridge, and here it is:

Times of a Tunnel
Gospel incision
My father
The prophets

The theme, or the body, of the show will revolve around these ideas, or these things that I have seen, cried about, and laughed over. There will be no order, no grouping, of these ideas. I want them to overlap. I want my father to be the first work the viewers step in front of. Then maybe following my father, a gospel incision, a blown-up full portrait of Christ broken on the train tracks, condemns strewn over him, cigarette-butts sticking out of the rocks, beer bottle glass, shoes, and other trash I have seen. Then, AL. Maybe I will paint AL on a door, or AL on wood. IT might be a Triptych of the miracles of AL, which are, he overcomes his heroin addiction, he picks up his guitar again, and lastly, the ultimate joy, he reunites with his one and only daughter and embraces her with kisses and a father’s love, becoming an addict of love and joy to her daughter, a most beautiful woman. The prophets are people I believe to be prophets. The prophets are Captain, Lole, Bill, Robin Eve, prostitute, and the prophet in the prophet. These men and women are prophets as I see them, as I believe they have found a way to penetrate the realms of the impossible with their simple, yet, courageous and prophetic, way of life. Their words tremble everything about me and within me. Intoxicated words, holy words, curse words, grumbling words, gutturals of words, hacking words, quoting words, Cryptic words, words of a language of his own, and words that speak of everything that lives, that tells of something to come. Then, maybe, I will go back to a painting of my father at the baR. This is the cycle. This is the moving room. This is the mind at speeds unknown. The soul in the bowls of street and scripture and scraping walls, scared feeling of creation, yet for some reason I believe it is important to show, I hope for the show to tremble and move in those that truly look at what has been done, I want the groaning process to come out and moan even here in this space, outside of its home, groaning to be back, groaning because new sets of eyes are looking, groaning because it is the groan of life itself.