I ask myself when will the door paintings be done? If I was Basquiat, art dealers would have come to my studio by now and taken them (Basquiat often accused his dealers of taking unfinished paintings). But I know I am not Basquiat.

Basquiat is a mystery to me and maybe he always will be. I salivate over his neo-expressionist way of painting, as critics and historians have labeled it. But do I label it that? I don't label it anything. IT is his art. Basquiat's art. The genius of Basquiat. I missed his show last year in the Brooklyn Museum because I didn't have the money to travel, or maybe I did at points, but I just didn't go. I missed out on a beautiful thing.

When I think of Basquiat, I think of the speed and flow of him creating, of him slapping the doors and canvas with paint. I wish I could meet the 45 year old Basquiat, but I cannot. What is taking AL's life, has taken his life. The heroin, the "Horse", the underground slang term for it.

I would say I am constantly living in the present, if I am not painting, I feel as if something is not right, or if I am not reading about the history of art and about other artists now, something is replacing the beauty that I most identify with. But then I think, life is art, art is life, linger in the laziness of life and paint and create out of the void, out of the numb noise, the line is uncontrollable because your inner consciousness is out of control, but then there are moments of calm.

I must tell you something, I sometimes feel as if the Institution is slowing me down, or interfering. IT gets in the way of me painting because I have to do other required assignments. But I cannot drop out. I should finish. I just can't wait for the day when I will paint all the time. I appreciate learning in the institution, it is for art, it is for future opportunity.