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.