Its actually starting to feel like November out there but I wouldn’t know since I spent the whole day inside working on my computer. My friend and I are re-designing my website and its a truckload of work. Who knew being an artist meant spending the whole day poking at a keyboard? Not eye.

Well the thing is I have a ton of new work in a billion new styles and media and I need to get get it out to the world or it will just rot away festering in the corner. And art doesn’t like to fester in private - it prefers to do its festering in public. Kind of like an extroverted Uncle Fester, if you won’t. Which brings up a point I spent the better part of an otherwise wonderful evening arguing with a bunch of friends… and that is that the ultimate goal and highest purpose of art is communication. The counter to my point was that its quite often that art simply serves the growth of the artist. In my mind art is a catalyst of change and for real change to come about - its true - it starts within. But once a work of art is made and the artist has learned its initial lessons - what then? Put it on a shelf? No! It has to get out into the world for people to see and talk about! Art is communication and in my world, if a piece of art fails to communicate or if it communicates something just too personal that it has to be squirreled away - then its pretty much a failure and in most cases should either be abandoned or reworked.

Is every piece I’ve ever made meant to be seen? No. But the best ones are. And even the really decent ones, and the not-half-bad ones. And the ones I don’t show are pretty much failures. Maybe I’ll rework them someday to the point where they can be shown. What a crime it would be if we never saw the Pieta or Guernica or Madonna of the Rocks. We would never know what we had missed, right? Just like if the inventor of the wheel or the telephone kept that to himself. But all these products of the creative process were NOT kept locked away - they were shared - in fact, passionately so - and they contributed to the progress (or detriment) of humanity.

So lets share what we make - even if it means hanging paintings on a wall that doesn’t belong to you (like I used to do on Ludlow Street) or spending they whole day pushing buttons. Lets all do what we have to do with the gifts we were given - to help open the awareness of other beings and to eventually change the aggressive and greedy energy - that focuses on controlling the masses - to one of peace and understanding. My life would be less colorful if I’d never heard the song “What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love and Understanding” by Elvis Costello. And he’s right. What is everyone so afraid of? Don’t bitch at each other on the street - Smile! Don’t complain when things go the way you hadn’t wanted them to - Accept it!

Try this - next time you’re walking down the street decide that you love everyone - even the mean lookin ones - and smile at them and say hello to them. Then take that energy and infuse it into your songs, paintings, marketing plans, speeches, films and laundry baskets. Thats how we are changing the world.