thoughts for today - Is New York Dead? - a leap into the great unknown

For the 4 millionth time, I methodically rattle the keys around in specific directions, allowing them to settle in their expected position in my hand, one last flip and snatch over the top and I’m in, to the hilt, one quarter turn clockwise - midnight to 3 and a click-thud creaks the heavy metal door to swing open into the living room.  The sun beams through the dirty windows and glows with cinematic slumber - dust particles trudging dazed across its clear channel of concentrated energy - vividly calling to attention the surface of the lamp, the sill and the bright corner of a painting.  The breeze through the screened windows surges with the opening door sending a crinkle of cellophane feather-rattling down the stairs.  The sound of horns blaring, huge trucks rumbling and loud conversation fills the modest room with the echoes of the tar-scarred corner below.  Daily for years it seems the crews begin with jackhammers promptly at 7am.  I have been violently shaken out of bed by these sonic invasions repeatedly and from the 4th floor I have watched as the worker bees in yellow plastic hats with giant road-cutting saws slice the scars every which way across Houston Street’s flesh.  

As I put down my keys, bags, whatever, I realize that we develop these mundane unconscious acts that are woven through the loom of our imagination to become real objects, places and situations... the repeated standard rhythms of day to day existence on the platform of physical being through the sensory lens.  Our habits, our patterns are code locked into form through the limitless network of our decision making processes.

I’ve made the same series of motions for over 15 years on a regular basis, like clockwork.  And soon, I will uproot that entire orgamism of deeply rutted synaptic links - by essentially erasing this realm from my reality.  But thats what we do when we move on in life.  We decide that it is time for a change and we step out into... lesser known territory.  

I look around the room, through all the stuff that's hanging on the walls, to another time, another paint color on the walls, different roommates, different friends, different lovers, different projects, different fears.  I see it all play out in high speed blurred abstraction with no meaning to anyone but me.  

I think to myself, “Man, its gonna be weird leaving here.  I’ve been here for 15 years.  I can’t believe I’m really gonna do it.”  And I almost don’t remember how it came to this.  But one thing is for sure... there was a big push from almost every area in my life for this to happen.  And we can all ignore the signs we are given like experts of espionage but if there is something that you really need to learn, the signs are gonna keep on coming until you get it or die resisting.  

And everything was pointing at me breaking out.  And then it all just fell together.  I leave end of September as the art fair on Governors Island draws to a close.  Somehow, adding incredible momentum as if to verify the aim of my decision, the trip to Spain that I won through Art Battles was extended from a week to a month and a week - including flight, room, per diem and a series of paid live painting events.  From Barcelona and Madrid, a swing through Italy to meet Oriah, then we head south to Ethiopia!  My imagination is sparked to ridiculous heights by the mere suggestion of it.  I know I have been aligned with this beautiful woman and her amazing family for a reason, I know there is something for me to find in Ethiopia.

At a certain point almost a year ago, I made a conscious decision to begin saying with conviction, that we are going to Ethiopia in the fall.  At first I didn’t believe myself - I couldn’t imagine how it would happen.  But I decided we would make it real.  Oriah’s father lives there and we have had an open invitation that we have yet to fulfill.  So I just kept thinking of it, wanting it and knowing that by thinking and wanting I would eventually create the most conducive environment for its manifestation.  Then suddenly, I am being flown to Europe on a paid live painting gig.  Wait a minute.  Who’s life is this?  Happily I hardly recognize it.

I have grown weary of the endless battle with financial abstracts that is the mysterious ladle that stirs the cauldron of New York.  But when you step away from New York, you have to ask yourself, “Is it really worth it?  What am I getting for all this?  I don’t really like this street, these corners, these people...  I mean yes, thats why I am in this big city - for the people.  The depth of complex networks of interaction in a city like New York is mind-boggling.  I have met and continue to meet every sort of wildly interesting character.  The energy on the streets on these summer nights is deliciously palpable.  Am I cursed to be a city dweller?  Is there a version of this that doesn’t grate so hard on my nerves?  Is there a place to raise kids someday?  Is there a patch of green grass or the splash of a tide that I could reach out to?  Where the hell should I go?”

I have really begun to wonder if I belong here any more.  Around the same time I closed my gallery on Ludlow Street, CBGB closed on Bowery.  Now I’m about to leave Suffolk Street and Mars Bar lies in ruins.  I popped inside a few nights ago to see what was going on behind the closed door.  They were ripping the entire place apart and saving all the pieces.  Hank knows what he’s got.  I spent an easy solid decade in that room, raising hell and legitimate questions as well as getting drunk, pushing boundaries and making a general nuisance of myself.  It was brilliantly depressing and macabre but we loved it.  The end of Mars clearly delineates the death of the East Village and for many - New York City.  I am actually trying to decide as we speak.

To leave a place you’ve slept in for the past 15 years, without a real plan, its kinda nuts - but essential and really fun at the same time.  The practical fact is I haven’t been operating as a portrait painter from a retail location for years and the small number of people who make it into my cave of a studio are few.  So I know I can work from anywhere.  And if I don’t pay rent and bills at yet another apartment for a while - that lightens my load quite a bit.  But can I leave New York?  Right now, in the blistering heat and humidity, in the wake of so much I have known, I would love to.  I need to travel, unravel. And everything is lined up for that to happen.  

So, sooner than I had anticipated, I am leaving this place.  And I’m not sure if I’ll be back.  Its an odd feeling.  But I have a bigger feeling that the world is wide open and not confined to a dirty American megalopolis.  I can easily see myself settling down in a sleepy Italian town for a decade.  If I’ve learned anything from busting ass in filthy old New York for the past 2 decades, its that I don’t want to bust my ass in an ugly place anymore.  I want to be surrounded by beauty, I don’t want this garbage ridden stench pit of a city to be my only option.   

I know now its all about what makes you happy in the moment.  That is the measure of success...  are you happy?  Do you love your surroundings, your environment?  Is this where you want to be?  The people around you...  are they who you want to be with?  The way you spend your time...  does it please you?  Your work?  Your play?  Are you doing enough to defend your true desires?????  Sometimes they can become lost in the brier patch of stagnant risk-free existence.  You can stay in your zone of competence, move to your zone of excellence but you’ll never be free till you risk it all to enter your zone of genius.