After many years of teaching and many years of painting I have grown tired but no less passionate. A long time ago, to borrow a formulation from Robert Lowell, I asked to be obsessed by the arts, and I was blessed with the capacity to do so. The necessity of having to earn an honest living had me, at first, driving a taxi and then ultimately teaching. In both capacities I was forced to waste my time persuading my clients. In the first instance, I had to reassure my passengers that I was not a bandit who was exploiting their geographic ignorance by sending them on a costly circuitous route. In the second instance, like Moses, I had to convince my flock to accept abstraction as an article of faith.
I'm often asked if I've seen any change in my students in recent years. People want to know if the new technologies and the accompanying distractions has impacted their ability to concentrate. I've given this a lot of thought and I shared my thoughts recently with the Los Angeles podcaster Timmy Black.
An excerpt of our conversation appears in the video below.