Artists have been trading work since they were scratching out scenes on cave walls in prehistoric times. "I will draw you an elk if you make me a feather hat like Thor has," as the conversation might have gone. I myself have been building up a collection of traded work.I traded Mark Flowers a collage for this painting which has a secret I found while changing a diaper at 2 in the morning.




And I got a few of the famed Moonshine Cups from Micah Sherrill for a collage. I once traded a painting for a nice antique camera, I paid for most of my wedding in trade, and I even traded a painted portrait of Bob Dylan for a pet snake.

I am working on these paper studies between paintings. I use wood glue and quickly cut and place the shapes. I can not even take the time to glue it properly because that would slow down the pace at which I am designing. I plan to make them into a painted series.

The De Kooning book quoted Rosenberg, an art critic, referring to the gang of New York Schoolers as "the herd of independent minds". I have been thinking a lot about "the art world today", what is going on with it, I don't know? Is there one? A friend of mine said that art is all about region today. Everyone is doing something different in individual cities. Surfing around on-line and looking in publications like New American Painting gives some idea of a movement but this can be deceiving because these are reproductions and only images that are flashy get into them. Minimalism in real life takes some getting used to but online forget about it. In the fifties artists were poor, it was expected. I personally only know one artist who is truly poor, the rest have jobs or have businesses where they sell marketable goods related to their work. These days artists are as much entrepreneurs as creative types. We don't expect that because we are cursed with an impulse to make things, we also have to suffer in a shanty shack eating nothing but oatmeal and Ramon Noodle. One thing that will never change though is that if you decide to become an artist, its going to be a hell of a lot of work.