FROM TALK at YAVAPAI COLLEGE
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Early on (a few weeks ago in fact) I thought perhaps I would write an all inclusive speech that would encompass the history of art, mankind, and the universe as we know it. This talk would be the basis for a trilogy that I have planned to write for some time and that will be a bestseller and this will allow me to continue to live in the style to which have become accustomed .
Later I changed my mind and thought I could possibly get a short but decent book out of these ideas.
Still later I have at times thought this talk would be the basis of a children’s book, a low budget movie script, a reality TV show and a self help book for the artistically deluded. My ideas have continued their metamorphoses until as I sit writing this perhaps this talk will best be what you might call “a collection of random thoughts,”
I suppose the main point I want to get across to students at this point in my life is that as an artist I am to be pitied and not scorned. Yes, I have chosen this life, but I did it when I was young and innocent and inexperienced in the ways of the world, and in addition I want to plead insanity.
Like some of you I thought being an artist was a noble, maybe a sort of romantic endeavor. I assumed it would be full of hardships but those hardships would all be surmountable. So at the age of 54, with my life spent in the pursuit of art. I find I missed the warning label.
Let me spell it out:
Art can be hazardous to your health.