I am persevering. I have nerves of steel. Bring it on.

Two new paintings, casually shot with my iPhone, under godonlyknows how many temperatures of light and lacking sharp focus. Both untitled as of this post. I still want to refine/f*ck with the top one, so consider this an in-progress peek.

One of the most difficult things for me to do is keep positive without thinking I'm perpetually out of fashion. I am braced for rejection* and in fact, received one today. I've also heard that one of the grants I am in the process of applying for is notoriously difficult and complex. WTF? Wish I had better news.

*Addendum- I realized after writing that I was "braced for rejection" that it might appear as though I am expecting rejection. What I meant was that since I'm in the process of applying for quite a few things that are rather competitive, there are statistical odds that I will receive some rejections. Wow. I don't even care to write that word anymore. Okay, no more talk of rejection. Still, no growth without trying.

I'm working out again. Two days in a row. Knocking out some reading while on the recumbent. In particular, I'm still reading The Beat and The Buzz: Inside the L.A. Art World. Time just flies and at end of 45 minutes, I feel so unconnected I can't even tell you, but that’s okay because I'm still fascinated by all the cogs in the machine. I personally know one of the artists interviewed and my catawampused path has bumped into a few other names mentioned in the book. (I know the previous sentence is grammatically impossible, but I needed an excuse to use catawampus, and a verb form at that, today.) A couple of other names are people I met briefly in the Chicago art scene some years ago, and one is the person who wrote the introduction. I met Ezhra in real life for about 5 seconds this past summer as we were waiting to have our portraits taken for Heather Cantrell’s project. She complimented me on my hat and in the course of conversing about props, she decided she should pose with her neck pillow that was in the shape of a cat. I didn't see her final portrait, but just knowing someone posed with a neck pillow in the shape of a cat was good enough. She keeps a blog called AWOL and I stumbled upon her writing before I actually met her. It's over in the links section. I like her writing.

The book is relatively fascinating if you're interested in the Artforum art world or according to the film noirish editorial review, "The book deals with the art world that Artforum is likely to review, the moneyed art world of hope and hype where Basel Miami, the Armory Show, or Frieze may or may not be the holy grail, depending on whom you ask."

It's really a patchwork of mini-narratives about how people connect. Several people had parents who collected art. Some people had famous parents or relatives. Some people chalk it up to being in the right place at the right time. There's quite a bit of self-education involved and lots of determination and cross-pollinating.

One of the artist interviewed is James Hayward, a painter whose work I first saw a Mandarin Gallery a few years ago.

I liked what he had to say about painting.

"I wish someone would address the difference between painting and art. Art is this all-encompassing megalith, without an edge. Painting is a tradition with an edge that is quite specific and hasn't changed in five centuries. Painting is much less susceptible to the authority of theory than art. Art needs theory; it needs a theoretical paradigm Painting doesn't. We know where we're located. We know our history. We're playing a different game."

I picked up the habit of combining reading with cardio while in Chicago at the New City YMCA located just around the corner from the Cabrini-Green housing projects. There were a few of us that showed up around the same time every day to work out. Dana was working on her PhD and used to burn through all sorts of texts on pedagogy while cycling. She'd be on the cycle for like two solid hours reading super dry theory. I got hooked and I haven't looked back. I highly recommend it. It keeps me on the cycle without getting bored and oddly enough, my concentration is stellar while cycling.